RE: RIP thread
July 31, 2023 at 8:56 pm
(This post was last modified: July 31, 2023 at 8:59 pm by Rev. Rye.)
(July 27, 2023 at 6:02 am)Fake Messiah Wrote: When Sinéad O’Connor tore up a picture of the Pope in 1992, over 70,000 children had been sexually abused by Catholic priests and brothers in Ireland.
Demonised by the State, the media and the Catholic Church, when so many stayed silent, she refused. She was the truth before many of us knew where to look.
Well, she may have been the truth, but she didn't exactly tell the truth. Here's the original performance, guess what was missing?
If you answered "any explanation as to why the seemingly universally-beloved Pope John Paul II qualified as 'The Real Enemy,'" you would be correct. Granted, she changed a verse to be about child abuse, but it would be almost a decade until the Boston Globe blew the whistle on the RCC's history of child molestation coverups, launching the subject into public knowledge. And while there were occasional references to children molesting priests, John Q. Public had about as much context for those jokes as Family Guy's 2005 audience had to appreciate this joke:
And, in addition to that, Sinead O'Connor had a history with the Magdalene Laundries, something that, at the time of her SNL appearance, would have been next to unknown in America.
Sinead, however, mentioned NONE of that. She didn't even bring the church into this until she showed that photo while she sang the word "Evil." It took her several weeks before she even explained herself.
Of course, it turned out she was absolutely right.
But who else wound up being absolutely right? Madonna, when she said: "I think there is a better way to present her ideas rather than ripping up an image that means a lot to other people ... If she is against the Roman Catholic Church and she has a problem with them, I think she should talk about it." Maybe not about ripping up the photo being bad, but definitely about how she should have talked about her issues with the RCC.
Seriously, I suspect that if she said something like, "The Roman Catholic Church has covered up the abuse of thousands of children in my home country alone. Fight the real enemy!" Her mainstream career might have survived.
And because she didn't, she became a case study in why optics are vital in raising consciousness of important issues like this.
Comparing the Universal Oneness of All Life to Yo Mama since 2010.
I was born with the gift of laughter and a sense the world is mad.
I was born with the gift of laughter and a sense the world is mad.