|
ROLLING STONE IMAGES OF ROCK & ROLL |
|
IN SID VICIOUS'S VERSION of punk, anger against the world is turned against the self -- and the body as the most visible and most accessible manifestation of the self. In this view, the body is a trap, just like the other traps a bankrupt society sets in your path, and the pleasures of the body are a bribe, a means society exploits to try to make you conform, to become indistinguishable from everyone else. Sex (as the portrait of Sid handcuffed to his girlfriend Nancy Spungen attests) is a form of bondage. The purpose of drug use, if drugs are used, is to numb pain, not to experience revelation. To set yourself apart, you punish your body, mutilate it; it is a prison and, ultimately, you want to set yourself free of it. Art becomes, in part, a kind of vandalism of the body; a wound, a scar, a kind of savage beauty that connects you to others of your desperate tribe who are similarly marked. Your willingness to damage yourself offers proof of your commitment and even consolation: No one can ever treat you worse than you are willing to treat yourself. You conquer enemies by internalizing them and, in your willingness to destroy yourself, you release yourself from their clutches.
|