I noticed the first thing you did was remove the ability to sign the guestbook - did you realize that there are very few worthwhile people who will share in your senseless hatred? Did you see the sorts of comments you got? Letters talking about shooting Fiona in the head and spreading false rumors of drug addictions.... you want to be the ringleader in this moronic freak circus? I don't know what your reasons are.... jealousy, low self-esteem. contaminated drinking water, whatever. I hope that you look back on this when the page goes down and realize your tiny, hopeless little page only helped contrast to Fiona's greatness. Please, grow up and move on. you. You have the web space - stop promoting hatred of an innocent human being and instead build a kick-ass page about your favorite band.
Let us clarify a few things . . . The I HATE FIONA WEBPAGE is a nonprofit organization, run on a shoestring budget here at the University of Texas at Austin. We do not have mucho dinero to glamorize the site, and add Javascripting or other whistles and bells. Thus, when you send a letter to be put in the guestbook, one of us has to manually paste the letter into the html code. If you have something novel and interesting to say, it will be considered for entry in the guestbook. To be more specific, it WILL be put in the guestbook. However there have not been more than two or three coherent letters in support of Fiona. Challenge yourself to be the first!
Second, it's a free country. You are free to boycott the I HATE FIONA WEBPAGE, and we are free to run the page as we see fit. Maybe we should make a kickass page about a band we like - Stereolab, for example, who are coincidentally a bunch of communists - but maybe we have issues to work out. Just maybe, One of us was raped, and we have neuroses about the matter. Could be that this is our most productive (least destructive) method of therapy. Would you then like to deprive us of this one outlet, which might in turn lead to more destructive venting of rage? Keep that in mind in the future. We could be psychopaths, you just don't know. Best to leave us in peace.
Warmest Personal Regards, The Creators of the I HATE FIONA WEBPAGE
"All I need is a good defense/ 'cause it's hard to justify my behavior" -Fiona Apple
Well, at least now I know that not only are you giving us supposedly enlightened college students a bad name (is the University of Texas so dull that there's nothing else to do but make pages slandering innocent people?), you're also outright offensive. Let me quote you directly:
"Just maybe, One of was raped, and we have neuroses about the matter....." (I included your message along with mine, you can read it yourself.) If this is true - and I have no reason to believe it isn't - I am terribly sorry. But considering the fact that Fiona, as a fellow rape victim, has turned her anger into a healthy outlet (music), can't you do the same? Fiona has preservered through the tragic experience and inspired so many fellow victims; trust me, I've met them on the Fiona mailing list I subscribe to. I'm not mocking your pain, but the fact that you would direct your rage at a fellow rape victim instead of, for instance, convicted rapists is either ironic or just damned depressing.
Secondly, don't give me this "say something novel and interesting and we'll put it in the guestbook" crap. All of the anti-Fiona messages in there were juvenile at best - here are some of my favorites:
"FIONA SHOULD BE SHOT WITH AN APPLE IN HER CROTCH."
"Hey, this page is awesome. Shouldn't Hanson be added to it?"
I'm not saying the pro-Fiona messages I read in the book were Nobel Prize-worthy. But it's hard to get all high and mighty about your message selection when the ones you DO post revolve around trite comments about her low weight and fictional heroin addiction. Wow, she's skinny - just like millions upon millions of other people. Are all skinny people heroin addicts? That wasn't your opinion.... but you still posted the message.
Also, your remarks about being a potential psychopath - perhaps a veiled threat, even - rather contradict your guestbook response in which you said "we aren't psychopathic killers or anything." Uh-oh.... scratch that last line.... I don't want to push you over the edge! You might put pictures of me on the web with marks over my eyes!!!
Alright, that last line was fairly petty, but I'd like to think I've made some points in this letter. I hope you find it 'interesting and novel' enough to paste it up.... maybe right next to the 'apple in the crotch' letter that you found so intellectually stimulating and 'interesting.' If we can begin a serious discussion of why to hate Fiona (or why to love her), I'd like that.
