Stop giving Morrissey free pass to spew hatred
The King of the Trolls title is hard to win. Between professional Russian tweeters and amateur armies of online haters doing battle with everything from CNN to Starbucks, there is no shortage of competition. But even in this crowded field, Morrissey shines like a true champion.
If you haven’t been following the exploits of the former Smiths’ frontman, let’s fill you in: Recently the singer played blame the victim while talking about the Kevin Spacey and Harvey Weinstein scandals. Morrissey didn’t side with abusers, but hinted victims encouraged them or didn’t do enough to dissuade them.
“I hate rape . ... But in many cases, one looks at the circumstances and thinks that the person who is considered a victim is merely disappointed,” he told Germany’s Der Spiegel newspaper last month in just one of many ugly quotes he made during the interview.
For Morrissey, who can- celed tonight’s show at the Orpheum on little more than 24 hours notice, the comments walk him further down the road toward elitism, bigotry and the Troll King crown.
Steven Patrick Morrissey rose to fame singing heartbreaking, thoughtful, gloriously twee songs about complex relationships. If you were an outsider in the ’80s, he was your friend, your salvation.
On the quintessential Smiths single “How Soon is Now?” over Johnny Marr’s shimmering guitar, Morrissey crooned, “I am the son and the heir of a shyness that is criminally vulgar/I am the son and heir of the nothing in particular.”
No longer shy, he is now just criminally vulgar.
In a 2010 interview with the Guardian, he referred to the Chinese as a subspecies.
In 2014, he told fans there was no difference between eating animals and pedophilia.
Before and after these comments, Morrissey repeatedly, consistently made nasty remarks about immigrants. (Let’s not forget he’s disappointed his cult by canceling previous concerts or quitting mid-set scores of times.)
Of course, Morrissey isn’t all bad.
His contributions to pop music and work on behalf of animal rights won’t soon be forgotten. But he seems to believe that his success and good deeds have earned him a lifetime pass from fans. He knows his diehards will continue to buy his records and sell out his shows, so he gleefully goes on — sorry, Morrissey has never done anything gleefully. He stodgily goes on, sowing discord and making deliberately inflammatory statements.
C’mon, nobody, not even Morrissey, really thinks the fast food industry is as evil as guy who murdered 77 people. (Yup, that’s a comparison he made at a show in Warsaw in 2011.)
No one has to give up their copy of the Smiths’ “The Queen is Dead,” which is good because no true fan would. But we need to stop giving Morrissey a platform to be so awful. This means newspapers need to stop interviewing him and people need to stop going to his shows and buying his albums. Hey, the shows will probably be canceled, just like tonight’s was, and anyway, his new album “Low in High School” and its flirting-with-fascism lyrics is no “The Queen is Dead.”
‘The comments walk (Morrissey) further down the road toward elitism, bigotry and the Troll King crown.’