After the show aired, many fans were upset at being represented as psychopathic momomaniacs. They reacted, predictably, by
being psychopathic monomaniacs. It’s tempting to dismiss all this as a kind of incipient fascism because, well, it
is a kind of incipient fascism. Even the band’s name seems like it’d suit a bunch of 80s goths in ironic swastikas far better than a clean-cut pop band. Translate it into German and the Laibach aspect is hard to ignore:
ein Volk, ein Wille, ein Richtung! If Liam, Louis & co. were to announce tomorrow that the body politic needs to be purged of its parasites, the resulting chaos would make Kristallnacht look like a mild spat in a rural post office. No army on earth could hold back the fury of ten million teenage girls in love. The fires would burn for months. …