Most of the millions of Americans who tuned into the Grammy awards probably were expecting the program would be devoted to music.
Silly us.
As it turns out, what we were treated to were deeply religious ceremonies reflective of the most recent cultlike obsessions of Hollywood and the music industry.
During one ceremony, it seemed the spirit of the now deceased cult leader Reverend Moon of Korea was reincarnated in the form of Queen Latifah, who conducted a mass wedding for gay and straight couples during the program.
For those who don’t recall, the good Reverend Moon was the cult leader who was infamous for holding mass weddings, one of the most illustrious of which was held in the Seoul Olympic stadium in 1992. Moon, who affected pseudo papal garb complete with his own version of the pontiff’s mitre, held many tightly orchestrated mass wedding ceremonies. The cult leader, whose followers were irreverently named “Moonies,” was born in North Korea and was obviously influenced by his close relationships with the Dear Leaders Kim Il Sung and Kim Jung Il. The North Korean dignitaries’ penchant for mass ceremonies distinguished by regimented and unthinking synchronicity is well known.
The ghost of the messianic Reverend Moon rose again, this time dispensing his illuminating lunar blessing on the ceremony at the Grammys. The parading New Moonies were apparently a touching sight for some, as their march down the aisle was accompanied by discreet tears of joy from some of the celebrities in attendance, Keith Urban among the most prominent.
Are mass gay and straight weddings, accompanied by blessings from the priests and priestesses of the music industry, now to be entrenched as part of Hollywood’s award ceremonies? Are the film and music industries to be subject to the latest ideological mass trends?
Let’s hope not.
First, there is something radically wrong with the film and music industries’ elites when they imitate and/or approve of cultlike mentality and behavior such as mass weddings, no matter what sort of couples are being “married.” All one has to do is to look at the regimented celebrations of North Korea’s dear leaders to see the obliteration of individuality and rationality. It is clear that in robotic mass ceremonies, what is being promoted is conformity to the ideology of the moment and the propagandizing of a cause. Contrary views are impossible in the context of the madness of crowds. It’s clear the message of those in charge of the Grammy ceremonies were letting American public know the issue of gay marriage was so inextricably intertwined with the entertainment industry that it required no further debate but only mass celebration.
How sad it was to see the Grammy’s “weddings” given uniform approval and to hear the applause of people whose very careers are supposedly devoted to unique creativity.
Some of the most original and creative geniuses in America are to be found in Hollywood and the American music industry. The best among them enchant us, move us and inspire us. Think of the revolutionary creativity of companies like Pixar, which has given impetus to some of the most delightful and fantastical moving pictures ever created, including Frozen, one of the most recent releases for children of all ages. Think of Leonard Cohen’s deeply moving song, “Hallelujah,” which when sung by a phenomenal artist like the late Jeff Buckley, expresses the inexpressible as only music can, moving the listener to the depths of being.
But all the technological and musical magic in the world will not be art if it is sublimated to rigid ideology suited to, expressed by and even supplanted by mass behavior.
In order to create, there must be freedom to diverge from the ideology of the crowd and an elite who are hell-bent on imposing their worldview on artists.
Those who are leaders of the entertainment industry in all its forms, including music and film, might recall the McCarthy phenomenon, which they see as characterized by the desire for mass thinking permitting little divergence. They might want to revisit the history of the blacklists that killed many a career.
It’s a good idea to note there is a great dividing line between Cohen’s “Hallelujah” and the “Horst Wessel Song.” The one was the full flowering of free and creative genius. The other was a hackneyed marching tune, deathly similar to the Waffen SS’ theme song, “Sieg Heil Viktoria.” Both were composed as propaganda for an odious creed. Both bear the marks that indicate the extinguishing of the creative spirit when it is subject to a narrow and transient ideology.
That both Hollywood and the music industry apparently are now in the grip of a type of cultlike ideology characterized by thought regimentation and lockstep behavior should send shivers down the spine of every artist. Artists in the fields of film and music need to take note of and protest the degradation of their arts, especially when they see at a top awards ceremony openly celebrating crudely propagandistic mass behavior, the vulgar sexual exhibitionism characterizing the performance of Beyonce and the even cruder anti-Christian diatribe via “music” of Katy Perry