🗣 EXCLUSIVE: Hayley Mary Responds To MAGA Hat Backlash

Published Nov 12, 2024, 9:41 PM

The Jezabels' Hayley Mary joins Jonesy & Amanda to discuss her controversial choice to wear a MAGA hat in a recent Instagram post. 

And Amanda gem Nation.

Musician Hailey Mary is best known as a solo artist and a singer with the Jezabel's. Here she is, She's a Gigabel singer. I love the Jezabel's. But she found herself in hot water. Recently, she posted a picture to social media wearing a Margat cap with trump slogan make America Great Again. She said this led to her being all but canceled. She joins us now, Hailey Mary.

Hello, Hello, how are you doing very well?

So tell us the story.

Well, look, the story for me starts with the misinformation bill that they're discussing at the moment for Australia. I kept an eye on it for a little bit and I thought I was a bit I was a bit concerned, I think, and in general should maybe be, as is the Human Rights Commission. So you know, I'm not alone here. But when Trump got in the other day, I thought that bill would be discussed a long time down the track and I might talk about it then, preferably when my own album campaign was over, which I'm in the middle of. But when Trump got in the other day and I was, you know, seeing all the influences and artists and everyone I know screaming about how their abortion rights were going, which I don't really understand how that's true, but you know, just very angry at shaving their heads and talking about never talking to men again. In the meantime, our parliament was actually talking reading through this misinformation bill in the Parliament and voting it through, and while it can be blocked by the Senate, I still thought that was a pretty sneaky move and I thought it looked like they were using the Trump election to do that without people noticing. Well that's what it looked like. It might not have been, but it looked like that to me, and you know, amidst the Trump hysteria, so I just sort of thought. I'm not an activist musician, but I just felt like all of the active ast musicians were distracted and had not picked up on this, which they should have. And so I thought, I need to post about this. But it's such a dry post to post about a misinformation bill by the Australian Parliament. It's very boring, you know, especially in amidst the hysteria. So I thought, what can I do to bring a bit more attention to it? And I thought, well, I'll just use a bit of shop jock kind of strategy and post me in a maga hat and see what happens.

And here we and here we are before we are.

Look, I knew what I was doing. I've seen people get canceled before it's happened, you know, on numerous occasions. We've all seen it. And the fallout is exactly what I expected, all the usual suspects and everything. I went through it, and I thought, I still think it's worth the risk, because what goods a career in the arts if slow authoritarian laws of sort of creeping in and with them, just.

With the Misinformation Bill, you want, like I say, with everything, just free. You want everything as far as all there's no misinformation, Like it's free speech.

No, well, there's already limits on free speech. I mean, look, maybe a bit. I'm not not a professional on anything. I just thought it should be discussed and more discussed. But my main concerns with the bill is two things. One being this definition of serious harm, which is quite vague in terms of like, if speech has been deemed to cause serious harm to a group or individuals, it could be considered misinformation or disinformation, and sense it and penalized. But we've seen how that's played out in cancel culture, which is, you know, there's statements that you might say people believe are actually factually correct or most people believe, and they've said them, and then a group has said this is this equal serious harm to me and you need to lose your job now. Cancel culture is actually people using their own freedom of expression. So I'm not really raging against that here, even though I don't like it that much. My problem is the government taking that kind of control.

And sadly, can you just drill down for us on what once you posted the picture of you in that hat, who turned against you? What happened?

Well, look, to be honest with you, it's come on all sides as you can imagine. I mean, the sadder part of it would be the friends and even some of the family that have gone either angry or silence, which I did expect. I hope a lot of that will be temporary. I think, you know, it's okay. I still think it's worth it because if people aren't really your friend, then you're going to lose them in a situation like this anyway. So that's fine, sad, but fine, and then obviously the entire music industry, which I knew would happen, because, as I said in my post, it's been captured by wokeness. And I don't think it's a progressive movement. I think wokeness takes the worst of the left and the right. Yeah senses people, So yeah, I was willing to make that sacrifice. But yeah, everyone everyone turned against me. A lot of people are supporting me though.

Particularly it's curious with the word woke, that that Barack Obama was the one that gave us work years ago. Instead he said, he said, I just wish people would stop being so wake and I tend to agree with it. You know, there's a lot of changes that goes on in the media, and often think in regard to the misinformation build. So when I look at Twitter, I go, well, obviously, because I've been doing this for a long time, so I can discern what's real and what's not. So I wouldn't if I say, for example, Jeff Goldblum was announced that he'd passed away, and that was on Twitter a few years ago. I don't know if you remember this story, and so over and ran with it. Jeff Goldblum's dead he wasn't dead. Someone has tweeted that, So I would never report anything directly from Twitter. So my understanding of the Misinformation Bill is to stop that actually happening. Is that how it works.

Look, there may be very good reasons for a type of misinformation bill, and I've read it the other day because I've realized I should, and there's stuff in there that I see, you know, seems pretty reasonable. The main concerns are that it's one what I said about the definition of serious harm and that being used against just normal people saying things that they believe. But also the exemptions in there. I mean, the Minister can exempt, you know, various platforms from the scrutiny of the bill. It also it excludes like broadcast media and basically legacy media in general. So it kind of just looks like it's targeting podcasts and social media, which to me, to me looks like it's somewhat political. And the only other problem I would say is that, well, you might trust the government now, but what if a fire right government does get in. Do you think that they're not going to use it for their purposes. I think we just need to be careful before we put in a bill like.

This is that I'm no margafan, but I would defend your right to where whatever hack you like and be whatever you like. Are you seeing the hypocrisy in the free movement of the arts industry who are anti right?

Yeah? Well, look, to be honest with you, I didn't wear a Marga hat because I'm a Marga person either. I just don't think that all Marga people should be vilified in a society where they are the majority. And I yeah, I think that there is a censorious nature, to homogeneous nature to the art at the moment, and that doesn't read as a healthy element of a society to me. I think that there should be liberty in the arts in particular, you know, in terms of speech and expression, and we've shown, I've shown that there's not.

Well, it's great to have you on your show, on our show, and of course that's content from music writing. This is great stuff. This is a song.

Are you're getting us down?

Oh? Look, I think I've got to get through the kind of ruination it's caused for every element of my life first. But then I'm sure there'll be a couple of.

It's a free country and you can do you know you can. We've all got our opinions, and having said that, you brought it to our attention. So good on you. Second grade to.

You, Hailey, Thank you.

I appreciate you having me and.

When you're album man, what are you doing? Just let's go.

Look my album's out right now. It's separdly I'm right in the middle of the album campaign. I probably shouldn't have done that, but look, it's called Roman Excess and it's out now, and I don't I've just had my Melbourne Melbourne launch canceled, but I hope that I'll be able to play some shows again. If I've only I've only voluntarily quit the woke music industry. I'm still open to playing gigs if anyone wants.

It's a really interesting Thanks for talking to us today.

Thanks for having me. A big fan of your show, by the way, it's very nice.

Thank you.

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