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Last night, non-binary singer Sam Smith doffed a hat with devil horns for a performance with trans performer Kim Petras at the Grammys. There were flames, Petras in a cage, and dancers dressed in what were effectively slutty demon Halloween costumes. On Twitter, right-wingers reacted as if Smith had literally sacrificed a baby for Satan on live TV.
And yes, some thought that literal Satan was literally involved.
Some were taken aback that the segment was seemingly sponsored by pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, hated by right-wingers for *checks notes* making COVID vaccines. (While Pfizer did sponsor the Grammys, it didn’t specifically sponsor that segment.)
Right-wing media personality Benny Johnson tried to link Joe Biden to the Grammy spectacle.
This dude, meanwhile, went after Madonna, who introduced Smith and Petras’ performance.
Ishtar? Wait, Madonna once dated Warren Beatty. Maybe this was a reference to his famous flop of a movie. Or, I dunno, just a hairstyle?
A handful of right-wingers professed to be bored by the whole thing.
Get with the program, guys; this was literal SATAN at work (allegedly); you need to be soiling your diapers like real right-wing pundits.
Anyway, congrats to Smith and Petras for winning a Grammy for best pop duo/group performance. It was a big night for trans folks, marred only slightly by Dave Chappelle also winning a Grammy for a transphobic Netflix special. You win some, you lose some.
Meanwhile, Beyonce took home her 32nd Grammy (no, really).
Hail Satan?
@personalpest
They’ll say that you secretly do believe in bot Yaweh and Satan and that you worship Satan but that you don’t want to admit it.
Also Christianity has that thing “The greatest trick the Devil pulled was convincing the world he doesn’t exist”. So you can be an anti-christ (in its original technical sense) even – especially – if you don’t accept any of the tenets of Christianity; including the reality of Satan.
@bcb : That is all too believable.
The always awesome Amanda Marcotte posted an interesting Twitter thread on this silly “controversy”. She theorizes that right-wingers sometimes post stuff that they realize is stupid, including deliberate mistakes, because they know people like us will ridicule them, thus giving them the attention they crave. She also links to her column about another manufactured controversy (the Chinese spy balloon) to comment on how the MAGAts are insecure cowards pretending to be tough guys, and how it all ties in to toxic masculinity. Both the thread and the column (like everything Marcotte writes) are well worth reading.
https://mobile.twitter.com/AmandaMarcotte/status/1623091692113956864
@Skiriki: LOL!
@bcb is correct — that’s exactly what they say. Not only anti-Semitic, but anti-Islamic, and openly anti-Hindu, anti-Buddhist, and anti-everything else too. Ya know, most of the people in the world.
@moregeekthan: ISTR the Underwood ham got called out in the 80s along with the “satanic” P&G logo.
I personally love the whole video, it’s so well-done and terrific-looking. Note that the singers and dancers in it are playing the demons who are taking the wildly unfaithful (and as the lyrics say, not even discreet about it!) husband down to Hell, which is where he deserves to be. Also it’s obvious that the wife set the whole deal up.
Watched the Aretha movie. It was about the making of the album of spirituals (and also “You’ve Got a Friend” by Carole King, in gospel style) “Amazing Grace”, which she recorded live in a Baptist church in Watts. With her father attending, awww. And Mick and Keef in the audience.
Sydney Pollack had shot the footage live in 1972, but back then they couldn’t sync the sound. So it wasn’t finished till 2011 and not released till 2018, after Aretha died.
“Have you ever considered converting to Christianity?”
I thought I’d better see what all the fuss was about. So I finally checked out the Grammies thing. Very nice. Reminded me of Bananarama’s Venus.
I also checked to the video for the song; and I was horrified!
They’ve trashed that XJ; and it’s still in MOT until 23 May this year!!!!
(I’d have had that!)
sheesh, these conservatives are a bunch of snowflakes
But did you know Jesus is Indian?
I know that it’s easy to make fun of this situation, but… Well just remember that the original waves of the Satanic Panic resulted in people’s lives being ruined and attempts to pass religious based unjust laws. In the current era of fear mongering those laws are much more likely to be passed. Also more likely to be upheld with a fascist stacked supreme court. This is especially true with people in government promoting making the US into a draconian fascist Christian theocractic dictatorship. Complete with laws indistinguishable from Sharia Law. It’s especially concerning with the rapid uptick in anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-woman laws being pushed across GOP controlled states.
@Alan: I hope it was only the chassis they destroyed; having less weight to suspend above a stage full of people would also be better.
I find the video delightful and sing along to it. The Mr. happened upon an MTV channel that actually still shows videos at the beginning of the pandemic, and ever since we’ve popped it on for an hour or two when nothing much is happening. Nice background noise for surfing the web, and it means I did know many of the nominees. Also props for the “Unholy” video having credits for EVERYONE.
I didn’t know Kim was trans till the Grammys, although I know Sam prefers the company of men and goes by “they”. I didn’t care about either, and I thought it was very kind of Sam to let Kim do the whole speech.
