Don’t look at me, I gave up on Michelle Shocked the first time I heard her music on MTV around 1989 or so. At last, a much more reactionary audience in San Francisco has finally caught up with my cutting edge opinion:
In the annals of the Most Disastrous Shows Ever, there is a new entry. Folk-rock singer Michelle Shocked had the plug pulled on her concert Sunday night after launching into an anti-gay-marriage speech that led most of the audience to walk out.
Did we mention that her fans largely lean well to the left, thanks to the liberal politics that previously infused much of her music, and that the gig where she chose to come out (so to speak) as an Old Testament-citing preacher on homosexual issues was in the heart of San Francisco?
Word of the debacle began spreading via social media even before the operator of Yoshi’s interrupted Shocked’s performance to announce that, as a gay man, he could not allow the show to continue and she would have to leave the stage. Ironically, Shocked had spent much of the show asking the crowd to engage with her and even pick her set list via Twitter. It’s unclear whether she had any idea that, within hours, outraged former fans would be using that same forum to declare that they believe her career is over.
From all accounts, the first set had gone great, but when Shocked returned for the second set, she began talking about the evils that will result if California’s Proposition 8 is overturned by the courts, to allow gay marriage in the state. Shocked cited verses from the Old Testament condemning homosexuality, first in English and then, puzzlingly, in Spanish. She even told the crowd that they “could go on Twitter and say ‘Michelle Shocked says God hates f–s’,” although that particular line was interpreted differently by some on hand, as either ironic or completely sincere.
Sheryl Crow-style botched joke defense in 3..2…1..?
Also just in: wait, Michelle Shocked is straight…?!
Update: Related thoughts from Big Hollywood, which notes that “More cancellations pile up for Shocked’s current tour.”
More: A reminder from Jim Treacher, “Michelle Shocked and Fred Phelps are both Democrats, by the way.” Treacher asks, “Oh, and she also hates George Bush and was arrested at an Occupy rally a while back. Will those lefty bona fides help her now? Ha ha, just kidding.”
Heh. Perhaps Bob Woodward will write the obit for her career.
Speaking of which, Ace asks what he dubs a “difficult question:”
If her music was previously worthy, has it become unworthy now that she’s a homophobe?
Left wing people claim that it doesn’t matter, and relentlessly mock the right for our boycotts and refusal to buy into entertainments made by people who clearly hate us. At least, left wing people claim this so long as it’s right wing values being gored; the moment someone gores the left wing’s ox, they boycott like crazy.
So: Does it matter or not?
I think the word he’s looking for is: Siberia.
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