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The Grammies: In A Culture Full Of Sam Smiths, Christianity Is The Real Subversion
The Federalist ^ | 02/07/2023 | Victoria Marshall

Posted on 02/07/2023 8:09:47 AM PST by SeekAndFind

Hollywood is in desperate need of new ideas. Take Sunday’s Grammy Awards, for example. If there were ever a spectacle that could simultaneously be described as demonic and trite, it would be Sam Smith’s performance of “Unholy,” which rang the final death knell for the satanic-ritual-as-art trope.

As Federalist contributor Isabelle Rosini wrote, it was as boring as it was unoriginal. Stiletto-clad devils? Latex pants? Whips? Women in cages? Bursts of flame to signify — in case it wasn’t clear enough — that Smith was singing from the pit of hell? “Been there, done that,” artists ranging from Lil Nas X to Lady Gaga would say.

And it all fell flat. Despite the media’s attempts at running interference — with all the typical Republicanspounce framing — the awards show was decidedly uninteresting, and this points to a broader crisis within the arts world itself. There is nothing it can produce that will shock the American public, quasi-satanic orgies and all.

Modern American culture has become a willing collaborator to the arts world — from Hollywood to the Oval Office, from TikTok to the public school classroom — thanks to the ascendancy of leftist orthodoxy in cultural and political institutions. Art can no longer be subversive once the political and broader media establishments espouse its values, whether those be sexual perversion or anti-religious bigotry.

Thus art has ceased to be interesting or subversive. Instead, the arts world and the establishment have merged — First Lady Jill Biden presented at the award show after all — producing mediocre content according to its tastes. If art wants to become subversive again, it must reject the values most prized by our modern culture. It must discard the idols of the left, from sexual deviancy to bitter racism. It must trash wokeness. Until it comes up with a fresh message, expect a continued mass exodus.

Reactionaries who really want to buck establishment tastes are congregating not in an art museum or mosh pit — but, ironically, at church. As Julia Yost described last summer in an op-ed for The New York Times titled “New York’s Hottest Club Is the Catholic Church,” pandemic-weary Manhattanites have rebelled against leftist orthodoxy by embracing traditional morality and the Catholic Church:

By 2020, the year of lockdowns and Black Lives Matter protests, progressivism had come to feel hegemonic in the social spaces occupied by young urban intellectuals. Traditional morality acquired a transgressive glamour. Disaffection with the progressive moral majority — combined with Catholicism’s historic ability to accommodate cultural subversion — has produced an in-your-face style of traditionalism. This is not your grandmother’s church — and whether the new faithful are performing an act of theater or not, they have the chance to revitalize the church for young, educated Americans.

Comedian Tim Dillon has noticed the same phenomenon. “All the cool kids now are unwoke and some of them are going back to Christianity because it’s the only way to be rebellious — because everybody’s blue-haired, non-binary, talking about piss orgies,” Dillon said in a recent interview with podcaster Joe Rogan.

@limitlessbrotherhood

Being woke is not cool anymore. Religious kids are now considered the rebellious ones♬ Joe Rogan X Tim Dillion – The Limitless Brotherhood™

That to be “transgressive” in this day and age means attending church and rediscovering religious orthodoxy is quite the plot twist, but it’s encouraging for the West’s prospects. Let’s hope this trend continues, and that so-called artists like Sam Smith and his tired satanism shtick get the red, latex boot.


Victoria Marshall is a staff writer at The Federalist. Her writing has been featured in the New York Post, National Review, and Townhall. She graduated from Hillsdale College in May 2021 with a major in politics and a minor in journalism.


TOPICS: Current Events; Moral Issues; Religion & Culture
KEYWORDS: grammies; samsmith; satanworship

1 posted on 02/07/2023 8:09:47 AM PST by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind
As Julia Yost described last summer in an op-ed for The New York Times titled “New York’s Hottest Club Is the Catholic Church,” pandemic-weary Manhattanites have rebelled against leftist orthodoxy by embracing traditional morality and the Catholic Church:

I wouldn't disagree. I attend a Latin Rite Churchn (not in NY City), that will invite SSPX Priests to sometimes perform mass or to speak.

