The Ballad of Sinéad O'Connor
Whether you like Sinéad O'Connor or not, this is an important film that waves the flag for the underdog. Exposing the haunting truths of the music industry and media as a whole, the film gives a clear insight as to what its like navigating a world ruled by narrow mindsets and mysoginy, while holding on desperately to one's truth. At all costs.
This week, with the documentary's debut, Sinead’s story is being given another chance to be told. Directed by Kathryn Ferguson and streaming on Showtime, Nothing Compares documents the truest ballad by Sinéad O'Connor, her raw experience, in a beautifully compiled mosaic of photos, video, audio interviews and live performance footage. In narrating her life, Sinéad's voice both young and present day recalls what her childhood was like growing up in Ireland, and her time spent at an all women’s Catholic school, which served as more of a longterm orphanage for many of its residents.
The film outlines about her abusive relationship with her mother and how that effected her childhood, building a solid and unfortunate foundation of pain and childhood trauma that would ultimately overfill her well of inspiration and need to express herself through her voice and music. Throughout many of her early years in the public eye, she handles the media, in all its corruption with grace, deflecting questions about why she chose to shave her head with levels of disinterest that come off elegant and innocent, rendering most of her interviewers unsure of how to proceed with her.
She sought equal rights for women, and was silenced. She fought for antiracism, and was silenced. She demanded the Catholic Church to take responsibility for the many lives of children whose innocence was robbed of them — and again, was silenced. Not unlike O'Connor’s two biggest inspirations, Bob Marley and Bob Dylan, she told the truth publicly and unflinchingly — all the while creating a soundtrack of battle cries to accompany her efforts that stood out and lived on as some of the most hauntingly beautiful, raw, uncensored and iconic pop songs of the '90s. She put her career in the line of fire, screamed the truth into the barrel of a gun held by the sweaty white, male-dominated media, and it doing so it was robbed of her.
