She was something grander than a simple pop star — she became a stand-in for a sociopolitical discomfort that was beginning to take hold in the early 1990s, a rejection of the enthusiastic sheen and power-at-all-costs culture of the 1980s.
And so, in an era where late-night television performances could still prompt monocultural mood shifts, her gesture was a volcanic eruption.
And she was a savvy radical — reportedly she had done something slightly different in rehearsal, and saved the pope photo for the actual show.
(The photo itself had hung on the bedroom wall of O’Connor’s mother, who O’Connor later said had physically and sexually abused her as a child.)
Also, she was on live television, holding court for three minutes on the miseries of discrimination and abuses of power, under the guise of being a pop star performing a song.
Persons:
Sinead O’Connor’s, Bob Marley’s, O’Connor intoned, Pope John Paul II, “, O’Connor —, —, O’Connor