‘Besieged by our Own Culture’
Noonan goes on:
But increasingly people feel at the mercy of the Adam Lamberts, who of course view themselves, when criticized, as victims of prudery and closed-mindedness. America is not prudish or closed-minded, it is exhausted. It cannot be exaggerated, how much Americans feel besieged by the culture of their own country, and to what lengths they have to go to protect their children from it.
While I’m no fan of Adam Lambert’s performance at the AMAs, I think it’s a bit much to single him out as the emblem of America’s malaise. It’s a little too easy to point to the homosexual and say, “Keep it in New York!” And it’s also easy to dismiss his attempt to portray his subsequent treatment as victimization but the reality is that there is a double-standard — women (oh, let’s just pick Madonna as an example; she’s been around for nearly three decades) have been able to get away with similarly shocking behavior, and yet the Republic has remained standing.
But in Obama’s America, it is very important for conservatives to be able blame anyone who is not them for what’s wrong. Noonan continues:
It’s things like this, every bit as much as taxes and spending, that leave people feeling jarred and dismayed, and worried about the future of their country.
The thing is, Adam Lambert didn’t just come out of nowhere to assault the senses of people outside New York. He’s popular because — guess what? — a lot of people like him. American Idol isn’t just watched by those cultural lefties; in fact, a lot of those folks disdain the show. To paraphrase Shakespeare, the fault lies not on our televisions but in ourselves.
So Adam Lambert did some coarse things on TV, and that’s a sure sign the country is coarser than ever. Never mind that “coarse” is a bullet point on most rock stars’ job descriptions.
