River's Edge-The Misrepresentation of Metal

Heavy metal is quite easily the most misrepresented musical genre. When thinking of heavy metal the generic associations that come to mind are sex, drugs, long hair, devil worship, people dressed in black leather/jeans and cutoff shirts, violence and motorcycles. When typing "Heavy Metal" into google images, the following pictures are on the first page.

The film "River's Edge" (1986), was directed by Tim Hunter based on the 1981 rape/murder of Marcy Conrad by Anthony Jacque in Milpitas, California. Instead of focusing on the plot (which is incredibly disturbing) I am choosing to focus on the use of heavy metal as a representation of rebellion. Budd Carr, the music supervisor for the film, chose to focus on a heavy bass and guitar soundtrack filled with heavy metal for specific reasons. Here are just a few general assumptions made in relation to heavy metal and River's Edge:

1. Themes: Heavy metal themes are generally dark, they confront wider issues (in relation to Clare Connors concept of the youth in crisis/dangerous youth cycle), death, sex, etc. Each of these themes can be found within the film and become identified with this specific genre.

2. Physical gestures: The concept of headbanging and the corna (devil horns) gestures are in relation to the rhythm of the music. It becomes trance like and represents the desensitization of teens by heavy metal music.

However, heavy metal is not meant to represent devil worship, desensitization or violence, it is meant to represent rebellion. The term was first used in 1968 by the Canadian band Steppenwolf in the song "Born to be wild" when they refer to "heavy metal thunder". This song is based on the concept of living life to the fullest and fulfilling the self. The basic idea of the self instead of the collective is one of the key concepts of rebellion. For example, in "Rebel without a cause" James Dean is a rebel until he gives up his individual ideals for the ideals of a "couple". Nevertheless, Carr uses heavy metal to represent the influence of peers based on musical preference and the culture it creates. Heavy metal results in drugs, sex, violence, death, mischief and the destruction of society. It is film scores like this that give the media a negative association to musical genres.