Michelle Shocked Everyone

Michelle Shocked surprised a San Francisco audience this St. Patty’s Day by still existing.  “I thought she went out with Hammer pants,” said concert goer Bernie Lindstrom, adding, “Wow, Michelle Shocked.  I remember her when she was famous.”

I’m kidding, of course.  Michelle Shocked was never that famous, but she is this week.  Google returns 1.2 million hits when I search her name.   This makes Michelle Shocked this week’s leader in the ever-growing field of pilloried celebrities, though she’s a long way from market leader Mel Gibson’s 21.5 million Google hits.  She’s going to have to jack up the crazy to make those kinds of numbers.

 For those of you unfamiliar with Shocked, she’s a folk-ish singer who gained national attention in the late eighties via her sexually ambiguous persona and politically active songs.  Her core audience veers significantly to the left, and she has been embraced by the LGBT community, which is the acronym used by the dyslexic Bacon Lettuce and Tomato Growers of America. No, LGBT stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bi and Transgender, or more succinctly the gay community, and Shocked has always been welcomed there with open arms.

And so it comes as no surprise that the devoutly Christian singer’s Sunday night tirade offended her San Francisco audience.  At the beginning of her second set, Shocked allegedly stated that, "When they stop Prop 8 and force priests at gunpoint to marry gays, it will be the downfall of civilization, and Jesus will come back," and "You can go on Twitter and say, 'Michelle Shocked says God hates (anti-gay slur),' " according to several sources (USA Today’s Karina Lopez quoted here).

The fallout was immediate; specifically, the venue at which she was performing cut the lights and the electricity – show over.  Tour over, for that matter, and maybe even career.  Promoters across the country followed suit, cancelling Shocked’s upcoming dates.  Social media lit up, the YouTube trolls came out of their holes, and the real media piled on.   Michelle Shocked is this week’s lightning rod, either hero or villain depending on the commenter.  Spoiler alert: She’s neither.

Michelle Shocked is a character performed by a musician named Karen Johnston.  I don’t know how closely Johnston’s personality aligns with Shocked’s, and neither do you.  All we know is the Michelle Shocked persona that has been marketed to us for the last 25 years: the troubadour, the activist, the honorary lesbian.  Regardless of why she said the things quoted above – whether she was being controversial, sincere, sarcastic, ironic, setting up a point that she never got to because the power was pulled – the character Michelle Shocked does not say “God hates (anti-gay slur).”  Pulling a move like that pretty much guarantees a mass exodus toward the exits.

A lot of the rumbling online right now centers on freedom of speech.  Should the singer (or anyone) be allowed to utter such hateful things publicly?  Shouldn’t a socially conservative Michelle Shocked be able to speak her mind as openly as the Michelle Shocked embraced by the left?  Should promoters be allowed to censor her right to free speech by cancelling her upcoming gigs?

Good questions, and I’d love to hear your comments, but the simple fact of the matter is this:  Those promoters were selling (or hoping to sell) tickets based on a product with a 25 year track history.  The singer’s fan base had certain expectations of who “Michelle Shocked” is, and those didn’t pan out this past St. Patty’s Day.  It’s as if you bought tickets to see Rush Limbaugh and a slim, sober, compassionate, objective gentleman showed up on the dais.  Sure, that guy would have every right to talk about his new love of social programs, but his die-hard audience would break out the rotten tomatoes.

I guess what I’m saying is that Karen Johnston finds herself at the crossroads of America’s two most sacred precepts: capitalism and free speech.   Yes, we all have the right to speak our minds, thank goodness, but consumers also have the right to vote with their feet.  Most companies understand this.  It’s why Coca-Cola dropped their “Enjoy Coke!  Unless You’re Norwegian!” ad campaign.  Consumers of “Michelle Shocked” aren’t down with the things that Karen Johnston wants to say, but somebody might be.  Will she invent a new character for the second half of her career, maybe M’elle Gibson?  Stay tuned.