By Maria Padhila
No good deed goes unpunished, and the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and no great artist has ever won a Grammy. These are some of the truisms we live with, and they’re true often enough. Like the other night, when recording artist Macklemore managed to piss off a whole lot of people at the Grammys, first by winning four of them with music partner Ryan Lewis, and next by being part of staging a mass wedding.
Summing it up nicely and with some humor is Scott Kernan of Boston.com:
There was a mass wedding at the Grammy Awards on Sunday night when, during a performance of “Same Love,” the pro-gay marriage rap anthem that became an unlikely hit last year, Macklemore, Ryan Lewis, Mary Lambert, Madonna and Queen Latifah presided over the mass nuptials of 33 diverse couples — gay and straight men and women of various ages and races. There was also a noisy cell phone: The social media reaction. Most people, like the tear-dabbing newlyweds and celeb attendees on TV, seemed moved by the sentiment of the gesture. And there was the expected right-wing backlash about a televised attack on “traditional families.”
But more surprising (though not really) was the small but loud online response from some gay rights supporters, including those within the LGBT community, that the ceremony was horrible — worst thing ever, if you think about it, really. You see, there was a certain amount of hand-wringing about a straight white guy endorsing gay marriage while accompanied by other straight people. It reeked, said certain critics, of head-patting patronizing by privileged folks appropriating the struggles of minorities. (Erm, hey: LGBT nonprofits? Shut down those ally-building initiatives you’ve launched. We don’t really want them.)