There must be anti-Fiona folk with decent reasons.... if there are any. The whole 'she's so skinny' thing isn't a reason, I'm sorry to point out. Did you hate that B.I.G. guy because he was overweight? Or do you only discriminate against thin people? Sorry that she doesn't fall into your acceptable weight division.....
I'm not here to bash you guys, I'm here to argue your pointless hatred. If you guys are gonna be more than a blip on he hate radar, stop posting crap about turkeys (wow - that whole turkey thing was REALLY a reason to hate someone) and start a real argument. Ill be the first person there.
- Morgan -
All right, I shouldn't have said anything about maybe being rape victims. That was a little uncalled for, and I take it back if it helps. Still, I believe Fiona has overstepped good taste - do you really think it sends a positive message for a rape victim to pose half naked in underwear, or curled up inside couch cushions? I think perhaps an image of a STRONG SURVIVOR would be more productive.
As far as Fiona and rape go, a letter to the editor in SPIN, Feb. 1998, best sums up my feelings:
"If Tori Amos is 'a poster girl for rape,' then that must make Fiona Apple a poster girl for '70s home porn and 'Criminal' self-exploitation. Amos should be applauded for forming the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network (RAINN), not scorned by a spoiled brat who represents the kind of hopelessness and victimization that haunts so many girls of her generation"
Polly Walter
Los Angeles, California
As far as the turkeys go, see if this doesn't sound like a contradiction: "You shouldn't base your lives on the way we act" (paraphrase, I don't remember the exact wording of the MTV speech), and then the PETA thing. In the PETA message, which I did hear, she doesn't explicitly say so, but she <suggests> that we be like her, and not kill "these beautiful birds." It's all bullshit! THESE are the things that piss me off, these are my reasons for hating her. She needs to make up her mind: is she a role model, or not? I cannot take seriously any stance she takes if she may immediately contradict herself at the next public outing.
Note: many of the things I find appalling about Fiona's behavior cannot be explicitly proved. For example, I can't prove her intentions when she does another stupid thing. I can't prove that she is a spoiled brat. But from the several articles I have read, Fiona simultaneously tells us that she is a strong, mature woman and also that she is just 20, so give her a break - she can't be expected to be grown up so soon.
I appreciate your letter, because it was more intelligent than 90% of the emails we have received. Understand that we don't have to have a reason behind anything we do, though. One particular guy, named Ethan, has been continuously been sending us horrendously stupid emails in an attempt to "refute" us. Everything he says is ridiculous, and he asks for "evidence" for everything we say. I (I don't know about my fellow WEBPAGE creator) am willing to have a discussion with you if you don't follow in the footsteps of Ethan ___ (I don't recall his last name). Go to the web site, read his posts (they are not in the guestbook, but in an entirely different section), and then, if you want, write back. We don't have to convince anyone, or prove ourselves to anyone, so please remember that if you do want a discussion.
Warmest Personal Regards,
One of the Creators of the I HATE FIONA WEBPAGE
"All I need is a good defense/ 'cause it's hard
to justify my behavior"
-Fiona Apple
Ugh.... this whole rape-related part of our argument leaves a bad taste in my mouth. (Not your fault, of course - it's just a horrific subject.) But it is not Fiona's responsibility to become another 'poster girl.' Perhaps Fiona just wants to forget the whole subject - a subject which no interviewer can seem to just leave alone. She only wrote one song mentioning the rape at all, and she wrote it when she was 15. I'm not sure seeing her 'curled up in couch cushions' is particularly exploitative of anything, and the 'Criminal' video - while questionable in anyone's eyes - was her decision, and she doesn't have go through RAINN or anyone else to tell her how to not offend her fellow rape victims. I think it's almost laudable that she can be so open with her body after a traumatic experience. If you read any articles about her, she lived in fear for many years afterward her rape.... she wouldn't even be in the same room alone with her musicians at first. 'Criminal' my have been exploitative, yes - but at least it was healthy for her, and this subject is going to be controversial no matter what she does.
