They mock celebrities. Celebrities are by definition "up" from the perspective of the viewers.

'Your'. Which analogy are you referring to?

And to be clear, once again : I don't necessarily fault her for doing what she did and I'm not condemning her. I just take issue with a criticism of Lorne Michaels for not apologizing for banning her after the act. His job is to run a highly successful live Network TV show. There have to be rules in place. To act like the rules shouldn't apply to you if you're morally right is a fallacy. If you choose to flout those rules, you may have to live with the consequences of that decision -- which as you point out, she was aware of.

I'm gonna pull that line out to highlight how you have turned the discussion from what I first posted.

Sinead O'Connor never demanded an apology from Lorne MIchaels. She never said she should be allowed back on SNL. To my knowledge, she never said anything about her lifetime ban being wrong.

So the idea that she thought that the rules should not apply to her because she was morally right is a fallacy being posted by you.

I am saying that Lorne Michaels either because he came to an honest realization, or just because he eventually realized it was good public relations, should have apologized to her and invited her back on the show.

Right now, this is the historical record of that incident: O'Connor appeared on SNL and ripped up a picture of the Pope in order to draw attention to the widespread sexual abuse of children that was being covered up by the Catholic Church, and for doing that Michaels banned her from the show for life.

I guess I just think that (1) he would realize that is not a good look and (2) sometimes being morally right does justify breaking rules, especially when the rules are just some arbitrary things that someone made up.

All Lorne had to say was: "The sexual abuse of children is a horrible tragedy and crime, and Sinead O'Connor was right to draw attention to the issue. I now realize that my immediate reaction to ban her from the show for life, and by implication in the minds of many, to condemn her and her message, was wrong. I'm sorry I did that."

I mean, seriously, does anybody think that would have been a bad look for MIchaels?

Did we know priests were molesting kids back when Sinead ripped up the photo?

Trying to remember, but I think it was something that was talked about and rumored at that time, but hadn't been fully confirmed until about ten years later when the floodgates broke open.

I don't think she made it terribly clear why she thought JPII was "the real enemy," and what she meant. And, really, the Catholic Church had been involved a lot of scandal and heinous shit for decades.

Also, I did some reading on the incident, and the Pope photo that she tore up was a specific one that belonged to her late mother. After her mother died, she said she was going to rip up the photo that her mother had in her bedroom because it represented lies and abuse to her. Which explains why she used a different photo during the rehearsal.

https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertain...-concert.html/

At the time I thought she was protesting the Church's reproductive policies. It wasn't at all clear what her issues were with a picture of the Pope or why he was "the real enemy". Personally I wasn't offended, but a lot of people were I guess.

And getting back to Count Dooku, the demand for an apology that I took offense to was YOURS, not hers.
I know you don't want to acknowledge "slippery slopes" but here Lorne's options in the face of this huge national incident were as follows
1) Make a surprise, unscripted political statement on SNL and face a lifetime ban
2) Go ahead and say whatever political statement you want, without fear of any consequence from us.
or
3) Make a surprise, unscripted political statement on SNL and face a lifetime ban -- unless we happen to agree with the political statement.

Of those three options, the one he chose is the most appropriate for a live TV show runner. You need hard and fast rules when you're putting TV shows on the air. Otherwise you're just foundering and don't know what the rules are. Like the 2022 Oscars.

I'm no Sinead O'Connor fan, but fuck Ted Nugget.

That was her second brush with controversy. A year or two earlier, there was the national anthem kerfuffle.

Which reminds me, one thing that I remember all of these tempests in tea pots is the reaction certain men had to her.

Sinead was this slight, bug-eyed woman with a shaved head and she really seemed to inspire a lot of anger from a certain kind of man. Both Frank Sinatra and Joe Pesci actually threatened physical violence against her, which didn't sit well with me at the time. Never liked Old Blue Eyes (overrated performer, and he always set off every ping on my asshole detector), but it really made me dislike Pesci.

In hindsight, it makes me think of all of the misogynistic 4chan and gamergate shit we're living in now.

When you are the person who makes the rules, absolute adherence to them just means you are a fool.

Alright, sensei.

4) Make a surprise, unscripted political statement on SNL and face a lifetime ban -- unless many years pass, and we realize that you had a pretty good reason for what you did and the political statement you were making was 100% correct, and the issue needed a spotlight.

I think your #3 and my #4 are both just fine.