Heartily agree about the SNL cooptation. I never watched the show live, just reruns on Comedy Central, but I remember hearing about it and thinking "fucking awesome, what a badass!" and being totally baffled at how upset all the numpties were. About a picture!
Good thoughtful piece as usual. The weirdo anecdote in Loewen almost sounds like an Easter egg: "see, kids! Told you to pay attention!" but is probably just a sign of the impossibility of objectivity and absolute faith to facts that afflicts us and cannot be resisted. Even your favorites fuck up, and never meet your idols. Except Patti Smith, who is perfect and whose every work is exactly as it should be.
So much of the Sinead controversy was about context. In the US, JP2 was very popular and generally seen as a benign if not positive force (largely due to his anticommunism). So the idea that he was an enemy to be fought was totally alien to Americans, I think in 1992 Sinead’s action was just completely incomprehensible and seen as gratuitous, whereas if you knew what was going on in Ireland at the time it makes a lot of sense. If you’d done this in 2003 or 2004 in the US, it would’ve been more legible given the revelations about church abuse here by that point.
I was 14 in 1992, living in America, and I got it. I think that actually makes me older than you. Albeit, I didn't know the whole history in detail, I just knew the Catholic Church was no benign grandpa.
Heartily agree about the SNL cooptation. I never watched the show live, just reruns on Comedy Central, but I remember hearing about it and thinking "fucking awesome, what a badass!" and being totally baffled at how upset all the numpties were. About a picture!
Good thoughtful piece as usual. The weirdo anecdote in Loewen almost sounds like an Easter egg: "see, kids! Told you to pay attention!" but is probably just a sign of the impossibility of objectivity and absolute faith to facts that afflicts us and cannot be resisted. Even your favorites fuck up, and never meet your idols. Except Patti Smith, who is perfect and whose every work is exactly as it should be.
So much of the Sinead controversy was about context. In the US, JP2 was very popular and generally seen as a benign if not positive force (largely due to his anticommunism). So the idea that he was an enemy to be fought was totally alien to Americans, I think in 1992 Sinead’s action was just completely incomprehensible and seen as gratuitous, whereas if you knew what was going on in Ireland at the time it makes a lot of sense. If you’d done this in 2003 or 2004 in the US, it would’ve been more legible given the revelations about church abuse here by that point.
I was 14 in 1992, living in America, and I got it. I think that actually makes me older than you. Albeit, I didn't know the whole history in detail, I just knew the Catholic Church was no benign grandpa.