For rape victims, young girls, whatever - Fiona is NOT a role model. She is a musician. Parents are role models. The only reason she has to defend herself on the subject at all is because we live in a television culture, and let's face it, younger people will emulate stuff they see on the idiot box despite what Fiona says. Conscious of this, Fiona made the tame video for 'Never is a Promise' and, also for her own health, began working out and eating more for her tour. She doesn't want to be a role model, and technically she isn't, but at least she is conscious of what people see and perhaps want to emulate. I think it would be 'Criminal' if Fiona sacrificed what she wanted to do artstically because of some 11-year old MTV couch potato who followed her every move. Yell at the parents, not Fiona. As for the stupid turkey thing - that wasn't her lunging for role model status. If you care, you call the hotline. If not, fine. I never called it myself.
I have no idea who this Ethan is, but I think I know why he writes you so often. Whenever someone makes a public attempt to defame something you love, you do what you can to help understand that person and try to show them why you love it, too. I wouldn't do this for just Fiona - if you were defaming my favorite author Douglas Adams, or my favorite actor, or a friend, or whatever, I'd still try to help you to question your own senseless anger. She's a wonderful musician, and whether you or I agree with her or not, at least she backs some sort of cause or two. Is this a reason to hate her? No. Is a silly MTV speech and a few things she says that you find contradictory reason to hate her or anyone? I'm sorry, but no.
That's my biggest problem with the page in general - there's just not enough reason to hate Fiona to make a page about it. In the end, your supposed hatred just looks sort of petty, and seems to be based more on anti-artist bandwagoning and jealousy than genuine, deserved hatred. There's so many people in the world to hate for the right reasons - save it for them, okay? If you see a girl and simply disagree with some of her decisions, you can't scream 'off with her head' as if she was comitting crimes againt humanity. Thought-out rage can truly change things.... petty anger only illuminates how we in America today love to hate things we don't like or understand. Thanks for listening, and as always I welcome your response.
- Morgan -
"You have done me no service, no you have not helped me, all you did was confuse me, not enlighten my mind. Therefore I owe you not gratitude but hatred."
"Sadistic" by Stereolab
I think for starters I will say that it's not just her "victim" attitude that I dislike as much as the fact that Fiona apparently bad-mouthed Tori Amos, who I definitely see as a positive female role model. I don't even listen to Tori Amos, but I haven't heard her say any contradictory or snobbish things. Anyway, that isn't the issue.
Whether Fiona likes it or not, she is a role-model. She may believe she shouldn't be one, but she has used her position to promote her interests (namely the turkey thing) and I think that is hypocritical. Yes, it is only one issue, but you are either a hypocrite or you aren't. There is no part-time hypocrisy.
Okay, now on to the "defamation" issue: we are not defaming Fiona, at least I don't think we are. First, that would imply that what we say actually means something, and no one really gives a shit about some student-run webpage from the University of Texas. It's all just for fun. Do you remember the early days of 90210? When someone came out with the "I Hate Brenda" newsletter? Well, that's what we are doing. It is not really serious, we don't really "hate" Fiona, but we're sick of her antics and even more sick of the non-stop ass-kissing she gets from all her fans. So I suppose the main purpose of the page is to piss off the few fans who believe Fiona is a goddess (we've received numerous emails that use those specific words) or that no one should say bad things about Fiona. She is not immune to criticism, and there hasn't been enough criticism that I've seen. Yes, the word "hate" is a strong word, but why not be hyperbolic if you're just writing a piddly web page? I guarantee not as many people would have read anything we've said if this was the "I-Think-Fiona-Is-Not-All-That Page."
