Master Post on Why John Lennon is Shit
So here’s a master post of John Lennon’s shittiness. I added much more info about cultural appropriation in his music. I also submitted this to Your Fave is Problematic. :3
publicly admitted to hitting the women he dated
abusive toward both his wives, including Yoko Ono and his son
was controlling in his relationship with Yoko Ono, making her follow him everywhere (including the bathroom)—and made her list all the men she had slept with, which he shamed her for, and did various other controlling/abusive things
wrote this misogynistic song that threatens violence against women
Homophobia and antisemitism
was antisemitic and homophobic, and made antisemetic/homophobic comments toward Brian Epstein, the Beatles’ gay and Jewish manager
even beat someone nearly to death for even insinuating that he had an affair with Brian Epstein: he never apologized for the incident, despite using the excuse for being drunk at the time, stating, “he called me a bloody queer, and I bashed in his ribs for it.’ Later, when he was older, and supposedly “reformed” he claimed he just “wanted to show he was a man” at that age…
wrote the racist song: “Woman is the ‘N-word’ of the world” (except he used the actual word not n-word) tw in link for racial slur; discussion here explaining why the song is racist (again tw for slur) post explains the song, not only uses a slur but also erases Black women, and equates sexism non-black women face with anti-blackness) (one lyric: "women is the slave to the slaves”)
appropriating/stealing music from Black artists: stole riffs, melodies and even lyrics from Black artists, to name but a few examples: I Feel Fine from Bobby Parker; We Gotta Work It Out from Stevie Wonder [edit: oops that was a cover by Stevie Wonder of the Beatles!]; Day Tripper from Bo Diddly; and was sued for stealing Come Together from Chuck Berry; and did many covers where Black vocal styles are appropriated: Twist and Shout from Isley Brothers, Money from Barrett Strong/Berry Gordy, Some Other Guy from Ritchie Barrett–examples go on and on
appropriation of Indian music and culture, including the appropriation of traditional Indian instruments, spiritual/religious beliefs, perpetuating harmful stereotypes and white supremacy; examples of appropriation in music here, here, here; and this video is an example of not only appropriation of the sitar but Indian spirituality (“om” in the song Across the Universe) and in fetishizing/exoticizing spiritual practices in India
often made offensive comments about disabled people (note that the jerk who wrote the article in the link makes ridiculous excuses for him)
mimicked people with developmental disabilities
stated that disabled people touching him was “horrifying” and continually referred to disabled people as “cr*pples”; talked about disabled fans in extremely ableist, demeaning ways
made a song called “Cr*ppled Inside” with an ableist slur to appropriate the pain of disabled people to describe his “internal pain” as a white abled man
Harassment/bullying/acts of violence
Committed various humiliating/violent acts toward strangers and friends: threw knives at people in the audience at concerts, being a violent drunk and getting in fights with friends, etc.; also dubbed Germans at a concert “Nazis” and “Hitlerites”
he may have been responsible for the death of former bandmate Stuart Sutcliffe, on top of more heinous behavior, including urinating on nuns
Edit: there are tons of conflicting accounts of Stuart Sutcliffe’s
death. There’s this account from Sutfliffe’s sister that Lennon beat Sutcliffe savagely after learning he was leaving the group–which may or may not have lead to death by complications later (but she also claims the beating didn’t lead to his death, but it still did damage). There are other accounts which claim that thugs attacked Sutcliffe and gave him the injury or that Sutcliffe fell down a flight of stairs– there were even rumors of it being caused by amphetamine use or a tumor (those seem to be bogus)– we can’t know for sure what the true story is (but it’s not unthinkable that someone with Lennon’s history of abuse would do this)
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