Besides being packed-to-the-gills every Sunday, there are more than a few "fit and fashionable" young men and women, and young families as well. Talking at donuts and coffee afterwards, I learned these people are lawyers, engineers, corporate types, etc...

I don't think its a massive trend sweeping the nation, but the path out of our gutter-culture and society is at least being seen by a few future "elites."

2 posted on 02/07/2023 8:19:32 AM PST by PGR88 (, )
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To: SeekAndFind

I would like to know if “Maverick City Music”, the multiple Grammy winning act in the “Christian” category, made a statement or pushed back against the perversion on the stage in Los Angeles.


3 posted on 02/07/2023 8:23:41 AM PST by Recovering_Democrat
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To: PGR88

Some poll suggested more Americans are feeling spiritual because of covid but I think the trend away from Christian moral tradition in this country continues.


4 posted on 02/07/2023 8:24:15 AM PST by newzjunkey (Trump cannot win in 2024)
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To: SeekAndFind

The Satan Worship Service at the Grammy’s, which was attended by the Fallen-ex-Catholic First Lady of the United States government, marks the absolute end of pretending what Hollywood is really about, which is to completely destroy the morality of the USA.

Destroying America is Satan’s objective and he is succeeding.


5 posted on 02/07/2023 8:42:13 AM PST by FlyingEagle
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To: SeekAndFind

The song has nothing to do with Satanic rituals. It’s about someone cheating on their spouse. For inexplicable reasons, they decided to make a “shocking” video with satanic imagery, starring the Pillsbury doughboy and a Barbie doll.


6 posted on 02/07/2023 8:42:50 AM PST by GSWarrior
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To: FlyingEagle

He needs to destroy America as the eventual last ally of Israel so ALL nations of the world will come against Israel in the last days.


7 posted on 02/07/2023 8:58:52 AM PST by Hammerhead
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To: GSWarrior

I suppose it isn’t any more shocking than say Motley Crue’s “Shout At the Devil” or somesuch, it just looked stupid.


8 posted on 02/07/2023 9:02:56 AM PST by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: GSWarrior

Its an act...

And as somebody that is a friend of a self-identified “warlock”, laughable as a “shock” effort. Of course, my friend doesn’t take his faith all that seriously and hates gatherings of his compatriots because “everyone is trying out witch each other and it gets ridiculous”.

This was a high school production that the class naughty boy that thought it up was giggling about 5 minutes before it happened; depressed at people laughing at his “edgy and in your face ‘ART’” five minutes after.

The disturbing part for me is the usual suspects at Liberty and other “christian” institutions going full clutch the pearls at the “satanic ritual”. Proving that they have not meditated upon Proverbs 17:28...


9 posted on 02/07/2023 9:16:16 AM PST by L,TOWM (An upraised middle finger is my virtue signal.)
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To: SeekAndFind

“Grammy” in the plural is spelled G-r-a-m-m-y-s, not “Grammies”. I used to think that the “Band of Gypsys” album was misspelled on the cover but it isn’t. No big deal, just an FYI.


10 posted on 02/07/2023 9:24:04 AM PST by equaviator (There's nothing like the universe to bring you down to earth.)
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To: equaviator

when you are stupid, you don’t have a lot of ideas.


11 posted on 02/07/2023 10:18:27 AM PST by bioqubit (bioqubit: Educated Men Make Terrible Slaves - Aristotle)
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To: dfwgator

Backstage, Smith was heard to be saying “I won’t back down.” ; /


12 posted on 02/07/2023 11:03:40 AM PST by GSWarrior
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To: GSWarrior
Backstage, Smith was heard to be saying “I won’t back down.” ; /

"But I'll take it in the back"

13 posted on 02/07/2023 11:46:55 AM PST by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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