Another point to consider is, does our site really matter at all? Ethan Mitchell, who continues to write obsessively long emails to us about nothing in particular except how we are idiots, has probably spent more time writing us emails than we have spent on the site altogether. Fiona should be able to handle criticism. If not, she should get out of the spotlight, and let someone else be famous - someone who will appreciate the money and power celebrities wield. Regardless of their musical abilities, I don't see Hanson or the Spice Girls bitching and moaning about how "this world is bullshit." I mention those two bands because several people have suggested we make a hate-page about them instead of Fiona, because to them Fiona is infallible. So we are most definitely NOT jumping on an "anti-artist bandwagon," as you suggested, but trying to start some criticism of Fiona Apple. You're right; she doesn't deserve our hatred. But neither does she deserve anyone's adulation, and that is what we want to end. No one should take us seriously. There is no reason to take us seriously - we don't even take OURSELVES seriously.
Does this clarify things? I hope so. I hope at least one of Fiona's fans will understand that criticism can be valuable, even when it isn't constructive. I hope we make people think, and at least question Fiona's behavior, even if they are huge fans.
By the way, I apologize for any errors or redundancies; I am very tired and I am going to bed now.
Warmest Personal Regards,
One of the Creators of the I HATE FIONA WEBPAGE
"All I need is a good defense/ 'cause it's hard
to justify my behavior"
-Fiona Apple
I hope that you understand that, unlike that Ethan fellow, my repeated reponses are in the interests of debate and not of any hatred towards you.
I think, if you're going to try to make a point, you shouldn't use the word 'apparently' as in 'Fiona apparently badmouthed Tori.' I've never heard Fiona badmouth Tori Amos; trust me, my friend Brie-Anne would give me crap about it every day if she did. :) I mean, to what end would it even serve?
Also, I'm not still getting your point about the role model thing. Just because Fiona endorsed the turkey thing doesn't make her a role model. A role model is a person whom sets an example of behavior for others and tries to help them act good and responsibly in life - at least that's what a proper role model does. Having an issue - such as the turkeys - is a totally different thing. I have issues that I pursue here at college, but that doesn't make me a role model. (None of them, to this date, involve turkeys.) :) Farrakhan certainly has an issue or two, and he's hardly a role model. It's just two seperate things.
No one, especially a celebrity, is immune to critical inspection. But the criticism seems to be based on a single MTV speech and a turkey hotline. It's just gonna give off the impression that you hate Fiona for no reason (or, for the jealousy or bandwagoning reasons I suggested) and mentioned those two things frequently just to flesh out your page. No page's criticism can be seen as 'valuable' when it sinks to doctored photos, no insult intended. Every site matters, regardless of how you try to eschew proper criticism and responsibility by saying yours doesn't. I couldn't, in good conscience, make a public homepage built on criticizing an innocent person. I have no love for the anti-Hanson or anti-Spice pages, either, I just don't write them because I don't care for the 'bands' they represent. Hanson may be cheesy and the Spice Girls may be a media frenzy disguised as bad music, but they don't deserve abusive homepages, either. If you don't like a person's music or personality, just change the channel.
If this page, as you say it is, "is to piss off" Fiona's die-hard fans, then this page is built for all the wrong reasons. If someone really loves something, why try to sully it in their eyes? I know a lot of Fiona fans through my mailing list, and some of them think the world of her. What's wrong with that? Do you have to attack what they love because you don't love her, too? It's just something to think about.
It probably doesn't matter.... the phenomenon of Fiona will get old in a while and she can just be a regular musician, without a bloody microphone being shoved in her face every ten minutes. I watched the Grammies last night, and all she did was sing, win an award (which wasn't televised), and go home. If she can release a strong second album, she will blend into the musical landscape and escape the media blitz that follows young stars. And then, you'll probably get bored of the whole thing. :) But hey, I'm not a psychic.
- Morgan -
"Everything is free, all you need is positivity."
'Spice up your Life' by the Spice Girls
(I had to go to an actual Spice Girls page for that quote -
yikes.)
