When the two-part documentary Phoenix Rising aired on HBO on March 15th and 16th 2022, I saw it and immediately wrote my review of part two, having already written my review of part one when I saw its premiere at Sundance over a month earlier. I didn't have much time to process it at the time, because it has a lot of information, and with limited space to write about it in a limited time, there was only so much you could address. After watching the documentary about 3 or 4 times, I realized I could easily write a book with all I had to say. Now that some time had passed since I last saw it, I just rewatched the documentary this past week on the anniversary of its premiere, and there were things that stood out to me that I didn't either capture a year ago or didn't have enough knowledge at the time to better comprehend. I will try to summarize my thoughts and observations into a list of ten things I wanted to address, though it could easily be more than ten, choosing five t
One of the noteworthy contributions of Marilyn Manson, especially in the first twenty years of his career, is helping to bring underground taboo exploration through transgressive controversial art into the mainstream. He did this at a time when there was a resurgence in transgressive taboo exploration, beginning around the late 1990's, but no one brought it to mainstream audiences like Marilyn Manson, which was part of the initial shock of his persona. One could say it was the foundation upon which his career was built and it was the means by which he would continually reinvent himself. The list is too long to explore this in detail, but we see it beginning with his very name, taking the first name of a woman and the last name of killer and bringing together opposites. We also see it in his first major hit with his cover of the 80's dance hit 'Sweet Dreams' by the Eurythmics, in which he explores its dark lyrics without changing a word and gives it a sleazy, creepy BDSM
