Shriek of the Devil: Gays and Satan

by guest contributor Brennan Vickery

The gays are at it again. As the culture war wages on and perceived morality pits itself against perceived morality, religion is reiterated to emotionally stoke the masses. Madonna knew this. So did Fellini. Sinéad O’Connor. Nicki Minaj.

Sam Smith’s performance at this year’s Grammys in a red devil suit (seemingly purchased at a nearby Party City), Lil Nas X’s satanic lap dance in the video “Montero” released alongside a satanic Nike shoe collab, and don’t forget those circuit party flyers advertising big glitter-ball get downs called “Sinsation” and so forth, all attempt to transgress the western Judeo-Christian-heteronormative-banal through-line.

It makes sense that gay men would align themselves aesthetically with the immortal enemy of a stern church which has probably been an incredibly influential entity of their polarization and trauma. OK, I get it. Fucking Satan is really saying “fuck the church.” But the closer lean-in reveals a particular division between God and church and so just where resentment and one’s trauma-blame falls is in the eye of the homosexual beholder. God, an entity not considering its/their/his/her individual identity, is a representation of love to most. The church, on the other hand, with its  liturgical and hierarchical political sphere draped in robes and tab collars, is for many the oppressive master.

Smith’s frenetic performance at the Grammy’s had nothing to do with Christianity authentically but rather it used the inverse of salvation to provoke controversy (for those Christians left in the US), and in media, forcing controversy is about getting press and getting press is about stoking relevance and relevance is a commodity turned into cold hard cash. And the love of that ain’t nothing but evil. The same formula was employed for Nas X’s videos. Yes, you can make the artist pregnant and give him ass-naked background dancers, but the real assault is the presence of Satan himself, not all that “satanic” ritual. It’s the ownership and artful crafting around the biblical abomination that empowers the homosexual to move beyond the label and form. Dare I say, taking hold of their own narrative.

But in this, these gay artists consider religion more than ever. They resist the suffocating moralistic indoctrination of religion, only to be held prisoner to the industry and slave to the public. In a state of secularism, they still find the use of Christian imagery to be poignant and use it as their antithesis; the oppressor they’ve moved on from. It seems they waste their expression and aesthetic on something that has been most oppressive to them. They elongate its pervasive grip by constantly referencing it. Forgiveness is necessary for gays to transcend their trauma. For anyone to move past their trauma. Like our tenuous relationships with our parents, the church can both guide you and suppress you. You can hate it/them but you can never escape the influence so instead, you forgive them, and therein lies emotional and spiritual freedom. Even from the church. Perhaps it is cathartic to impersonate the satanic entity that defies the heavenly narcissistic oppressor, but in the realm of fame and pop culture, the intent seems more surface and insidious than cathartic. It seems orchestrated to achieve, if nothing else, a grander profile. 

Lana Del Rey’s new album features a snippet of a Judah Smith sermon in an interlude. Some Lana fans were confused by the insertion of Smith’s sermon, being a pastor who has pronounced anti-gay views, however many of Lana’s fans are gay men who seem to have no problem with the track or can easily overlook it. Or maybe are even moved by it. Sure, maybe they’ve separated the artist from the art (which seems impossible to do with Lana), or maybe they’ve intercepted their trauma and transcended it by forgiving the church. With such a modern-day focus on one’s trauma, it is hard to imagine an evolution of life beyond its influence. Lana is not a homophobe for including Judah Smith’s sermon. She is wrestling with influence, ideas, transformations, and transcendence. In other words, she is an artist.

It is possible that moralistic church communities hate themselves and have passed on this learned behavior to its covert homosexual constituents. Never doing or being exactly what you want. Their latent internalized self homophobia flaring up in contentious romantic relationships or on the insipid American political battleground. Maybe in the form of benign “activism”. I won’t even begin to dive into the church’s covert sexual exploits. Christianity is now beholden to the society it helped to shape in the West, even if its influence is increasingly irrelevant in that society now. Conversely, gays have started to prosper in that society in the way that any rebellious freedom fighter might. One thing that gays and churches are good at is hiding certain truths in performance. The drag pageantry of both of these entities retains a certain ritual that leaves little room for questioning their fundamental worldly positions without being labeled “bigots” or “weirdos”. 

It is senseless and fruitless to victim blame, but I am curious if the webs of trauma or the fumes of infantilization have a statute of limitations. In our hyper-individualized society, the individual may be called upon by the powers that be or even just the people around them, to eventually take responsibility for their behavior despite the horrors of the past. I'm curious to see how that idea would land with the performance of a current pop cultural figure. Instead of commenting on one’s oppressor, especially by embodying the enemy of them, what if one abandoned the whole gospel altogether? 

Brennan is a writer and artist living in New York City.  @brennanvickery

originally published in cracks in pomo: the zine

check out Brennan’s appearance on Cracks in PoMo the pod here.

Graphic by Patrick Keohane (Revolving Style) @revolvingstyle