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David Bowie, Icon or Abuser?
Townhall.com ^ | January 15, 2016 | Brent Bozell

Posted on 01/15/2016 4:44:05 AM PST by Kaslin

When David Bowie died after a very private fight with liver cancer, obituary writers churned out words like "icon" and "legend" and "subversive." Despite a life of very fluid explorations of musicality and sexuality and spirituality, the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano celebrated Bowie as "never banal," displaying an "artistic rigor" which seemed to contradict the sexually "ambiguous image" he presented to "attract the attention of the media."

This star-struck eulogy ignored Bowie's 2013 album "The Next Day." His "artistic rigor" included a nasty anti-Catholic video, starring actor Gary Oldman as an angry priest. It begins with this priest punching a begging teenage boy in the face. He enters what appears to be a nightclub for priests (and a cardinal) who glance lasciviously at half-dressed women. Bowie "sings" (in this case, unmusically growls) "And the priest stiff in hate now demanding fun begin / Of his women dressed as men for the pleasure of that priest." He offers only cynicism toward these set-apart, celibate men: "They can work with Satan while they dress like the saints / They know God exists for the devil told them so."

For Crisis magazine, Father George Rutler added that this unofficial Vatican paper also celebrated the artistry of the notorious child-abuser Michael Jackson: "Everybody knows his problems with the law after the pedophilia accusations. But no accusation, however serious or shameful, is enough to tarnish his myth among his millions of fans throughout the entire world."

In the same vein, they (and everyone in the major media) also ignored new reports surfacing just in the last two months that Bowie deflowered a 15-year-old groupie named Lori Mattix (and then brought in her 15-year-old gal pal Sable Starr to make it a threesome). Mattix said it was consensual: "I remember him looking like God and having me over a table. Who wouldn't want to lose their virginity to David Bowie?"

But at 15, in California, it was statutory rape. In her story, she went from Bowie directly to "dating" Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page.

Bowie was never pressed to defend himself or deny the story. But it adds to the litany of famous male entertainers who've exploited underage girls with their celebrity, from Roman Polanski to Bill Cosby to Woody Allen. While the secular news industry in New York and the social justice warriors in Hollywood pour outrage all over the predatory Catholic priests who abused children in this same era of sex and drugs and "revolution," the rockers and the filmmakers plowed their way through a polyester playground of high-school groupies exploiting their "star privilege."

Not every allegation -- even happy boasts of being sky-high and "special" and deflowered at 15 -- is true. But in our media culture, the sexual abuse of children is only offensive when undertaken by hypocritical men who have violated a vow of chastity and try to impose ancient commandments on their followers. Only allegations against priests are so offensive that they are reported even when the evidence is slight, and even when the accused is deceased.

David Bowie died to universal acclaim, even from a star-struck Vatican newspaper. No one's obituary would deviate from the celebration an art-rock "icon" can expect.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
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1 posted on 01/15/2016 4:44:05 AM PST by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

The elites liked him, so “David Bowie was a genius” is the received wisdom.

He represented the opposite of the male prototype of which Archie Bunker was supposed to be the symbol.


2 posted on 01/15/2016 4:51:10 AM PST by Steely Tom (Vote GOP: A Slower Handbasket)
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To: Kaslin

I think he, and his music, are weird.


3 posted on 01/15/2016 4:54:34 AM PST by brianr10
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To: brianr10

My thoughts exactly.


4 posted on 01/15/2016 4:59:55 AM PST by Kaslin (He needed the ignorant to reelect him, and he got them. Now we all have to pay the consequenses)
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To: Steely Tom

Let’s try to keep this in perspective. He was an entertainer.

“The United States had become a place where entertainers and professional athletes were mistaken for people of importance. They were idolized and treated as leaders; their opinions were sought on everything and they took themselves just as seriously”

Robert A. Heinlein


5 posted on 01/15/2016 5:01:01 AM PST by Daveinyork ("Trusting government with money and power is like trusting teenaged boys with whiskey and car keys",)
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To: Kaslin

A marvelous talent. Explored uncharted musical directions. The left puts down our founding fathers who owned slaves. You folks are going in the same direction.


6 posted on 01/15/2016 5:03:23 AM PST by DIRTYSECRET (urope. Why do they put up with this.)
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To: Kaslin
Thanks for posting this. Good for Bozell. I read a long article about Bowie a couple of years ago (New Yorker? Atlantic? Can't remember) that talked a lot about the impact of his genderqueer schtick on the youth culture of the '70's. He was a major glamorizer of drugged-up sexual perversion and --- whether he was an ephebophile or not, I do not know --- exposed a lot of kids to harm and screwed up a lot of kid's lives.

