Performance Art

There’s something obscenely performative about Republican outrage. 

Something a bit theatrical, like a child’s tantrum, in how their ire is raised whenever something offends them. 

The anti-cancel culture movement canceling everything that dares to disrupt their vision of the world. 

Their narrow, sad, gated off vision. 

I dunno of anything more childish than grown men throwing hissy fits because their favored beer company (as if some corporation that makes ANYTHING, let alone beer, is somehow blue collar, with execs making hundreds of thousands of dollars, OK, sure, blue collar) did something they find offensive. 

LORD HAVE MERCY, THEY SUPPORT PEOPLE THAT AREN’T JUST HETERO WHITE MEN!

Give me a break.
The audacity. 

As if corporations care about anything other than how they look and how much product they move.

They care as much about the Trans person they supported as they do the redneck ‘rocker’. 

Money is green, and that’s all that matters. 

Much like every fan of a band that suddenly crosses over to another audience gets riled up because that isn’t just their thing now, this is the same. 

It’s beer. 

Idiots and geniuses alike drink it. 

It’s beer. 

It’s not even something worth getting upset about like politics.
It’s freakin’ beer. 

Or any other product that people associate their lifestyle with. 

I AM SO MAD THAT THIS SUB SANDWICH SUPPORTS THE COLOR ORANGE. 

HOW DARE YOU!

And now bars threaten to oust the brand (sure), and musicians threaten to stop, what, having someone else buy you that beer for your tour?

What?

Oh, darn. 

It’s just so, so stupid. 

These theatrical moments, shooting a product, burning a book, making a grand show to get attention to show how outraged you are so you can appeal to some base of voters or customers, who are pathetic enough to need you to tell them that they should be outraged to. 

Over WHAT?

Someone’s sexuality?
Over their identity?

Over wanting social justice that looks differently than you think it is?

These things ALL matter but why do they matter to YOU?

Why?

Why do you care who someone is sleeping with?
Or which restroom they use?

Or how they want to be policed?

Yes, oh yes, these are VASTLY bigger conversations and realities because they make up someone’s core but it’s THEIR core, not yours. 

No one is taking YOUR identity away. 

No one is taking YOUR life away. 

They are just asking you to let them live. 

OH, sure, you can get upset and say they are trying to, what, convert you, and, really?

Is that a thing?

Do people get converted to a different sexual identity like it’s a virus?

Can they just convert you to changing your gender identity?

CAN THEY?

Come on. 

And don’t come at me with THE KIDS because kids are smarter than we think as it is and get judgy through us. 

Because of us. 

Our hate infects them. 

Our fear does too. 

And what are we afraid of?

What are YOU afraid of that you are shooting beer because of it?

Are we so fearful that we have to ban everything that mentions or acknowledges anyone or anything that isn’t White and heterosexual?

Is that what the U.S. has become?

This melting pot that used to take pride in our diversity?

And it’s what, all in the name of Christianity and honoring God, God who would be All Powerful and who made all things?

Yeah?

It gets so tiring for me, as an outsider who is not even AFFECTED by any of this and I cannot imagine being someone who has become a target of fear and hate when all you want to do is live your damn life. 

I hate that this is the world for them and this is the world my daughter is growing up in. 

I hate that we are a nation with religious children who are performing at being good, God fearing Christians when they don’t even do the most basic things it says to do, like do unto others, or judging not. 

For me, as an atheist, religion should be about knowing you are loved forever and without fail and through that love you are able to love others and help them find their own love. 

It’s not about hate, but that’s where the investment in modern American Christianity is, in hate. 

That’s the piggy bank. 

And it’s heartbreaking. 

Because people are being beaten, and being killed, and for some this is good and righteous and something to cheer. 

And as I say all the time…this is where we are. 

This is who we are. 

We shouldn’t care if some character in a piece of art, a book, or a comic book, or a movie, or whatever, has changed gender or identity or race if it doesn’t inherently matter to the work.

WHO CARES?

It isn’t ‘identity politics’ it’s seeing that the world is wider than we realize and that maybe that creator realized at the time. As a creative, I am not always seeing beyond the world I built but need to. But getting your beans in a boil over the race of some superhero changing, OR WHATEVER is not stupid, it’s childish to the extreme because it doesn’t matter.

No one stole YOUR identity because YOU aren’t a superhero or cartoon character or fantasy race.

LORD!

We are on one big stage, pretending to be good people, kind people, loving people. 

Good parents. 

Good Christians. 

Good Republicans. 

And we do the dance, and we make a big scene when we’re offended in case anyone is looking. 

It used to just be people posting the best of themselves for the world to see but now it’s the worst, and we think that that shows how great and pious and sincere we are. 

Do you really think a ‘rock star’ that sings about strippers and being drunk and high cares anything about the church or faith?

Nope. 

And his performance art of shooting up beer cans is just him selling his brand to the idiots that think that that sort of thing makes him masculine. 

Lord above. 

It’s a funny thing how drag queens have become symbols of hate and fear these days when the likes of these politicians and fame whores wringing their hands could give those queens a run for their money when it comes to their performances. 

…c…