♫ Is adult entertainment killing our children or is killing our children entertaining our adults? ♫
The Holy Wood era was largely the result of the direct effects that the Columbine High School Massacre had on the band for which virtually all media outlets, pundits and politicians had made Manson scapegoat by falsely accusing him of fostering and encouraging the perpetrators' violent state of mind via his music and "goth" imagery, marked the band's third and final part of the Triptych, and held a far darker tone than its predecessor, Mechanical Animals. Consequently, the central focus of the album and the corresponding Guns, God and Government tour was society's fascination with death, religion and fame; exposing the flaws of a culture that worships violence and blurs the line between celebrities and murderers based on the ratings scale of the television. Much of the album's content poses several counterarguments indicting parents, the values and culture of Conservative Christian America, and the media alike for the roles they also play in the exaltation and movement into the mainstream of violence as entertainment, as well as the upbringing of children. The era placed emphasis on fame that has historically been attained by figures who's deaths have been publicly displayed and romanticized in the media (televised or print) and consequently painted as "martyrs" within the national or public consciousness (in particular, the American public), namely President John F. Kennedy (also, by extension, Jesus Christ), John Lennon and their killers, and explored the role the media played in glamorizing their deaths while simultaneously sensationalizing their murderers.
The Holy Wood era was largely the result of the direct effects that the Columbine High School Massacre had on the band for which virtually all media outlets, pundits and politicians had made Manson scapegoat by falsely accusing him of fostering and encouraging the perpetrators' violent state of mind via his music and "goth" imagery, marked the band's third and final part of the Triptych, and held a far darker tone than its predecessor, Mechanical Animals. Consequently, the central focus of the album and the corresponding Guns, God and Government tour was society's fascination with death, religion and fame; exposing the flaws of a culture that worships violence and blurs the line between celebrities and murderers based on the ratings scale of the television. Much of the album's content poses several counterarguments indicting parents, the values and culture of Conservative Christian America, and the media alike for the roles they also play in the exaltation and movement into the mainstream of violence as entertainment, as well as the upbringing of children. The era placed emphasis on fame that has historically been attained by figures who's deaths have been publicly displayed and romanticized in the media (televised or print) and consequently painted as "martyrs" within the national or public consciousness (in particular, the American public), namely President John F. Kennedy (also, by extension, Jesus Christ), John Lennon and their killers, and explored the role the media played in glamorizing their deaths while simultaneously sensationalizing their murderers.