The rock band Pearl Jam came under fire recently for a concert poster that features a cartoon image of a “dead” President Donald Trump. The group had the artwork created for a “get out the vote” concert performed this week in Missoula, Montana, in support of Democrat Sen. Jon Tester.
The artwork can be credited to Jim Ament, Pearl Jam’s bassist. The image shows what is supposedly Trump’s corpse on the ground as it’s picked at by a bald eagle — along with a White House burning to the ground.
It also features Tester flying over the chaos in a tractor and his opponent, Republican candidate Matt Rosendale, with a lobster claw in hand. He’s holding a sign reading, “Maryland.”
Both are shots at Rosendale — who is a native of America’s northeast.
“The role of the artist is to make people think and feel, and the current administration has us thinking and feeling,” Ament said in a statement to the Associated Press on Wednesday about the poster.
“I was the sole conceptualist of this poster, and I welcome all interpretations and discourse.”
Ament signed the statement with, “Love, from the First Amendment, Jeff Ament.”
Ament may be hiding behind the First Amendment in his statement, but no logical person would argue against his right to create such a poster.
This is America. He has the freedom to create whatever art he feels is true to his voice and his person.
Other people, however, also have the same First Amendment right as he does — and can express the fact that the extremist and partisan poster does nothing to help the culture at this moment in time and is misguided in almost every single way.
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