Rolling Stone’s White-man Complex

September 19, 2023

And the women who pushed back ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

September 19, 2023

Hey, Meteor readers,

Okay, let’s get the big news out of the way: Josh and Jackie from Love is Blind have broken up, and I am thanking all the deities that our girl Jackie is away from that man-child.

In today’s newsletter, Nona Willis Aronowitz, guest editor for The Meteor, explains the fraught history behind the Rolling Stone controversy; Drew Barrymore has a change of heart; and a Michigan school board kills creativity.

Love has 20/20 vision,

Shannon Melero

WHAT’S GOING ON

Like my mama said: On Friday, the New York Times ran a truly wild interview with Rolling Stone co-founder Jann Wenner that boiled blood across the internet and beyond. Asked why his new book “The Masters” only profiles white guys with guitars, Wenner explained that neither women nor Black musicians met his criteria of being “articulate enough on this intellectual level.” (Whatever that means.) Joni Mitchell? “Not a philosopher of rock ‘n’ roll.” Marvin Gaye? Curtis Mayfield? “They just didn’t articulate at that level.” Never mind that Black artists literally invented rock ‘n roll. Not the “masters” in Wenner’s book.

The reaction was swift: The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, which Wenner co-founded, removed him from the board. Rolling Stone—which has been run by Wenner’s son, Gus, since 2019—officially denounced his comments.

It might be tempting to file away this dust-up as yet another white male Boomer saying the quiet part out loud. But it’s hard to overstate how much Rolling Stone in its heyday set the tone for pop culture and determined which artists mattered—and which artists didn’t. Practically since its founding in 1967, critics have pointed out how hostile the magazine can be toward women and people of color—including my own mother, rock critic and feminist essayist Ellen Willis.

In 1970, my mom wrote a letter to Rolling Stone co-founder Ralph Gleason declining his invitation to write for him. Though she believed RS was “the best rock magazine going,” she found it to be “viciously anti-woman…RS habitually refers to women as chicks and treats us as chicks, i.e. interchangeable cute fucking machines.” She didn’t want to be a “token woman writer for a magazine that doesn’t print women in general.” She also criticized RS’s lazy tendency to dismiss politics as having nothing to do with the “cultural revolution” of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll:

Text from a 1976 letter written by Ellen Willis to Ralph Gleason. In this excerpt Willis mentions "What [Rolling Stone] wants is more bread and circuses; I like to have fun too, but what I really want is an end to my oppression."

IMAGE COURTESY OF NONA WILLIS ARONOWITZ

In the days since Wenner biographer Joe Hagan posted excerpts from this letter on X, several news outlets have reported that my mother refused to write for Rolling Stone. But that’s not the full story. In fact, she did end up publishing several pieces in the magazine, including 1975’s “The Trial of Arline Hunt,” a prescient account of a woman who was blamed for her own rape. My mother died in 2006, but if she were still here, she’d make a point to mention Marianne Partridge, the editor who assigned that piece and was one of several women who pushed back against the magazine’s male-centric culture in the ‘70s.

Still, these women’s efforts only went so far; in the last few days, more recent stories of racism and sexism at Rolling Stone have trickled in. One former female editor who worked there about a decade ago alleged on her private Instagram account (which she allowed The Meteor to quote) that she was “treated like trash on eight levels for getting pregnant.” The problem wasn’t with the staff so much as “the policies that were either in place or made up as they went along to avoid poking the bear that was Jann”—policies, she later elaborated to The Meteor, like zero maternity leave and a strict no-work-from-home rule. Cultural critic Nelson George commented that Wenner’s remarks “reflect the continuum of thought that defined [Rolling Stone’s] coverage and why they never really caught up to rap.” Several people pointed out that magazines like VIBE and The Source were founded precisely because RS ignored hip-hop.

Rolling Stone has a far more diverse (though still pretty white) masthead today. As the Wenner controversy simmers down, let’s remember that it’s often the workers who end up reshaping institutions, despite their founders’ retrograde views.

—Nona Willis Aronowitz

AND:

A tragic killing in June is getting a second look, thanks to some intrepid independent reporting. After a Seattle police vehicle struck and killed 26-year-old Jaahnavi Kandula, the driver, who was en route to respond to a 911 call, claimed he was going at about 50 mph and hit Kandula as she was walking outside of the crosswalk. But thanks to Erica C. Barnett’s reporting, we now know that the officer was lying about those things to avoid liability. Even more egregious was the response of Officer Dave Auderer, who was sent to assess the situation. He referred to Kandula as a “limited value” person. “Yeah, just write a check,” he said. “Yeah, $11,000.” The Seattle Police Officer’s Guild defended his actions, saying, “There is much more detail and nuance that has not been made public yet.” The nuance here seems to be getting caught versus not getting caught.
It seems that Drew Barrymore has listened to the feedback and decided not to continue filming her show while the WGA strike continues. Bill Maher and the hosts of The Talk have also decided to hit pause on their returns. This is the power of a unified strike!
A Michigan school board is ordering that a high school student’s mural be removed because it “promoted LGBTQ imagery and witchcraft.” The imagery? Characters wearing shirts with the trans, bisexual, and rainbow flag colors. The “witchcraft”? A small drawing of the Hamsa, a cultural and religious symbol that wards off the evil eye that a million Instagirlies have tattooed on their bodies. Scandalous! The mural also showcases diverse depictions of students like a hijabi superhero and other well-drawn POC. Tell me you only like cis white kids without telling me you only like cis white kids.
Over the summer, a private equity firm purchased publishing house Simon & Schuster —usually a death knell in any creative space. But now KKR, the firm behind the purchase, is offering employees an ownership stake in the company. On the heels of one of the worst summers for labor, what does that kind of approach mean? It’s not exactly a win for workers.