Glad somebody was able to say it. Thank you, Brent Bozell.

And if the Vatican "Dialogue with Culture" team couldn't say that, they should have kept their foolish mouths shut. IMHO.

7 posted on 01/15/2016 5:06:22 AM PST by Mrs. Don-o (They say what's up is down, they say what isn't, is, they put ideas in his head he thought were his.)
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To: Kaslin

Unless, on the highly unlikely chance that David Bowie on his death-bed confessed sincere belief in Jesus Christ and asked for forgiveness for his life of sin, then he is now meeting face-to-face with the very same Satan that he glorified in a lot of his music and lifestyle. And I am just betting that the devil is not showering him with hugs and kisses and riches and comfort. Sad!


8 posted on 01/15/2016 5:07:42 AM PST by Apple Pan Dowdy (... as American as Apple Pie)
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To: DIRTYSECRET

He had the same outrageous style back in the 70s like Kiss, Queen, Elton John, ABBA, and many others.

But for some to say his music was trash is just absurd. Just posturing to come across as more “refined”.

Like what were some of these people listening to back then, Lawrence Welk?

Although that video with Mick Jagger was a bit cringeworthy...


9 posted on 01/15/2016 5:20:45 AM PST by VanDeKoik
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To: Kaslin
He never claimed to be a paragon of virtue - and his "rape victim" never recanted the 'consensual - and I liked it" point of view. I guess some would say that a legal 16 at the time made a big difference in the girl's ability to decide whether or not to have sex.

As far as the bit about the priests - I guess it hurts some because it touches close to home and others because they want to determine who gets to point out some obvious and tragic flaws in those who one assumes can be trusted with little kids and other potential victims.

Like some of his music, tepid about some, and dislike some - makes him just another human being who happened to make it big.

Funny how some can't wait to shit on the graves of the dead with nly a little bit of info to go on - makes one wonder about how they come to their conclusions.

Please note - all my comments directed at the story - not the poster.

10 posted on 01/15/2016 5:21:09 AM PST by trebb (Where in the the hell has my country gone?)
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To: trebb

Excellent point.


11 posted on 01/15/2016 5:23:04 AM PST by Kaslin (He needed the ignorant to reelect him, and he got them. Now we all have to pay the consequenses)
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To: Apple Pan Dowdy

90% of humanity that ever lived hasn’t known about Jesus. Are they all damned? Is someone that just has a passing knowledge also damned?

Like the south park movie, heaven has an entry sign of a few tens of thousands while hell has billions and counting faster than you can see.


12 posted on 01/15/2016 5:24:50 AM PST by Monty22002
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To: brianr10

I agree! So glad I’m not the only one!


13 posted on 01/15/2016 5:38:38 AM PST by FES0844
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To: Monty22002
90% of humanity that ever lived hasn’t known about Jesus. Are they all damned? Is someone that just has a passing knowledge also damned?

Scripture has an answer for every important question including the one you posed..... Matthew 13:13 Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: 14 Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

14 posted on 01/15/2016 5:42:19 AM PST by hecticskeptic (In life it's important to know what you believe�.but more more importantly, why you believe it.)
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To: hecticskeptic

Well, I kinda already knew my answer. In the NT, the masses will burn in hell. Even most Christians. The mass majority of humanity and those of prehistoric times, will burn in hell.


15 posted on 01/15/2016 5:44:49 AM PST by Monty22002
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To: Kaslin

Sleeping with 15 year old girls is bad, no doubt.

But can we let his body cool to room temp before start tearing the guy down.


16 posted on 01/15/2016 5:46:38 AM PST by Vermont Lt
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To: Vermont Lt

Thank you.


17 posted on 01/15/2016 5:51:23 AM PST by Night Hides Not (Remember the Alamo! Remember Goliad! Remember Mississippi! My vote is going to Cruz.)
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To: Monty22002

It may not be quite as cut-and-dried as you think...

Romans 2

13 For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. 14 For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. 15 They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them 16 on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.


18 posted on 01/15/2016 6:11:28 AM PST by antidisestablishment (If Washington was judged with the same standard as Sodom, it would not exist.)
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To: antidisestablishment

That is a great quote, and an example of why everyone might not be damned. It also means that people don’t have to be fundies to be saved as well.


19 posted on 01/15/2016 6:14:01 AM PST by Monty22002
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To: brianr10

I was in middle school when he hit it big. The girls were more in to him than the guys, because of his cross dressing and make-up I suppose.


20 posted on 01/15/2016 6:16:20 AM PST by Hotlanta Mike ('You can avoid reality, but you can�t avoid the consequences of avoiding reality.�)
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