A Different Kind of Comeback At first glance, Henri Alexander Lévy's music video for Marilyn Manson's "Front Toward Enemy" appears surprisingly restrained. Considering the title and the confrontational tone of the song, one might reasonably expect a visual statement built around warfare, retaliation, or public vindication. Instead, the music video repeatedly turns away from those expectations. It lingers on a child dressed in military attire, a motionless body on an examination table, shelves of psychology books, childhood trophies, playground equipment, and a cabinet filled with carefully arranged artifacts. None of these images directly illustrates the lyrics, yet none of them feels arbitrary. By the time the music video ends, it becomes clear that Lévy is asking the viewer to consider something more complicated than revenge. That immediately distinguishes the video from the song itself. Borrowing its title from the M18A1 Claymore mine, whose front face bears th...
Someone recently wrote me and said to me that there is no possible motivating factor for Evan Rachel Wood to target Marilyn Manson, and they argued this on the basis that she is a successful actress who is in no need of money or fame. After I explained that there are other factors, probably more powerful, besides money or fame for someone to target another person in order to destroy them, I was challenged to name just one. I replied that I have already made a private list of possible motivating factors, and they number 64 as of right now, but since I didn't want to burden anyone with the details of 64 possible motivating factors, I would narrow them down to 10, all of which I believe are highly probable factors why Evan Rachel Wood has targeted Marilyn Manson, and not one of them has anything to do with money or fame, though I do consider those two as possible motivating factors of a secondary nature. As time goes on and our knowledge of this case grows, I may modify this ...