i A very early draft of this paper was presented at the Radical Americas symposium at University Coll (.).Manson’s transgressive quality, I argue, lies primarily in his ability to expose how American society is (re)constructed and maintained through the crossing and renegotiation of its own limits. Finally, I trace how his flirtations with Satanism (re)construct and maintain social order. Secondly, I study how Manson crossed over into the mainstream during the Mechanical Animals-era, and how his relationship with the media affected his negotiation of the mainstream-underground boundary.

Firstly, I explore how Manson’s work functions as a liminal rite-de-passage for adolescents to facilitate a successful transition into adulthood. The article explores three areas in which this (re)constructive aspect of transgression is most evident. I therefore do not read Manson’s work as political radicalism or anti-social shock, but as a creative process which (re)constructs the ideologies it appears to attack. In contrast to existing definitions of transgression as a synonym for the breaking of taboos, commonly used in critical interrogations of extreme music, I define transgression as the (re)construction of social order by means of boundary negotiation. This article explores how Marilyn Manson functions as a transgressive artist, in order to demonstrate how his persona, music, and music videos cross social, cultural and moral boundaries.

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