Want to know why so many people are giving up on “mainstream” pop culture? Take a look at Sam Smith and Kim Petras’ performance of their hit song “Unholy” at the Grammy Awards on Sunday night.
In case you missed it, Variety described the performance as including “Petras dancing in a cage, flanked by some dominatrices wearing satanic headgear. Smith also donned a satanic top hat, as huge flames heated up the stage.” You know, wholesome family entertainment. Cardi B, hold their beer.
Now, it’s totally possible for a mature adult to watch this and see it for what it is: an aggressive reach for attention through controversy.
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This isn’t my first rodeo; I lived through the 1980s “satanic panic”—when politicians’ wives were able to get congressional hearings held to tackle the supposed scourge of heavy metal bands that seem harmlessly campy with the passage of time. And last night’s satan/bondage show reminded me of that Onion headline from 22 years ago: “Marilyn Manson Now Going Door-To-Door Trying To Shock People.”
But even if you see the satanic schtick as more schlocky than disturbing, it’s hard to make the case that images of women grinding in cages are appropriate for network television on a Sunday night during prime time—a time when the broadest audience available, including children, are watching. Again, we are talking about the Grammy Awards, mainstream pop music’s Oscars, which aired on CBS from 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT. (It was sponsored by Pfizer—something that was not lost on many right-wing anti-vaxx Twitter kooks.)
This is not to say art shouldn’t be provocative.
Petras—whose past hits include “Treat Me Like a Slut”—during her acceptance speech after winning the Grammy Best Pop Duo Performance for “Unholy,” proclaimed she was the first transgender woman to win the award, and later backstage, explained that she “grew up wondering about religion and wanting to be a part of it but slowly realizing it didn’t want me to be a part of it.” Petras added, “So it’s a take on not being able to choose religion. And not being able to live the way that people might want you to live, because as a trans person I’m already not kind of wanted in religion. So we were doing a take on that and I was kind of hellkeeper Kim.”
That seems to me to be at least an interesting perspective for her artistic inspiration. I’m just not sure what it has to do with the implied orgy of satan worship and bondage that we were treated to.
As far as I’m concerned, willing adults can watch this all they want. But last night’s TV audience didn’t buy a ticket for this. Indeed, on a show intended for general audiences, it was meant to provoke, to push boundaries, and very possibly designed to offend a good portion of the audience.
And when you’re sticking your finger in the eye of millions of people, it’s really hard to argue with those who say that “Hollywood” produces a mainstream popular culture that is openly intolerant of their values. It’s also hard to tell them they’re wrong and intolerant if they would prefer to check out, unplug the TV, and homeschool their kids. Choice is a two-way street, and many are making the informed choice to tune out while they still can.
I may be more attuned to this than some. Almost every Sunday, my wife and I sit in the back pew of a conservative church. About once a month, the pastor preaches about how bad things are in America, and how our culture is so debauched and depraved.
To be honest, I usually find the “going to hell in a handbasket” sermons to be overwrought—possibly because I already live a fairly charmed life. But I suspect that his opinion isn’t just shared by the people sitting in the pews to the left and right of me—but by millions of Christian conservatives in America, irrespective of whether they ever set foot in church.
And whatever you think about the artistic value of the Grammys’ satan dance routine, it wasn’t meant to win hearts and minds or to encourage mutual tolerance and respect. It was rough stuff, and a massive turnoff to people concerned that our culture has become too hostile to many people’s traditional religious values.
Make no mistake, this sort of thing has political ramifications. While responsible conservatives worry about our coarsened culture, some of their cousins on the illiberal MAGA right want to exploit the sense that our elites (in news and entertainment media) aren’t just out of touch with middle-American values, they are outright demonic.
As one observer put it on Twitter:
“Alex Jones: Hollywood is one big satanic sex cult.
“Hollywood: He’s a conspiracy theorist.
“Also Hollywood:”
Hollywood is obviously not what QAnon alleges—and I’ve written extensively on how dangerous I consider that conspiracy theory movement to be. But liberal elites in entertainment and media are presenting satanism and women in cages as mainstream, primetime entertainment—while simultaneously trying to police our speech for “sensitivity.” Conservatives are told that the things we think and say are “problematic” and potentially deserving of cancellation, while performance artists win awards and plaudits for things that never would have been tolerated on network TV a few short years ago.
If you are a forty-year-old rural Christian, to the cultural elites, your lived experience doesn’t count for much. In fact, it’s you who should be shamed and demonized. It’s easy to see how this mindset is disorienting and (potentially) radicalizing.
So what was the point of putting this outrageous performance on network TV during primetime? I’ll allow that this wasn’t a sincere attempt to indoctrinate our kids into satan worship. What I won’t hear is that it wasn’t a cynical attempt to generate buzz and money, regardless of the consequences.
The people on the right who believe that Hollywood elites and the media are openly hostile to their values may be a lot of things, but as the Grammys demonstrated on Sunday night, on that count, they're not wrong.