I hate to do this, but I am going to cite Webster to clarify my point. Just so we know what we're talking about.
role model: a person whose behavior in a particular role is imitated by others. - Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary
Thus, since Fiona tried to get others to imitate her (in regard to her anti-turkey campaign), she set herself up as a role model. But I don't want to spend a lot of time on that point - I think that clarifies what I was trying to say, whether you agree with me or not. So at least you know on what grounds I say Fiona is a hypocrite.
Regarding Tori Amos - I was just going on what the author of the letter said (the letter I quoted from SPIN magazine); presently, my co-creator is researching to find out where Fiona insulted Tori, if she did. More on that later. I don't think such an insult would serve any purpose, which is why I find it so offensive.
Okay, here it is: "Over that period, much attention was paid to the fact that she gave interviews where she talked about being raped when she was 12. Indeed, she talked about whatever came into her head: her feelings about Tori Amos ("a poster girl for rape"), Maya Angelou (her idol), and psychiatric drugs (they help keep her sane)."
Talk about the pot calling the kettle black! Jesus.
Our grounds for criticism go farther than the MTV speech and the turkey deal. The majority of interviews and articles we have seen involving Fiona just give us a bad impression. She suffers from diarrhea of the mouth, which is a serious illness for celebs. And yeah, I get sick of hearing about Maya Angelou, and her psychiatric illnesses, and the other three or four issues SHE runs into the ground.
I believe the tasteless doctored photos are useful in the same way tasteful teasing is useful to children: abuse helps you grow up. Have you read the R.S. article? Fiona can't take a joke. Janeane Garofalo did a parody of her MTV speech, and Fiona responded by insulting Janeane and fabricating facts to support herself. For example:
"Every girl in fucking America has an eating disorder . . . Janeane Garofalo has an eating disorder and that's why she's upset. Every girl has an eating disorder because of videos like that . . . that's what the song's about, and that's what the video looks like."
Bullshit! Not every girl in "fucking America" has an eating disorder. My sister does not have an eating disorder. None of my female friends have eating disorders, although my [male] roommate last year had been bulimic. Do you think that's because of Fiona's videos, or videos like those? Maybe he wanted a body like hers.
And if it isn't obvious, "Criminal" is in no way about eating disorders, regardless of Fiona's coverup. She claims the song is also about how she has been a "bad, bad, girl" with a "delicate audience," but I think I can successfully show that she wrote the song before she was even able to take advantage of her "delicate audience." No public magazine has had the balls to call her on her coverup. We don't necessarily think she is CONSCIOUSLY lying, but it seems like a classic case of a girl with a low self-esteem who is trying to disguise her mistakes despite her claim that she is "addicted to the truth," or she wants to be "the patron saint of reality." As an aside, we don't think she should be lauded for telling the truth; EVERYONE should tell the truth, and only sociopaths lie on a regular basis. This does not rule out the possibility that Fiona is a sociopath.
As to your assertion that people's good opinions of Fiona shouldn't be sullied, I have to disagree. Let them be happy and ignorant? No way! I would rather have the "truth" about the patron saint of reality than be wrongfully convinced that she is honest. Would other people prefer the truth as well? If not, they don't have to read our webpage. A webpage is a much more passive medium than television or print. People have to go through trouble to even find our page!
I feel I may have come off sounding a little harsh, but that's because I am trying to convince you that I have reasons for my opinions. That is, WE have reasons. My co-creator is no idiot, either. Did I convince you of anything? Did I at least give you something to think about. I look forward to your response. Still, you are the only person who has had anything rational to say.
