In A Culture Full Of Sam Smiths, Christianity Is The Real Subversion

Hollywood is desperate for 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.

It was written by Isabelle Rosini, a Federalist contributor. 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,” The artists range from Lil Nas X To Lady Gaga Would you agree?

It all went sour. Despite the media’s attempts at running interference — with all the The typical Republicans–pounce framing — the awards show was decidedly UninterestingThis points to a larger crisis in the arts world. The American public will not be shocked by anything it produces, including quasi-satanic Orgies.

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. If the political and wider media establishments support its values (sexual perversion or antireligious bigotry), art can no longer be subversive.

So art is no longer interesting or subversive. Instead, the arts world and the establishment have merged — First Lady Jill Biden Present at the award show after all — producing mediocre content according to its tastes. If art is to be subversive again it must reject modern culture’s most valued values. It must reject the idols of left, including sexual deviancy and bitter racism. It must throw away wokeness. Expect a continuation of this message until it has a new message. 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 The New York Times, titled “New York’s Hottest Club Is the Catholic Church,” The pandemic-weary Manhattanites are rebelling against leftist orthodoxy, embracing traditional morality (and the Catholic Church)

In 2020, the year that Black Lives Matter protests and lockdowns were over, progressivism was feeling hegemonic within the social spaces occupied primarily by urban young intellectuals. Transgressive glamour was given to traditional morality. 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.

The phenomenon has been noticed by Tim Dillon, comedian. “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