Sorry, Sam Smith, but you need to educate yourself on pop culture or STFU

What is it with progressive celebrities and cultural amnesia? As soon as they embrace wokeness, it seems they lose all knowledge of recent history.

Last month, Jennifer Lawrence claimed she was the first-ever woman to lead a Hollywood action movie — a suggestion so absurd it was laughable.

Speaking to Viola Davis for Variety’s “Actors on Actors” series, she said: “I remember when I was doing Hunger Games, nobody had ever put a woman in the lead of an action movie because it wouldn’t work — because we were told girls and boys can both identify with a male lead, but boys cannot identify with a female lead.”

LOL. She clearly didn’t remember Uma Thurman in Kill Bill, Angelina Jolie in Tomb Raider, Sigourney Weaver in Aliens, Kate Beckinsale in Underworld, Linda Hamilton in The Terminator and Franka Potente in Run Lola Run, not to mention Linda Carter in the TV series Wonder Woman, but nevermind.

Around the same time, comedian Billy Eichner blamed homophobia for the commercial failure of his rom-com movie, Bros, which tanked at the box office in October. 

Taking to Twitter, he said: “Even with glowing reviews, great Rotten Tomatoes scores etc., straight people, especially in certain parts of the country, just didn’t show up for Bros. That’s disappointing, but it is what it is.”

Countering this analysis, many pointed to the many other high-grossing movies with LGBT themes, such as The Birdcage, Philadelphia, Brokeback Mountain and The Hours, all of which attracted huge audiences and critical acclaim. Yes, even in Middle America.

That swiftly shut him up, but it hasn’t stopped other celebrities from falling for the same progressive pitfall.

This time, it’s the turn of singer Sam Smith, who’s been running his mouth to promote new album Gloria. Speaking to CBS, the non-binary hit-maker said the music industry is “not used to queer artists,” despite decades of evidence to the contrary.

Back in the 1980s, when Sam Smith wasn’t even around to embarrass himself, there were countless LGBT artists, including Marc Almond of Soft Cell, whose third album was literally entitled This Last Night In Sodom. Alongside him were Culture Club’s Boy George, Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s Holly Johnson, Dead or Alive’s Pete Burns, David Bowie, Elton John, K.D. Lang, George Michael, Queen’s Freddie Mercury, and Erasure’s Andy Bell. All of whom were embraced while simultaneously being openly LGBT.

Given that Smith is surrounded by the legacy of all these artists, you’d think he would know better. 

Sadly, this isn’t the first time he has fucked up. 

Back in 2016, he made a similar gaffe at the annual Academy Awards in Los Angeles. During his acceptance speech for the best song accolade, Smith said: “I read an article a few months ago by Sir Ian McKellen and he said that no openly gay man had ever won an Oscar. And if this is the case, even if it isn’t the case, I want to dedicate this to the LGBT community all around the world. I stand here tonight as a proud gay man and I hope we can all stand together as equals one day.”

This was news to screenwriter Dustin Lance Black, who had won the best original screenplay prize in 2009 for his work on political biopic Milk.

Worse still, there had already been numerous gay Oscar winners in the best song category: Elton John won in 1995 for “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” from The Lion King, Melissa Etheridge won in 2006 for “I Need to Wake Up” from the documentary An Inconvenient Truth, and composer Stephen Sondheim won in 1991 for “Sooner or Later (I Always Get My Man)” from Dick Tracy.

So why are Smith and his peers so ignorant and ill-informed of the past? Why do they believe that everything starts with them?

The answer, I believe, is narcissism. A chronic level of self-obsession that typifies today’s millennial mindset of ‘me, me, me, me’. There is no humility or reverence to whatever has gone before them, only navel-gazing, instant gratification and a staggering sense of ego.

This state of mind is otherwise known as the messiah complex, AKA when deluded people think they’re responsible for saving or assisting others.

Of course, when it comes to celebrities, they are not. They are merely performers. Most of the time, they simply recite words and lyrics written for them by other people (and, in turn, influenced by other artists that have long preceded them).  

As Mark Twain once said, there is no such thing as an original idea.

In other words, people like Sam Smith may be talented, but they are also replaceable. They won’t be the last. And they certainly weren’t the first.