By now I suppose you’ve all heard, or read, about Michelle
Shocked’s anti-LGBT rant from the stage at Yoshi's in the Fillmore over the
weekend.
When Shocked took the stage she said something about an "invisible
man" on the stage and that she needed an avatar. She encouraged the
audience to tweet her comments and song requests, and audience member Matt
Penfield joined her on stage to follow Shocked’s tweets as she sang.
Her first set was nothing out of the ordinary, though at one
point she stopped to read some of the tweets herself. In response to a request
for a gospel song, she said, "I love me some Jesus," and in the
middle of another song, she made a political statement an Occupy issue; Shocked was arrested in 2011 in
an Occupy LA protest. At
intermission she Tweeted: "Truth is leading to painful
confrontation."
During the second set Shocked told the crowd that she was "all
about reality" and then began the rant heard round the world. She said she
was tired of Christians hiding behind the cross, then said, "When they
stop Prop 8 and force priests at gunpoint to marry gays, it will be the
downfall of civilization and Jesus will come back."
Many in the crowd, most of them San Franciscans, walked out.
One woman shouted: "Don't say that shit in San Francisco."
Shocked replied, "Where do I go to say it?"
Then Shocked offered a prayer in Spanish: "God loves
you. God loves us. God loves us all everywhere." When people in the crowd
asked what she was saying, Shocked, with a huge grin, said, "You are going
to leave here and tell people 'Michelle Shocked said God hates faggots.'"
With two-thirds of the audience gone by this point, a Yoshi's
manager announced, "Thank you for coming ladies and gentlemen. This show
is over."
"It's not over," Shocked said; she continued
to sing until management cut off her microphone and shut off the stage lights.
Now, some fans say Shocked was merely being misinterpreted,
and that her comments were related to hypocrisy regarding anti-LGBT folks, but
Shocked has yet to respond, and,/or apologize for what she said.
Penfield, who served as Shocked's 'invisible man', and
walked off the stage during her rant, said "She said hateful things
about gays and she was aggressively promoting a religious agenda I disagree
with."
After the performance Shocked was talking with three
fans when the Bay
Area Reporter asked her to clarify her
comments. When one of the three fans told Shocked the B.A.R. was a “gay paper" Shocked said, "God bless us
everyone" and left.
A venue in Chicago, SPACE, had a Shocked show scheduled, but
cancelled the show after learning of her on stage anti-LGBT rant. Blogger John M. Becker, who posted about
Shocked’s performance [HERE], created a Change.org petition [HERE] asking other
venues to follow SPACE’s example and cancel Shocked’s upcoming dates. And it seems to be
working; according to Shocked’s
own website, on Monday she had eleven upcoming concert performances, and now
there are just two.
Look, here’s how
this works: entertain me. Sing the songs I want to here. Have a political
viewpoint. Share it with me. But Shocked wasn’t using the power of Free Speech,
she was using Hate Speech, in San Francisco of all places, and, well, I don’t
know if people should pay to see a musician perform, only to be subjected to
her anti-LGBT rants.
She has a right to
her opinion, and, as we say in the South, God
Bless her, but don’t ask me to pay to hear you spew hate when all I wanted
was to hear a few songs.
Check out John M.
Becker’s blog for a list of the venues that have said No to Shocked. It’s nice
to see people, and businesses, rally together to stifle Hate Speech. In fact,
one venue, the Alberta Rose Theatre in Portland, not only cancelled Shocked’s upcoming
performance, but are replacing it with a benefit concert for Basic Rights
Oregon.
I’d much rather see
that show.
The Bay Area Reporter
John M. Becker
The Change.org Petition
I hear there is a Christian music circuit out there she can try to break into....
ReplyDeleteIt is a sad day indeed when a artist, who took the name "Shocked" as her stage name feels that she has to invoke it. She committed artistic suicide with this. No one will ever trust her to take the stage again without wondering "will she keep it together, or snap and piss people off. Seems that Shocked had wanted to shock us. And she finally has.
ReplyDeleteHave we learned nothing from Sinead O'Connor's career?
ReplyDeleteLike O'Connor, Shocked went from "unknown" to "has been" in a matter of minutes. Career suicide indeed.
Thanks for pointing out the good that might come from her antics.
Who is Michelle Shocked? If it weren't for her rant I wouldn't know she existed.
ReplyDeleteI hope she likes to sing about cheating husbands, shooting dogs and pickup trucks. That's the only music genre that will accept her now.
bitch!
ReplyDeleteI'm shocked! hehe...j/k
ReplyDeleteI don't even know who she is and it sounds like I don't want to
I'm just waiting for someone to say that her remarks have been "taken out of context." Oh, someone already has?
ReplyDeleteR.J., Michelle Shocked rode the wave of female singers in the late 1980s that included Tracy Chapman and Indigo Girls. She had a sizable lesbian following at one point. She was also a familiar face at demonstrations where she offered fans a two fer, music and protests. But she never found mainstream success. While people will remember Sunny Came Home, they are more likely to forget Shawn Olvin sang it. The reverse is true for shocked. They remember the name, but the music was forgettable. That's why so many people have no auditory memory of her music. She did do ONE fun video, The Greener Side in 1990. But that's about it for me.
ReplyDeleteI've seen this story everywhere and the only thing I can keep thinking is who is she? I've never heard of her or perhaps I just don't recognize the name.
ReplyDelete