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Music

Here is a Video of Kurt Cobain Dressed like Hitler in Drag

Kurt and Courtney - 1, Nirvana superfan and their pissy letter - 0.
Emma Garland
London, GB

In case this is your first time on the internet in 2015, there is a new documentary out called Cobain: Montage of Heck. Director Brett Morgen (read our interview with him here) was given full access to Kurt Cobain’s personal archives during the making of it and, as a result, the whole universe gets to see a butt load of home movies, artwork, photography, journals, and unreleased recordings that had previously only been seen or heard by a handful of people. With every clip that creeps onto the internet, we find out a little more about Kurt Cobain - one of the most adored yet misinterpreted figures in modern music history.

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One of the most common misconceptions about Kurt Cobain is that he was a moody motherfucker with a sincere interest in vomit, fetuses, and death, which is kind of understandable if you look at the lyric sheet for Incesticide and take it entirely at face value. But the crucial element missing in that analysis is that much of what he said and did came with a twisted sense of humour. As the following video can attest, Kurt Cobain was jokes.

In the home video footage, we see Courtney Love reading out a pissy letter from a reader of Sassy Magazine while Kurt lip-syncs along, wearing what looks like a wedding dress and a Hitler moustache. The letter beautifully encapsulates all that is terrible about Nirvana superfandom, pitting Cobain as "THE GOD OF LOVE IN HUMAN FORM" and Courtney as the "obnoxious" and "vile" singer of a "sucky band" who "scared poor Kurt into going out with her". Clearly, they both think this is lolz.

We have learned many things from Montage of Heck, but it takes a particular kind of person to dress up as Hitler in drag and successfully mock one of his own superfans in support of his wife at the same time. He's also wearing that dress in a way that would force even the most conservative person to reassess their stance on gender-based clothing, which reveals another important side of Kurt Cobain: the feminist art punk.

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