The entertainment awards shows used to be wildly popular on TV before the audience shattered into a thousand pieces. When a celebrity decided to make a pompous political statement, it was memorable—like in 1973, when Marlon Brando sent an Indian activist named Sacheen Littlefeather to refuse his Oscar for “The Godfather” in protest.
Brando wanted to highlight how Indians were badly portrayed by Hollywood—as he made an Italian mobster movie, which surely didn’t lead to any ethnic stereotyping whatsoever.
For the last 10 years, awards shows have predictably erupted in melodramatic celebrity proclamations against the horrors of Donald Trump. This year, the leftists were already upset that there wasn’t enough celebrity shrieking at the Golden Globes. But they were delighted by the Grammy Awards.
That Democrat rag The Washington Post tweeted this: “Politics are often treated like radioactive material on Grammy night, writes Post pop music critic Chris Richards. But on Sunday, something changed. The world outside had finally become too loud to ignore.” The headline underneath: “The biggest winner at the Grammys was free speech.”
One of the things that Republicans hate about these shows is that the speech isn’t “free.” It’s a load of left-wing jeremiads without any dissent. That’s exactly why the Left loves it. Their speech represented “the world outside.” Wrong—it’s the celebrity bubble inside.
Chris Richards should have been published on the editorial page. He claimed Renee Good and Alex Pretti were merely “witnesses in the streets,” not raging activists willing to kick out taillights and run over Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
Richards oozed: “If those assembled needed a hero, [rapper] Bad Bunny was it,” speaking with “blunt force intensity.” His signature line: “Before I say thanks to God, I’m going to say: ICE out. We’re not savages, we’re not animals, we’re not aliens. We are humans. And we are Americans.”
Celebrities often speak in bumper-sticker phrases. This declaration is Fake News. No one is saying every immigrant is an “animal” or a “savage.” President Donald Trump has said that about murderous MS-13 gangsters, but then the media pretended he wasn’t at all specific. Obviously, illegal immigrants are not “Americans,” even if they stay for years. That word implies citizenship.
But Richards was Bad Bunny’s bamboozled booster. These words were fabulous: “Deliberate, steadying, energizing, necessary. Finally. Moments as potent as this one should be the rule at the Grammys, not the exception.”
There you have it. This show is not about the music. It’s about the activism. Every acceptance speech should be like a negative campaign advertisement.
Then Richards fought with Laura Ingraham in absentia: “To the ‘shut up and sing’ crowd, I’ll ask one last time: Sing about what? Music is humanity transposed into sound. And as the Trump administration has reminded us so relentlessly in recent weeks, our humanity is increasingly under threat.”
Once again, the Left cornered the market on humanity.
Richards also loved the slogans of whisper-singing fashion nightmare Billie Eilish. She “spoke truth to power with the composure you’d expect from a 10-time Grammy winner.” What was her oration? “No one is illegal on stolen land,” she said, like every radical at a wokester hootenanny. Never deport anyone, for any reason. She added, “F— ICE.” So profound.
Conservatives quickly underlined that 24-year-old Eilish owns a $3 million mansion on “stolen land” in Los Angeles, but in the celebrity code, one must never have to make sense. You are hailed for all in the verbal gestures (including the profanity). The celebrity audience vapidly applauds the sentiment, and who needs logic when your heart is “in the right place”?
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