31 January 1999
It’s clear that the anti-hero of ‘Pretty Fly (For A White Guy)’, played memorably in the video by a young actor whose actual first name is Guy, is the village Vanilla Ice and really putting his back into crass cultural appropriation and stereotyping. I suppose it’s just a bit awkward that the ones calling him out on this are exponents of US punk, traditionally a white genre and audience. To wit, The Offspring’s beef doesn’t seem to be with his cultural appropriation, but only that “he’s trying too hard and he’s not quite hip” – so in this worldview, are rap and hip hop cool and superficial while US punk is uncool and ‘authentic’? Not being American, I could be missing a lot of the cultural signals at play here, but maybe I need a quick footnote on just what level of rap and hip hop fandom is acceptable for white people in this white US punk band’s eyes.
Real punk records don’t go to number one in the singles chart. ‘Pretty Fly (For A White Guy)’ was a hit because of its admittedly great poppy hooks: “Give it to me baby – aw haw, aw haw!” and “¡1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6!” in Spanish. That guitar riff is standard hard rock. In any case, The Offspring are as much punk as Green Day are punk. Their follow-up single is the unpleasant ‘Why Don’t You Get A Job?’ with its insulting language towards women, its close melodic proximity to a well-known Beatles song, and its all-round self-entitled whininess. But hey, its video has a crowd-pleasing cameo by White Guy, and I can think of nothing worthier of ‘Pretty Fly (For A White Guy)’ levels of scorn than associating yourself with The Offspring, the Vanilla Ice of punk.