They’ve always been fond of the double entendre… see “How Do You Sleep?” (which lyric is followed by “I’m hoping that my love will keep you up tonight“, ooh Matron!) Also a lovely video with shirtless dancing men and very nice editing.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvpDeGlR5wLP9Z3Tb6K0Xfg
They are delivering perfectly solid pop/dance tunes on a regular basis, which is a legit achievement. I’ve never bought or even streamed any of the songs, but it’s pleasant enough music when I hear it.
@ gss ex-noob
Back in my roadie days we used to do the Brit Awards. One year a band called Eternal decided that they wanted to come on stage in a Rolls Royce.
The producer decided the production budget for that would be five grand.
The chosen vehicle duly arrived. You don’t exactly get a lot of Rolls Royce for 5K. It was very pretty to look at but was pissing oil all the way from the trailer. We started it up; and let’s just say it was growly. And now the oil it was spraying everywhere was also hot.
We decided it was probably safer just to take a big run up and push it up the stage ramp.
Now stages for TV shows have something called Marley applied. It’s better for the lighting. It’s also very grippy. Great for dance acts. Well, grippy until you’ve poured nine litres of oil over it during rehearsals.
We could tell people lacked confidence in the car’s stopping ability when the TV, sound, and lighting crews started moving anything expensive from the opposite side of the stage.
ETA: My late friend Phil Kerwick actually ‘drove’ the car. For the actual live performance he did it bollock naked except for a chauffeur’s hat and a tie. There was a thing that year with the crew and the acts to do at least one illicit thing per performamce. But subtle. So we could all watch afterwards and know what was going on but nobody saw.
Vinny Thomas has a nice little skit of someone who has never heard of Satan watching Sam Smith https://twitter.com/vinn_ayy/status/1623071868956864512?cxt=HHwWgMDTof7Qp4YtAAAA
They eat their own. The internet is about to blow up because Trump just accused DeSantis of “grooming”. American politics is a shit show!
@Alan Robertshaw:
They’ve trashed that what and it’s still in what until what????
@Alan: It’s one of those “we’ll laugh at this someday” moments. Presumably the dodgy Rolls wasn’t what made Phil “late”! I wonder why the producer didn’t just rent one.
Apparently the Grammys had a malfunction, causing the dancers for Harry Styles’ number to look awkward. After days of rehearsal, when the curtain went up, their turntable spun backwards.
@Love Is: Eh, they don’t care about Matt “Sixhead” Gaetz paying underage girls to travel with him, they won’t care about DeathSantis partying with girls over 18, even if they were students.
Just like they don’t care about Gym Jordan deliberately ignoring a male co-worker hitting on young men. And how they don’t care Melania was a hooker and Mango Mussolini rawdogged porn stars.
So, I guess I’ll have to hide my Dungeons and Dragons books again because we’re literally doing the greatest hits of the Satanic Panic, the Lavender Scare and the Red Menace.
The more things change the more they stay the same
GSS ex noob, I know she posed nude at one point but never heard she was a hooker. I googled and found this
I find it’s kind of a dig at sex workers. Sex worker is a title fit for racists and ecological terrorists?
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/laughingindisbelief/2021/03/fact-check-melania-was-a-sex-worker-in-amsterdam/
I mean. That would require actual self-reflection…
@Love is All We Need
Wow, what bullshit. Being a sex worker is by no means as horrible as being a racist and ecological terrorist. In fact, it’s not horrible at all. We need to get rid of that patriarchal crap already, because it’s nothing else. Just another way to enforce patriarchy by regulating women’s bodies and sexuality, in this case, by devaluing those who sell sex. If he really wanted to give her a title, why not go with what he called her right before that? A racist and ecological terrorist.
Ted Cruz.
I’m pretty much in favor of anything that crusty piece of feces dislikes.
Madonna has always been the Satanic mockery of the Virgin Mary, who brought the light of Jesus Christ into the world.
A lot of protestants have said something VERY similar about the Catholic Church’s “idolatry” of the Virgin Mary herself. They’ve also been known to accuse Catholic nuns and convents of being hotbeds of paganism, prostitution and satanic orgies. So…just another case of centuries-old bigotry finding a new target.
@Love is All We Need, @KMB,
FYI, Laughing in Disbelief is/was a humor blog, so take the ‘Melania is a former sex worker’ thing from therewith a grain or ten of salt.
Though I’m amazed that anyone can still link to anything on the Patheos Nonrelgious channel, since Patheos essentially shadow deleted it a year or so back when everyone writing for it left to create their own website (long story). All the old blogs are still there, but the hoops you have to bum through to read any of them… D:
@Vucodlak,
The Christian Evangelical set also consider Catholics as worshipers of the demoness Venus, who they disguised as the Virgin Mary to deceive the common folk into thinking God approved that worship style.
@Love Is: She did pose for nude pseudo-lesbian photos, and reputable sources have said Trump met her when she was an escort. They got receipts, but I don’t remember. Of course, she was on a visa that didn’t allow for earning any money (even for dirty pictures), so she was working illegally and overstaying her visa. Thus the joke/not joke that Barron is an anchor baby.
Everything Republicans claim to hate, yet they think she’s so “classy”. I mean, even if it was only the nude pictures, that’s not family values, is it?
I would like to say to sex workers everywhere: fear not, I don’t judge you by her. She’s evil and aids and abets evil; y’all are just giving people what they want.