Creativity Quote by Siouxsie Sioux

Labels are supposed to make you legible; Siouxsie Sioux is pointing out how they actually make you smaller. Coming out of the post-punk ecosystem that both craved categories and weaponized them (punk, goth, new wave, “alternative” before it meant anything), her resentment isn’t just personal irritation. It’s a critique of a whole culture industry that needs quick tags to market you, file you, dismiss you. Once you’re “that kind of artist,” people stop listening for the parts that don’t fit.

The line works because it frames labeling as violence by reduction. “Cuts off” is bodily language: not a gentle misunderstanding but an amputation of complexity. When she says labels can “only deal with black and white,” she’s not invoking morality; she’s describing a binary brain that panics at ambiguity. Then she lands the real insult: “the cartoon.” A cartoon is a simplified outline with exaggerated features - recognizable at a glance, but never intimate. It’s what happens when the public wants your aesthetic but not your interior life.

Siouxsie’s context matters here: a woman fronting a band in a scene that loved strong visual codes while policing authenticity. Labels become a trap: if you lean into the image, you’re manufactured; if you resist it, you’re ungrateful. Her intent is to defend the messy, evolving self against an audience trained to consume identity like a logo. The subtext is a demand: don’t just recognize me; make room for my contradictions.