Nicki Minaj with her escortIts symbols are familiar and its reactions predictable: expressions of outrage that fade rapidly until the next time a performer needs a booster shot of notoriety.
The only thing that offends me about the performance of Nicki Minaj on Sunday at the Grammy Awards is the idea of it as daring.
On the contrary, it perfectly fit the offense template that has been used by everyone from the photographer who in 1987 depicted a crucifix in a jar of urine to Lady Gaga in her 2010 Alejandro video: Simply juxtapose religious symbols with something crude or sexual. The controversy will roll in like the tide and recede just as predictably.
Minaj pushed all the buttons with her Roman Holiday performance. She had a man in papal garb, stained-glass windows, altar boys and — as the online magazine Salon put it — “monks getting groped by hot leather babes.”
A choir sang a less-than-reverent version of O Come, All Ye Faithful, too.
Minaj was ostensibly portraying an exorcism, but the only thing comprehensible about the whole mess was that she was dutifully checking off all the offensiveness boxes.
The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights obliged her by reacting as expected, complaining that similar irreverence toward Islam or Judaism would never be attempted.
Well, of course not. That would be dangerous. The offense template is meant to minimize risk, remember.
I was raised Catholic and am now a Methodist, and I think Christianity is just as ripe a target for satire as anything else. But at least do it with some originality and wit. (See Huckleberry Finn, The Producers or any number of Simpsons or South Park episodes.) We’ve seen this Minaj act a million times from Madonna, Lady Gaga and many others.
My biggest objection to pop stars falling back on religious mockery is that they seem to be making no point beyond “Hey, look at me being all naughty now that I’m successful and safely beyond the reach of a Catholic school principal.”
The odd thing about that type of posturing is that religion’s hold on the culture isn’t even that formidable. Consider the teeth-gnashing last week over birth control, which many people in the real world happily use no matter what their spiritual leaders say.
If Minaj wants to impress people by twisting the dragon’s tail, she ought to find a stronger dragon.
No religious authority will threaten Minaj with anything worse than disapproval — and that boosts her celebrity. So she, in fact, did something both predictable and safe. For an artist, aren’t those mortal sins?
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