Oddly enough, there’s something less sinister about the over-the-top evil vibes of the 65th Annual Grammy Awards than if Sam Smith and Kim Petras had chosen a bit more subtlety.
By now, most people have seen snippets of the “Unholy” performance. Smith donned a red suit and devil horns to sing about a man abandoning his family for sexual perversion as scantily clad dancers gyrated around in a circle.
The costume was reminiscent of something a trick-or-treater might find at Party City.
Many conservative viewers reacted strongly to this “satanic” performance, which only made the Left more gleeful in their derision. ‘How could anyone fall for such a blatant caricature of the devil,’ they wondered. ‘How pathetic.’
Smith, “Unholy,” the transgender artist Kim Petras, and indeed the whole Grammys broadcast weren’t really about the fallen angel who wanted to become more powerful than God, however. As many pundits rightly pointed out, modern-day Satanism isn’t usually about worshiping the devil; it’s about worshiping the self.
And no one is better at that than Hollywood celebrities, including all the musical artists clapping along in the audience.
The whole spectacle was engineered to elicit a big reaction. Before the performance, Smith tweeted black and white snapshots from the show rehearsal and wrote in the caption, “This is going to be SPECIAL.”
That prompted the official CBS to reply in a now-deleted tweet, “….you can say that again. We are ready to worship!”
Smith and Petras’ performance delivered the publicity it promised. Reactions were strong from everyone from politicians and business leaders to regular Twitter users who couldn’t believe how blatant the whole thing was.
“End of days vibes,” Musk responded to a clip from the performance.
Country music singer John Rich tweeted, “The Grammys looked like hell last night. If God doesn’t bring judgement on America he’ll have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah.”
Even the song choice fits the theme of radical self-worship. “Unholy” is about a man who chooses sexual fulfillment over his familial obligations. Does it get much more satanic than that?
As the lyrics say:
Mummy don’t know daddy’s getting hot
At the body shop, doing something unholy
He’s sat back while she’s dropping it, she be popping it
Yeah, she put it down slowly
Oh-ee-oh-ee-oh, he left his kids at
Ho-ee-oh-ee-ome, so he can get that
Mummy don’t know daddy’s getting hot
At the body shop, doing something unholy (woo)
It’s worth pointing out that many artists choose to thank God during their acceptance speeches. It’s unclear whether that’s out of habit or because they truly believe, but it does make for an interesting juxtaposition between the “Unholy” drama and the gushing speech portion of the evening.
“I’m trying not to be too emotional. I’m trying to just receive this night. I want to thank God for protecting me. Thank you, God,” Beyonce began her speech when she made Grammy history by breaking the record for the most wins ever as she won the Best Dance/Electronic Music Album trophy.
Petras, meanwhile, thanked Madonna and the transgender community.
The German-born singer specifically thanked, “all the incredible transgender legends before me who kicked these doors open for me so I could be here tonight,” including the late electronic artist/producer SOPHIE. Petras also said, “This is a huge moment for me, Sam. Thank you. You are a true angel and hero in my life, and I love you.”
Petras, who is a male who identifies as transgender and medically transitioned at 16, also mentioned the controversy following the show.
“I think a lot of people, honestly, have kind of labeled what I stand for and what Sam stands for as religiously not cool,” the singer said.
“And I personally grew up wondering about religion and wanting to be a part of it, but then slowly realizing it doesn’t want me to be a part of it,” Petras continued. “So it’s a take on not being able to choose religion and not being able to live the way that people might want you to live, because, you know, as a trans person, I’m kind of already not wanted in religion.”
Daily Wire co-founder and host Ben Shapiro summed it up well, pointing out how the satanic performance was both intentional trolling and unintentionally accurate.
“The Grammys annual trolling of traditionally moral people continued apace this year with a full-on Satanic performance from two white men, Sam Smith and Kim Petras,” Shapiro tweeted after the show.
“To even note that this happened is to draw fire: “Hey, why are you even noticing? Why do you even care?” This is the Face Tattoo Syndrome™ in action: do something highly provocative, then act shocked and appalled when people are provoked.”
“But there’s something deeper happening here, too. The elite in our society are fully in line with the ideology of Satanic fealty expressed by Smith and Petras,” he went on. “So what’s the story with Satan and the transgressive ideology? For most of religious history, Satan was the great villain, an emblem of rebellion against the Good and the True, a symbol of resistance to the Holy.”
He next described how John Milton made Satan the villain in “Paradise Lost” but the poet Percy Shelley made the opposite interpretation.
“Why did [Shelley] believe this? Because he believed that the essence of ‘love’ is ‘liberty,’ that the goal of life is subjective ‘happiness,’ and that ‘religion and morality, as they now stand, compose a practical code of misery and servitude,’” Shapiro went on.
“This is the message of our modern-day Satanists as well,” he concluded. “Religion and morality are evils. Worship of ‘authenticity,’ particularly in the sexual realm, is the highest possible good. Worship Satan by worshiping yourself.”
Yes, the red cape and devil horns are overkill. They’re meant to inspire big reactions just so mainstream media can laugh at religious zealots for being ridiculous. But ultimately, the type of religion that Hollywood celebrates is Satanism, which worships the self even as they claim to be thanking God.