Gerard Way, Bringing Back Guyliner
Everybody has that one celebrity crush who overtakes every aspect of their being from ages 12 to 16 (16 being the age when you [should] realize that there's a reason you never see adult emos), and mine (like most people's in the 2000s) was Gerard Way. The man, the icon, the legend who has only been pipped for the post of "favorite man to ever exist in my heart" by David Bowie.
Not only did My Chemical Romance fuel every aspect of my emo personality and never-ending need for music that screamed at my angst along with me, but Gerard's specific style through each album and era was and is iconic. Just as we can (and love) to track Bowie's progression through artistic phases, the same can be done for my childhood hero.
My first encounter with Gerard Way was via my best friend's older sister's desktop wall paper. I remember it vividly: A press pit photo from a show — Gerard was all long hair, chubby face, pale skin and black clothing. Screaming and presenting his tiny teeth as sweat dripped down his makeup from the intensity of his singing.
What struck me most, at the tender age of 10, was that I had never really encountered a sub-culture before. Finally, I was introduced to a world outside of the perfectly packaged pop that I was the target market for. I was always a weird kid (in the least embarrassing cliché way of saying that) and something about that picture of this beautiful, black haired, makeup-ed man stuck with me for the rest of my life.
"Helena" was the first music video that I ever saw, but it is the first that I properly remember. Although I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love was My Chemical Romance's first album (and an excellent album in its own right), I believe it was with the release of Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge in 2004 that the band's aesthetic influenced their popularity just as much as the music.
For most of Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge, Gerard's clothing choices fit the emo standard: Black suits and skinny ties. What was most captivating was the range in makeup which Gerard (and Frank Iero, whose eyeliner crosses over each eye became iconic in their own right) wore.
The black line across the eyes now seems to me a tribute to the new romantic era of Adam and the Ants whilst copious amounts of red eyeshadow made Gerard's performances their own Tim Burton masterpieces. Although makeup on men in music was definitely not a new thing (shout out to my main man Bowie), it was new for me. It was revolutionary not just for a man to be wearing makeup, but for me to be attracted to a man who was subverting gender roles in such a rudimentary way.
During this period, as the "Ghost Of You" music video demanded of him, Gerard Way shocked me to my core as he cut his hair fairly short (for him, anyway). This soon grew out to a cute flicky bob (but I may be biased), yet my favorite part of this era of Way was not the hair — not even the bullet proof vests that all of the band members began wearing on stage — but the beginning of writing key words on his neck and arms.
Occasionally they were offensive (such as the c-word) but more often than not, they were seemingly random (such as Fairy, Piggy, You Win). This word writing reminded me strongly of the most memorable Manic Street Preachers photo shoot: The culture slut one. At the time, I definitely didn't pick up on all these references that the band was nodding to, but looking back, it makes me love them even more.
Gerard's hair then changed completely and rocked my world in a new way. The cropped, platinum blonde that Gerard sported was (apparently) an effort at making him look more "ill" for the role of The Patient in the life changing "Welcome to the Black Parade" music video. If you didn't know (why wouldn't you know), "The Black Parade" had a complete storyline to it, that followed The Patient coming to terms with his coming death. But for me, Gerard's haircut brought with it a whole new inversion of my personal standards of style.
In the time between albums, a lot can change. For the band, many members married, even having children and becoming (as I refer to all parents as) "real adults."
