Being
edgy is tough these days. So many boundaries have been pushed
to the breaking point; so many bourgeois norms challenged.
Gone are the days when a little shock and awe was guaranteed
to ignite a scandal. In the interest of reviving their dying
relevance and reversing a downward ratings spiral, the 65th
Grammys tried anyway. In the run up to the broadcast, Grammys’
comms department decided to whip up intrigue, which mainstream
media dutifully reported on. Headlines on MSN, among others,
warned readers to brace themselves, including this one on
Decider.com:
According
to the site Showbiz 411, a Grammys insider promised the performance
would be “ . . . over the top and really crazy.”
Asked if that meant “crazy good,” the source responded:
“Wait and see.”
Madonna,
who introduced Sam Smith and Kim Petras on stage, also gave
a heads up: “Are you ready for a little controversy?”
she asked, then sped on with a tribute to those who have picked
up her torch of rebellion: “So here’s what I’ve
learned after four decades in music. If they call you shocking,
scandalous, troublesome, problematic, provocative or dangerous,
you’re definitely onto something.”
Knowing
there’s nothing more outrageous than pop music thoroughly
planning and expecting outrage, I reached for the smelling
salts, sat back and watched Sam Smith and Kim Petras perform
their catchy duet Unholy. When the curtain came down, I had
three distinct thoughts:
One:
Satan? That’s your controversy? But Satan’s old
hat! Mick Jagger, Bowie, Lil Nas X and Madonna herself have
all been there, done that.
Sam
Smith poured into blood-red latex like a jiggly bowl of strawberry
Jello, with matching top hat, cane and high-heeled stripper
boots, while luridly mugging for the camera, was all a little
too ‘camp’ to be genuinely offensive. Elon Musk
summed it up perfectly: “If that’s Satan, we have
nothing to worry about.”
Three:
Satan prancing around the stage wasn’t nearly as frightening
as Madonna’s new face.
I
also had a question for Madonna about her tribute to all those
creative rebels out there: rebellion against what exactly?
The establishment? Smith has won five Grammy Awards, three
Brit Awards, three Billboard Music Awards, an American Music
Award, a Golden Globe and an Oscar. Madonna, with a net worth
of $850 million, can do and say pretty much anything she wants.
Musically speaking, they are the establishment.
Every
single cause close to Madonna’s heart—including
LGBT politics and a desire to blow up a Donald Trump-occupied
White House—is now totally mainstream. Google, Goldman
Sachs, Walmart, major banks and government institutions are
all on her same progressive page. McDonalds–despite
its reputation for family-friendly values–just partnered
on an ad campaign with Cardi B, an ex-stripper who has boasted
about drugging customers and stealing their wallets. This
sponsorship ad, which appeared directly on the heels of the
Unholy performance, must have escaped Madonna’s notice:
Pfizer—as
far as I know—hasn’t taken steps to distance itself
from the performance. Why should it care if nobody aside from
uptight squares like Ben Shapiro were bothered? Even actual
satanists were reportedly underwhelmed. According to TMZ,
a high-ranking member of the Church of Satan considers Lil
Nas X’s music video for Montero—in which the singer
descends into hell, kills Satan and assumes his throne—far
more incendiary.
Popular
media talks about a revival of the 80s-era Satanic Panic but
from my perspective, there were more headlines in the vein
of “Conservatives are outraged” than there were
actual outraged conservatives. More pronounced was the backlash
over the video for his song I’m Not Here To Make Friends,
in which the ectomorph 30-year-old appears greased up and
trussed inside a lacy basque, heaving manboobs capped with
pasties. But the coup de grace is the singer simulating a
golden shower…
Even
in that case, the reaction was less righteous indignation
and more toe-curling cringe. Revealing your fetish to the
world may have once been considered risqué, nowadays
it’s more an overshare. Like marijuana in the age of
legalization, kink has lost its mystique. The hazy boundary
between dirty nightclubs and the workaday has evaporated.
You can even bring your fetish to your workplace in a lily-white
leafy Toronto suburb and not be fired, like this shop teacher
with the z-cup prosthetics and Norman Bates wig . . .
(Update:
Kayla Lemieux has finally been relieved of his duties but
it took several months, international mockery, thousands of
complaints from parents and an investigation where it was
discovered the teacher lives life outside the classroom as
a man).
It’s
almost like Sam Smith—between the satanic Grammys act
and the golden showers fetish—was playing it safe. Nobody
much cares about tasteless provocations against Christianity
or even fetishes, so long as they’re kept away from
the kids.
If
he really wanted to ignite controversy, Sam Smith would have
brought his golden shower fetish to the Grammys stage. Now
that would spark outrage! Mercifully, he didn’t nor
would he. Like all modern day pop stars, he knows which side
his bread is buttered on. The glittering penthouses, black
cars and piles of money are way too seductive to risk cancellation.
Nobody wants to be this guy anymore:
Boomers
and GenXers like me worry about being labeled out-of-touch
geezers railing about the world going to hell, like Grandpa
Simpson shouting at clouds. We also remember snickering at
Tipper Gore’s campaign against “objectionable”
rock lyrics. Now that we’ve reached the epitome of pop
star shock and awe, we’re the ones looking back and
marvelling at how quaint Tipper Gore’s campaign seems
today. We’re also the ones most discouraged by how cliché
and nauseating pop music has become at the hands of desperate,
attention-hungry pop stars.
