The Death of Bowie & Media Hype

Ziggy’s Flirtation with Fascism

When Bowie was proclaiming his love for Hitler, hundreds of thousands of youth were declaring their detestation of racism and fascism

I must confess I was never star struck by David Bowie.  He and Starman were the left overs of the 1960’s.  Bowie was one of the stars of glam rock, a musical form that ended up with Garry Glitter.  Ziggy’s music was an ephemeral mix.  For sure he had talent but his music was essentially derivative, a mix of styles but little that was innovative.  There were no really great songs, more glimpses of a possibility of something.  Bowie was a man of his time but one who ultimately reflected the more reactionary of moods and styles.

It is noticeable how, in his death, Bowie has been hailed as the ultimate rebel by the BBC and the corporate media.  It suggests that his rebellion was one of style not substance.

In his famous Playboy interview of September 1976 he declared, quite absurdly, that ‘Rock stars are fascists. Adolf Hitler was one of the first rock stars.’

Bowie in his glam rock phase

PLAYBOY: How so?

BOWIE: Think about it. Look at some of his films and see how he moved. I think he was quite as good as Jagger. It’s astounding. And boy, when he hit that stage, he worked an audience. Good God! He was no politician. He was a media artist. He used politics and theatrics and created this thing that governed and controlled the show for 12 years. The world will never see his like again. He staged a country […] People aren’t very bright, you know? They say they want freedom, but when they get the chance, they pass up Nietzsche and choose Hitler because he would march into a room to speak and music and lights would come on at strategic moments. It was rather like a rock ‘n roll concert. The kids would get very excited – girls got hot and sweaty and guys wished it was them up there. That, for me, is the rock ‘n roll experience.

And in that paragraph alone, Bowie summed up his own superficiality.  Hitler was a ‘media artist’ – not someone who was prepared to sentence 30 million Russians to death by hunger.

David Bowie dabbled with neo-nazism during the mid-1970s – he was quoted as saying
 that “Britain could benefit from a Fascist leader”, and talked of speeding up “the
progress of a right-wing totally dictatorial tyranny”.  Bowie also gave a 
Nazi salute to fans at Victoria Station from a car, though he denied it and claimed it was a wave. 

Bowie in the 1960's

In an interview with Playboy in September 1976 Bowie declared that 

“Britain is ready for a fascist leader… I think Britain could benefit from a fascist leader. After all, fascism is really nationalism… I believe very strongly in fascism, people have always responded with greater efficiency under a regimental leadership…Adolf Hitler was one of the first rock stars…You’ve got to have an extreme right front come up and sweep everything off its feet and tidy everything up.”  

As Rahm Bambam in Magic, Fascism, and Race in David Bowie's 'Blackstar' writes,  

‘David Bowie has made a career out of reinventing himself, both physically and musically, but his most controversial persona was his Thin White Duke character from 1976, a self-described "emotionless Aryan superman" that Bowie developed for his Station to Station album. Around this time, Bowie would make several pro-fascist comments during interviews, including praises of nationalism and Adolf Hitler, culminating in a famous photograph of Bowie allegedly giving a Nazi salute. In later years, Bowie would blame his actions during this time on his heavy drug use and commitment to the Thin White Duke persona.'

In an interview with New Musical Express in August 1975  Bowie declares that rock and roll is dead, not an entirely novel prediction.  When asked if he seriously meant that he responds 

"Absolutely. It's a toothless old woman. It's really embarrassing."

NME:              So what's the next step?

BOWIE:          "Dictatorship," says Bowie. "There will be a political figure in the not too distant future who'll sweep this part of the world like early rock and roll did.

"You probably hope I'm not right. But I am. My predictions are very accurate ... always."….

"You've got to have an extreme right front come up and sweep everything off its feet and tidy everything up. Then you can get a new form of liberalism.

"There's some form of ghost force liberalism permeating the air in America, but it's got to go, because it's got no foundation at all….

"So the best thing that can happen is for an extreme right Government to come. It'll do something positive at least to the cause commotion in people and they'll either accept the dictatorship or get rid of it.

But there was another side to the 1970's and it wasn't represented by Bowie but in the reaction to the growth of the National Front in the mid-1970's and the racist proclamations by musicians such as Bowie and Eric Clapton.  It was the formation of Rock Against Racism in 1978, with its massive concerts in Victoria Park in London and Manchester that opposition to racism found its voice.  And Bowie was nowhere to be seen or heard.