Maroon 5 Accidentally Named Their New Album The Slogan Of The Anti-Feminist Men's Rights Movement
SPIN – “Red pill” is the casual colloquialism for the movement of internet-dwelling men who drink too much Mountain Dew and are very angry about feminism, which is apparently the cause for society’s ills. The name is inspired by the famous choice offered in The Matrix, where Morpheus offers two pills—red and blue—to Neo, with the promise that the red will reveal the world as it really is. It is a silly phrase to apply to garden variety sexism, which is what made it a little strange when Maroon 5 revealed the title of their upcoming album: Red Pill Blues.
In an interview with the Huffington Post, Maroon 5 guitarist James Valentine explained what happened: They just had no idea “red pill” has a new, negative connotation when they pulled the title from The Matrix. “We didn’t really understand the whole men’s rights thing,” he said.
“We’re like, ‘Oh man, of course, like 2017 is the worst.’ We were talking about the scene in ‘The Matrix’ ? do you take the red pill or the blue pill? And the fact that seeing the world for what it is in 2017 can be kind of rough … We had no idea about the association with men’s rights. Hopefully, everyone knows from all of our pasts that from our statements on the issue and our actions in the past—that we are all hardcore feminists in the band. So that’s a horrible association, ugh, to have. The internet trolls have to ruin everything.”
Picture this. You’re a pop band. You cater to a demographic of 13 year old girls to 30 year old women. Your entire professional career depends on selling to girls. And not just music, but an image, a lifestyle, the entire boy band experience. You’re entering kind of the twilight of your career and know you need to make a big positive splash to keep things going for a bit longer. So you sit down with your team. You gather up the 10-20 publicists that you have on the payroll. Adam flies in and finally meets the other members of his band and promises to try and remember their names this time. You have meetings and conference calls with the various PR firms representing you. How do we play this? What’s our strategy to maximize the effect of this album?
Someone raises their hand.
“Let’s name the album after the anti-feminist men’s rights movement!”
“Ohhh, that’s interesting Brian. Can you explain that to the rest of the team?”
“Well it’s this big movement online – men’s rights activists oppose societal changes sought by feminists and defend the patriarchal gender order in the family, schools and the workplace. Men’s rights activists see men as an oppressed group and believe that society and men have been “feminized” by the women’s movement.”
“Wow, that’s a strong suggestion.”
“Yeah, one of the leaders has a pretty solid quote – ‘Should I be called to sit on a jury for a rape trial, I vow publicly to vote not guilty, even in the face of overwhelming evidence that the charges are true.’”
“Should we subtitle the album that?”
“No I think maybe just put it in the liner notes somewhere.”
I would say poor Adam, he’s never going to get laid again, but let’s be honest that’s just ridiculous.
PS,
The album kind of fucks by the way.