Warmest Personal Regards,
One of the Creators of the I HATE FIONA WEBPAGE
"All I need is a good defense/ 'cause it's hard
to justify my behavior"
-Fiona Apple
I'm afraid that even after busting out the dictionary, I don't agree that a single hotline conveying an opinion translates into role-model status. But I agree, this subject is of little interest, and more semantic than anything else. Man, you're looking stuff up, I said 'semantic......' yes, this particular thread of the conversation is now closed. :)
I really don't think Fiona would ever insult Tori Amos. Still, if you find anything, I'd like to hear it. As for either one of them being a poster girl for rape, well, once such a fact gets out it's gonna be associated with them whether they like it or not. Hell, I'm a journalism major.... I know my editor would beat me silly if I had to interview either one and NOT bring up being raped. People will get tired of that issue, though - which sounds callous on my part but this is how people are. Correction: people will never get tired with rape as an issue, but they'll stop asking Tori and Fiona about it. (Except for Tori's admirable RAINN project.) Tori seems to finally be able to give interviews without the rape stuff coming up anymore, and somebody Fiona will too.
As for Fiona's 'verbal diarrhea', that hardly seperates her from half of the world. Most interviews I read in music magazines are just musicians voicing their opinions. After all, once you ask them about their influences and their plans, what's left? Fiona has been associated with Maya Angelou since the first person read her liner notes, so naturally it's going to come up. Also, every Fiona critic (including most of your fellow Fiona-haters, if your guestbook is any evidence) assumes that Fiona is a heroin addict, because hey, every skinny artist is a heroin addict, right? :) So drugs are just going to come up in interviews. Fiona doesn't pick the questions - I've done plenty of interveiws, and none of my subjects ran up to me with a list of stuff they want to talk about. At least Fiona has something going on in her life.... if you can even sit through an interview with, say, Mariah Carey, the Spice Girls, or any of those R&B crooners, you should get a medal. I think you should save this particular blame for the shaky world of musical journalism. Trust me, if I had to interview Fiona, I'd be a little bolder with the questions.
As for the eating disorder remark, Fiona was right, she just phrased it poorly. Every girl in America - sad but incontrevertible fact - is told that skinny is beautiful. I'm not saying that every girl believes it, which is where Fiona went wrong, but that's the way our country is. Hell, when I chat in real life on-line with girls my age, they say how they need to lose weight. Just last night, a 17-year old girl told me she wasn't going to eat for a week so she would look good in her dress that weekend. She said she needed to go from 132 to 110 and was 'just a big fat cow.' She was in Oregon, for all I know - I couldn't even see her, and she was acting this way. Even my most sensible female friends diet unnecessarily, despite my words. Imagine how Fiona feels - she is thin, and she is beautiful. Don't pity that, but every thing you see about Fiona depicts her as 'a beautiful waif' or whatever. So Fiona has to deal with the fact that because of her, millions of girls are associating thinness and beauty. She made her video for 'Criminal' in the hopes of showing the exploitation of herself and thin girls in general - not a non-waif in the video. Whether you or I think it works is another matter, but she did what she did, and I think all the hubbub over the video may have led to a lot of misinterpretation.
Lastly, I'm not preaching the wonders of ignorance. I just don't think Fiona has done anything truly horrible enough to build something around deriding her. (You say you have no intent to deride her, and then say 'abuse helps you grow up.' There is some plain old bashing here, I don't care what you say.) You must understand - I used to be just like you guys. Nothing made me happier than exposing my friend's 'false idols.' My friend Tara, for instance, loves the Spice Girls. I used to say all kinds of stuff about them to her - they're a media hoax, they use to be in porn, they lip synch in concert - and they were all true. And even though she pretended she didn't care, I know she felt bad. And then one day I realized - what's the point? The Spice Girls, for whatever reason, make her happy, and all of their faults really don't matter as long as Tara can sing along to their nonsense. I no longer wanted to be a person who gains pleasure from raining on someone else's parade. I don't get the Spice Girls, and I still think all of my points about them were true, but they don't hurt anybody. Does Fiona hurt anyone? She's REALLY trying to fix how she is seen in terms of her weight, she's pro-woman, and her music makes millions happy. Nobody's perfect, but that's not bad.
- Morgan -
P.S. I'm impressed - your last letter made me go "Hmmmmm." I as well await your next response.
Last Modified : 27th February 1998