That Screeching Weasel Doc Might Never Come Out

What We Hate, the documentary on Chicago punk legends Screeching Weasel originally slated for release this year, is being shelved until further notice thanks to a heap of srs dramz that’s developed between the filmmakers and their principle subject, singer Ben Foster. Foster published a post on the Screeching Weasel Facebook page Tuesday afternoon stating that the folks behind What We Hate are “bummed out about the film” and refuse to complete it if the controversial singer retains the final cut approval he was allegedly granted in April of last year. Several hours later, a response post appeared on the What We Hate Facebook page indicating that the film cannot be completed because Foster’s attitude as of late has become severely counterproductive (“We are no longer allowed to speak with him directly…”).

It should be noted I was first alerted to this story via a pop punk message board, because I am a thirty-three year old man who regularly reads pop punk message boards. I am not proud. But I digress: What We Hate’s official website remains up with no mention of this social media donnybrook, so who knows, maybe the lawyers are already hard at work trying to avoid Lawsuit City.

Seems like the filmmakers made a serious boner granting Benzo final cut, especially after he went rock ’em sock ’em robots on those two women at SXSW. Did they think they were dealing with a rational human being at that point? Ben’s entire band quit on him a week later. On the other hand, I was never entirely convinced that assault episode wasn’t some massive publicity stunt, and no one’s vetted these filmmakin’ folks, and it’s super easy to vilify Ben Foster because he reformed Screeching Weasel without Jughead and he punched two women and he’s been consistently talking shit about everyone on the face of the earth since the day he was born.

If you want my advice, What We Hate filmmakers, just cave in to whatever silly demands Ben has right now, and in twenty or thirty years you can make a documentary about how shiteous it was making this documentary (you know, like Taylor Hackford did with Hail! Hail! Rock n’ Roll). Or, I don’t know, go make a documentary about the Queers. Their singer owned a fucking sea food restaurant. Now that’s interesting!