I've been thinking about the fascinating collective disavowal we're witnessing when it comes to the brothers' transgressive acts. And I think that it’s not that the regular fans don't see what’s happening. They do! And that’s why those moments go viral. But the framing language (brotherly love, banter, RnR) gives everyone cover. It’s like the social unconscious is doing PR work in real time. The taboo becomes a spectacle that everyone can consume safely because it’s been rebranded as play.
Some of the acts we've been witnessing during this tour have been overtly transgressive (the ass grab and wiggle, the finger sucking), but they’re performed inside a container that neutralizes them: the stage, the band, the crowd, the category of “brotherly love,” and so on. The audience is joining in the denial because the denial is sustaining the myth. It's letting everyone keep enjoying the intimacy without having to confront what it might actually be expressing.
So yeah this is a textbook case of disavowal: “I know very well what I’m seeing, but I don’t want to know.” The incest-adjacent jokes on Twitter and Reddit serve as a pressure release and they let people flirt with the forbidden without breaking the spell. But the moment the subtext is named seriously, an admin has to delete the post & expel the speaker to restore balance. So the jokes are tolerated because they keep the tension manageable. Direct acknowledgment would collapse the whole structure!
What this means to me is that the brothers enact something that edges into taboo while the audience joins in to sanitize it, and the policing of interpretation becomes part of the performance. The repression is communal among the regular Oasis fanbase. Everyone helps keep it “brotherly,” even when the evidence (Loch Lomond kiss, for example) clearly says otherwise.
In psychoanalysis disavowal sits right between repression and recognition. It’s not full denial because everyone witnesses the trangressive acts. But it’s a refusal to integrate that knowledge. The normie fan says “I know what I saw, but they’re brothers, so it’s fine.” I think that's akin to the logic of fetishistic disavowal that Freud described: you keep both contradictory beliefs alive at once so the fantasy doesn’t fall apart.
And the fascinating part is how the brothers invite this disavowal. They perform transgression that’s just clear enough to be undeniable, but framed in a way that makes denial still possible. They push the limit, then wink. The wink is the signal: “You can see this and still call it normal.” The audience takes the cue, and everyone keeps the loop running.
So the “aww, brotherly love” reaction isn’t naïve in my belief, it’s functional. It keeps the myth stable and lets fans enjoy the dynamic without having to confront the reality. And the brothers have always relied on this unresolved energy between excess and containment. If the gestures were interpreted literally, the fantasy would fracture and the relationship between the Gallagher brothers would stop being a safe vessel for that intensity. These gestures are the middle ground: just enough exposure to keep the engine running, just enough denial to keep it intact.
2087
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