Kurt Cobain: a genuine feminist or a fraud?

Feminism has become a very poignant movement in the past decade. One of the biggest icons associated with feminism that I frequently see quoted by activists is Kurt Cobain. For those who do not know who Cobain was (only if you've lived under a rock your entire life), he was the frontman of the popular grunge/alternative band Nirvana, a huge phenomenon back in the 90s and one of the most iconic musicians who have ever lived. Despite the fact that Nirvana haven't been active for 26 years, to this day, they're one of the most popular and appreciated platinum-selling rock bands in history, with more than one billion views on Youtube, 15 million monthly listeners on Spotify and an induction to the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame. Cobain was a self-proclaimed feminist and he would later use his own image to educate people about rape and feminist issues. He dedicated his entire, albeit short life, to helping raise awareness about gender inequality and discrimination. He talked so much about it that it seemed, to me, that he was almost trying to apologize about something. But certain records claim that he wasn't really the person he wanted the world to believe he was. So naturally, having been a Nirvana fan ever since I was a kid, I thought I would dig deeper into the issue. My findings are certainly intriguing, and I will post them below.

 

In his Kurt Cobain biography, British author and journalist Christopher Sandford tries to shed some light on certain aspects of the artist's life that weren't brought up in the mainstream media. Here's a short excerpt from the book:

A woman named Marcy Drew (for the purpose of this book) knew Cobain in Seattle in 1988. According to her, his public attitude to women was a pose and songs like ‘Rape Me’ sprang out of personal guilt. Drew recalls an incident in which organized by Cobain and another musician now working successfully in Seattle, a group met in the adults-only Apple Theatre [...] When the party stepped outside into the dark alley behind the square, there was a moment when she and Cobain were alone. 'I want you and I'm going to have you' is her recollection of the exact words which he hissed to her. Then

Kurt rammed his hand hard between my legs. It was terrifying. He was panting like a dog, and there was a froth of spit around his lips. I yelled at him to stop and he laughed at me. With one hand he backed me up against the wall and the other he pushed into me. If [the other couple] hadn’t come back when they did, he would have raped me.

According to the same biography, Cobain was also a different person when he was among other men:

When Cobain was drunk, on drugs or in the company of his male friends he still contemptuously referred to women as bitches. He still collected pornography and erotica. 'He got gentler and nicer as the years went by', says Wheeler, 'but it was a struggle with Tracy. Kurt still had strange views in those days.

A quick peek into this biography, and it's easy to see that a lot of the events and situations are described pretty accurately. Overall, the biography seems to be authentic, with a lot of things that add up which you can find in his other biographies. The only difference between Sandford's biography and Azerrad's biography (known as the most 'factual' biography about Kurt) is that Azerrad worked on his book while Cobain was still alive, which means that everything that would later come out in his book would be biased and distorted to fit Kurt's agenda and the way he wanted to be seen.

 

During 1990, Kurt would meet Tobi Vail and Kathleen Hanna, two of the leading forces of the Riot Grrl movement. He decided to side with them and adopt a feminist view which he later chose to project into his music. Kathleen Hanna of the band Bikini Kill became Kurt's closest friend and he implemented a lot of her feminist ideas into his personality. However, it seems like Kurt's wild side would come out again.

In a post on her personal blog, Kathleen wrote about two instances of rape. Here's the link to her post: http://www.kathleenhanna.com/it-was-rape/

The second one sounds eerily familiar:

I have a feeling if you’re still reading this you know what I’m talking about, and if you don’t, it probably sounds pretty familiar, drunk teen taken advantage of by an older man …but try this one on for size. I was raped a 2nd time,ten years later, during my band Bikini Kill’s heyday. Strange as it may be to believe, I, the outspoken feminist who was in a militant punk band, was raped by a friend. Again I didn’t tell anyone, not even my band (at first) because I didn’t think anyone would believe me (the guy had read more feminist books than I had and seemed like the nicest person in the world) I was also nervous that if the few riot grrl types around at the time did believe me they might take matters into their own hands and run the guy out of town or something….and that would’ve just made me feel even crazier and like I had lost all control over the situation. Because I was leaving for tour the very next day, I told myself what had happened was akin to a natural disaster, a tornado. [...] It’s taken me a long time to get over what he did because he was not just a friend, he was my bestfriend''.

Kurt WAS her best friend (if you want to convince yourself, just watch Kurt and Kathleen's interviews, they both claimed they were very close friends). Kurt WAS (or seemed to be) an outspoken feminist who had read a lot of feminist books. Kurt WAS older than her. Kurt WAS around Kathleen during Bikini Kill's heyday. And ultimately, Kurt DID seem like the nicest person in the world. Except he wasn't.

 

Another example would be one of the incidents described in the documentary 'Montage Of Heck'. Kurt allegedly tried to take advantage of a mentally impaired girl at his school. He wanted to kill himself as a teeager but he didn't want to die without knowing what it was like getting laid (in his words). So as the chain of events is described, Kurt went to her place, sat in her lap and told her "let's fuck" but when he proceeded, he realized he didn't know how, and her vagina reeked which turned him off. He decided to leave.

And the last thing I found about him is actually not a very reliable source (a website that regularly leaks info about celebrities, some of their stuff was actually proven to be real, but a lot of it has not), but I will post it anyway since, in my opinion, everything should be taken in consideration when trying to find the truth. Sure, it might or might not be real, but it's still worth debating.

It is hard to believe it has been this long, but the person I spoke to is in her early 40's now. She says that she thinks she is the inspiration for one of the songs written by this permanent A list singer/band. She says that when she was 13, she had sex with the lead singer of the group and he knew how old she was. She says it was consensual, but, come on, she was 13 and he was about a decade older. She does say that after the first time, when he was abusing drugs he would call her over to his place and start out nicely but then would rape her or beat her while they were having sex. She says this went on for about four months until she found out he was doing the same thing to several other teens at her school. Later when she heard one of their songs, it was almost word for word, their sexual experiences.

Kurt Cobain

 

This is all the info I could find about the topic. There's a lot to say about these allegations. They might or might not be true. But still, it is pretty weird to me how no one on Kurt's side (family, friends, bandmates etc) went out of their way to defend Kurt from these allegations. Are they scared? Do they know the truth and don't want to spill the beans? Courtney Love is known to have sued everyone who wrote things that she didn't agree with. She sued people with every single occasion, but she didn't sue Christopher Sandford for accusing Kurt of rape (and other horrible allegations). To me, it seems like the people who knew him didn't want to ruin his reputation so they remained silent...and they probably forgave him. Again, I am not saying this is an absolute indicator that he was a rapist, I'm just making a statement that might or might not be true. This is merely a conspiracy. I am not accusing Kurt, I am just bringing out whatever I could find about this issue.

What do you think about this? You know what they say: no smoke without fire. Also should we really believe when a man says he's a feminist or are there hidden intentions behind his agenda?

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