Last week I was in New York City. It was my first time there and I was doing all the cheesy, tourist-y things...checking out Times Square, seeing Broadway shows, eating everything in sight...and in cheesy, tourist-y fashion, I went on the NBC Studio Tour. If you haven't been on this tour, it's exactly what it sounds like, a tour of NBC Studios, including the Saturday Night Live set. While I, my husband, and the 20+ middle school students milled around, the Page gave the SNL spiel I'm sure she gives several times a day. Part of her scripted commentary mentions "Things Not To Do When Guesting On SNL" and uses Sinead O'Connor's tearing of a picture of Pope John Paul II two decades ago as an example of "Unacceptable Guest Behavior Which Must Not Be Tolerated" and reminded those of us in the group old enough to remember that Sinead was banned for life from SNL and NBC Property. Those not old enough to remember were given no context.
I was watching that show 20 years ago. I remember the lyric change from "racism" to "child abuse" in the song "War" that she performed. I watched her commit career suicide on live television by ripping a picture of the Pope and yelling "Fight the real enemy!" At the time, nobody, myself included, understood or cared what she meant by that or why she did it. It was perceived (again, by me as well) as a gratuitous insult to Catholics and the Catholic Church. It was a classless, uncalled for, unprovoked attack on the Bride of Christ.
But it wasn't. It was a young woman with a few seconds of precious time on live television trying to blow the whistle on what we now know was long-term, systemic, sexual abuse of children within the ranks of Catholic church officials, covered up by the Church itself. Sinead was 20 years ahead of everyone else, except, of course, the abused children.
Now, 20 years, hundreds of broken former children, and a mountain of lawsuits later, in the eyes of most of the world, Sinead O'Connor is vindicated. She was right and the rest of us were wrong, blind, and stupid. She is still punished by NBC, still banned, as is their right. SNL can have any rules for guest behavior it wants and NBC can ban anyone from its property. They don't have to forgive her, although considering the dire nature of the situation she was trying desperately to get attention for and the blatant fact that the only real harm was to herself, forgiveness seems easy and cheap to give her...but to continue, year after year, to have their Pages use her as Exhibit A of How Dare You At NBC given what we know, finally, is simply malicious, smarmy finger-wagging by too-young-to-know-better proxy. It's time to knock it off. How long a sentence should one get for whistle-blowing, anyway? Isn't 20 years enough? You don't have to let her back onto your lawn, NBC, but stop slandering her in your Tour.
