On Oct. 3, 1992, Irish pop activist Sinéad O’Connor turned a nice invitation to sing a song on Saturday Night Live into an ugly moment of cultural-political division. The angry “artist” hoisted a photo of Pope John Paul II, one of the most beloved figures of the century, and ripped it up on live television.
“Fight the real enemy!” snarled the disturbed peace activist as she tore up the photo.
Everyone was shocked.
The next week, in a much-needed moment of levity in response, SNL guest-host Joe Pesci, a Catholic Italian-American widely known for his screen persona as a mafia gangster and clownish robber — in mega-hit films like Goodfellas and Home Alone — received appreciative applause when he presented the photo of the pope pasted back together. With a joking smile (watch here) — and obviously playing to his film persona — Pesci laughed that he would have given O’Connor “such a smack” if he had been there. He joked that he would have grabbed her by the, pause, eyebrows — given that O’Connor was famous for her shaved head.
Viewers laughed. Everyone was in need of something light at SNL that night, given O’Connor’s crude crassness the week before.
Liberals laughed, too. Liberals in those days had a sense of humor.
Testimony to today’s liberal scolds of cancel culture are the feigned-outrage media retrospectives on the Pesci response to O’Connor. The incident has been resurrected given O’Connor’s tragic death last week at age 56.
The worst media offender, not surprisingly, is the left-wing Yahoo News, which twice reprinted a piece from the U.K.’s Independent titled “Joe Pesci: Resurfaced SNL clip shows actor saying he ‘would have slapped’ [sic] Sinead O’Connor over pope stunt.” Here’s what it reported:
Joe Pesci is being called out for historic comments that saw him claim he would have “slapped” Sinead O’Connor on Saturday Night Live, after she tore up a photo of the pope.
The Goodfellas actor appeared on US sketch show SNL back in October 1992, one week after the Irish singer, who died on Wednesday (26 July) aged 56.
O’Connor had performed a cover version of Bob Marley [sic] song “War” on an episode hosted by Tim Robbins, following which she controversially ripped up a photo of Pope John Paul II, and stated to the camera: “Fight the real enemy.” …
The moment on TV was met with silence from the audience after producer Lorne Michaels ordered the crew to turn off the “applause” lights.
During Pesci’s opening monologue the following week, the actor addressed the controversy, saying: “Before we start the show, there’s a little matter I wanna clear up. There was an incident on the show last week: Sinead O’Connor tore up a picture of the Pope, and I thought that was wrong, so I asked someone to paste it back together.”
He then presented the photo to applause from the audience, before adding: “I mean why should I let it bother me, right? It wasn’t my show. But I’ll tell you one thing, she was very lucky it wasn’t my show, because if it was my show, I would have gave her such a smack.”
Pesci then said he would “grabbed her by her eyebrows”, referencing the singer’s bald head.
Fans of the actor are expressing shock and disappointment over his comments—as well as the fact that the crowd loudly cheered his comments.
At this point in the article, this piece of journalism did no better than to grab three comments from anonymous individuals on Twitter. Of course, the three chosen represented the reporter’s bias:
Sharing the video on Twitter, @DamJef wrote: “F*** Joe Pesci and everyone who was involved with this.”
“I never saw this clip in response to Sinead at the time. This is so hideous,” one person wrote in response, with an additional user stating: “Damn. I’ve never seen this clip. He threatened to slap Sinead O’Connor / Shuhada’ Sadaqat for telling the truth on Saturday night tv, and the crowd clapped. Vile.”
Another added: “Getting applause for threatening a woman is crazy.”
The Independent has contacted Pesci for comment.
That’s the totality of this fabulous example of reportage.
Yahoo, however, was clearly impressed. In fact, Yahoo appreciated the Independent piece so much that it reprinted it twice, once in its “news” arm and the other in its “sports” arm. It’s hard to imagine how the piece qualified as sports, but, hey, whatever it takes to push the propaganda to the widest masses. The Yahoo “sports” piece called Pesci’s statement a “rant.”
To clarify: Yahoo didn’t label Sinéad O’Connor’s stunt a rant but so described Joe Pesci’s smiling skit defending his pope.
One must beg this question to Yahoo and the Independent and their ilk: Any objection, folks, to Sinéad O’Connor telling the world on SNL to “fight the real enemy” and then ripping up a photo of a pope who had been shot and nearly bled to death?
Nope. Joe Pesci is the bad guy here, you see.
The Yahoo distribution went viral, inspiring a bunch of other left-wing publications to follow suit with likewise lazy examples of journalism. (For examples, see Robert Stacy McCain, “American Journalism is Decadent and Depraved.”) The New York Times looked back at Sinéad O’Connor’s display with great admiration, aglow at her “powerful” call to “fight the … enemy” pope. MSN reprinted some twaddle about goofy left-wing cooks at Harvard University refusing to serve Joe Pesci dinner over the incident, though they surely would have treated Sinéad O’Connor to a grand buffet for her calling for violence against her hated papal “enemy.” (READ MORE: American Journalism Is Decadent and Depraved)
Several media sources claimed that Pesci used the word “slap.” He said “smack,” typical of the language of his Goodfellas character. In fact, speaking of Pesci’s character types: The offended folks at Yahoo might want to do some journalistic digging into Joe Pesci’s long list of previous murderous threats. They’ll be shocked to discover that he threatened far worse to Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone. So did his co-star, Daniel Stern. “I’m gonna kill that kid!” screamed Daniel Stern at “Kevin.” In another of a gazillion threats in the holiday film, the Pesci character shouted at Kevin, “You bomb me with one more can, kid, and I’ll snap off your cojones and boil them in motor oil!”
What?! Boiled cojones! Pesci and Stern should be arrested!
Of course, Kevin was just a kid. And, ironically, Pesci in his SNL skit had charitably said of the 20-something Sinéad O’Connor, “She’s just a kid.”
The reality is that the mortally offended left-wingers at Yahoo, the Independent, and elsewhere know in their hearts that Joe Pesci didn’t really want to physically assault Sinéad O’Connor. We know that they know it. We also know what they’re not admitting in their outrage pieces, namely, that they like what Sinéad O’Connor did with the photo of John Paul II. We also know their ploy: It’s a typical leftist tactic to turn the guilty person into the victim and then try to cancel the person who dared to criticize her. Classic rubbish from the left.
As for Sinéad O’Connor, let me finish with a plea of mercy, echoing my colleague S.A. McCarthy, who urged us to pray for her soul. The assumption is that she committed suicide, something that her former Church condemns for want of saving souls like hers for eternity. (READ THE PIECE: Pray for the Dead, Pray for Those Who Persecute You)
And in fact, even Islam — which Sinéad O’Connor converted to — condemns suicide. (Islam makes a distinction between suicide, which it strongly condemns, and an alleged martyr’s death against infidels in combat.) Yes, this self-proclaimed feminist converted to the faith of Mohammed. It was surely the strangest choice for this woman who railed against the Catholic Church’s alleged misogyny and enslaving patriarchy.
Incidentally, Islam happens to be the faith of Mehmet Ali Ağca, the attempted assassin of Pope John Paul II. Also incidentally, that pope — in a great act of mercy noted by Joe Pesci in his response to O’Connor — forgave Ağca in person.
Divine mercy is something that we all need: Ağca, the pope, myself, Joe Pesci, and Sinéad O’Connor.
