Fall Out Boy Drummer Apologizes For Insensitive Shirt

Fall Out Boy drummer Andy Hurley apologized for the controversy sparked by the insensitive shirt he wore during a recent fashion event.

The band performed at the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show last week, an event that found Hurley sporting a Rising Sun flag t-shirt. Although the drummer didn’t don the apparel to get a rise out of viewers at home, that didn’t stop some people from taking great offense to it.

According to Property of Zack, someone contacted the Fall Out Boy member on Twitter to let him know why the shirt in question was so offensive.

“Please don’t ignore these tweets… The Japanese “Rising Sun Flag” symbol on your t-shirt you wore on the [Victoria’s Secret] performance is as bad as Nazi’s “Hakenkreuz Flagge” for many Asians. It represents both imperialism and militarism of Japan in 1940s,” the individual recently tweeted.

Realizing he’d made a mistake, the Fall Out Boy drummer quickly issued an apology for accidentally offending folks with the Rising Sun t-shirt.

“I apologize and take responsibility for wearing something so offensive. I’ll be sure to personally review costumes in advance in the future,” he wrote in response.

To prove that he wasn’t just trying to placate fans he’d accidentally rubbed the wrong way, the folks over at Kill Your Stereo report that Andy Hurley issued a lengthy apology with the help from anthropologist Dr. Jennifer Raff.

The Fall Out Boy drummer wrote:

“I had the opportunity to play the Victoria’s Secret fashion show, which was such an amazing thing to be a part of. The outfits we wore were necessarily styled to fit in with our part of the show, which emphasized a British invasion look…so we were styled in a Sex Pistols-style British punk attire. I had no problem with this, as the purview of the fashion world is way outside of my comfort zone. Unfortunately, the shirt that was chosen for me was the image of the rising sun and was an extremely insensitive choice. I was totally ignorant of its meaning, and that is my fault.”

Dr. Raff explained why the symbol is so offensive:

“The Rising Sun symbol, used by the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II, has come to represent horrors of wartime aggression (such as the Nanking Massacre) to many, particularly South Koreans and Chinese people. The Rising Sun symbol is horribly offensive to descendants of people affected by these events, much like the Nazi Hakenkreuzflagge or the Confederate flag. Yet unlike those symbols, it continues to be used widely. Many people simply don’t understand the connotations of this symbol. But after he was made aware of it, Andy and I felt that this incident would provide a good opportunity to heighten awareness of its cultural context…”

You can see the shirt in question below.

Fall Out Boy – Phoenix. (Victoria’s Secret.) pic.twitter.com/m2ZPPLxQwv

— Sin otro sentido. (@AnaOgarith) November 15, 2013

Were you surprised that Fall Out Boy drummer Andy Hurley wore a Rising Sun t-shirt at the recent Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show? Did you know that the symbol is offensive?

[Top Image via Helga Esteb / Shutterstock.com]