Steven Morrissey, Eric Cantona, and the divergent paths of idols

"Please don't put your life in the hands of a rock 'n' roll band, who'll throw it all away..."

So penned Noel Gallagher, before he went full Tory just to prove his point. It is as true now as it was then. Investing all your hopes and dreams into any one individual you admire for a particular talent is massive folly. No matter how well they sing, act, play the guitar, or kick a ball, they will never be fully deserving of your unconditional love. Deep down inside we probably all know that. But everyone needs heroes, especially when they're young. And there are certain people who naturally exude a charisma and style that demands adulation. We take what they are, magnify it, and map our own preferences onto them, placing added weight and wisdom to every word and action. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mq4CI4en7V8 The aforementioned Gallagher - and his brother - are two of a whole plethora of icons of Manchester pop culture. These include artists, poets, writers, sportsmen, rock stars and comedians. But when it comes to sheer presence, aura and enduring influence, few can match Steven Patrick Morrissey and Eric Daniel Pierre Cantona. For good or for bad, they stride the cultural landscape as giants. The former may hail from Davyhulme, whilst the latter is a son of Marseille, but they have a fair amount in common. Both are from immigrant families: Morrissey's parents are of Irish stock, whilst Cantona's heritage is Sardinian and Spanish. Each found their calling in an expressive art that they seemed hell-bent on elevating above the mundane. And neither has ever felt the remotest need to conform to what is expected of them from others. Morrissey joined the Smiths, whilst Eric made Manchester United his home. It was as it was meant to be. The singer gave pop music relevance in the eighties, and the sportsman gifted vitality to English football a decade later. It is telling just how many lorded - and significantly more successful - contemporaries reference them as inspirations. Neither the striker nor the singer has ever lacked in ego, and both managed to cultivate a persona in equal parts outspoken and mysterious. When you marry originality with enigma, it is a heady mix to resist, and few even tried. In a city as insufferably in love with itself as Manchester so evidently is, they have always stood apart. But for all these similarities, time placed a fork in the road. They are on increasingly divergent paths when it comes to how they are viewed by their longtime admirers, and how they themselves view the world. Both are in their fifties - a time of life in which ideas tend to become solidified and principles fixed. The contrast is jarring. Morrissey, for so long a pied piper for sensitive souls and outsiders, has developed an ever more extreme aversion to otherness. This week's comments on racism, politics, Adolf Hitler, Muslims, and Sadiq Khan are so deranged, hateful and fundamentally stupid that even diehard fans who have defended him for years have had enough. https://twitter.com/Mr_Dave_Haslam/status/986320447594811397 The ex-Smiths frontman increasingly resembles a bitter and twisted alt-right hate-speaker who is more than happy to promulgate proven shite in order to stigmatise anyone or thing that isn't exactly what he is. As his famous quiff shrinks and his eyebrows grow, so do his prejudices and ignorance. Halal meat can only be approved by ISIS? Really? Some will suggest that it was ever thus, that he always courted controversy and questioned social norms, but it is not for nothing that he gained the genuine love and affection of many many people who felt different and ostracised. Now he hates them. He hates anything that would look out of place in an episode of Heartbeat. Whereas once he sang the gorgeous lyric "It's so easy to laugh, It's so easy to hate. It takes guts to be gentle and kind..." there is now a regressive world view that is championed by Breitbart twats and bedroom fascists. It is heartbreaking to those who found such solace in his Smiths incarnation: the gladioli waving waif whose tender words meant so much. If Morrissey's heart is shut and closed, Eric Cantona's is emphatically open. He too is a rebel, a contrarian who is happiest when tearing into accepted convention and questioning 'Pourquoi?' But unlike Morrissey, the Frenchman is determinedly inclusive in his outlook, and more ready than ever to fight the outcast's corner. Take his thoughts on nationalism: "I don't believe in regions. I don't believe in countries or borders. Because people start with a country, and then zoom into a region, then a city, then a street, then their family, and then themselves. I prefer to zoom out. Trump says he wants the power of America back. I want the power of the world." Such condemnation of geographical barriers is the antithesis of everything that Morrissey now stands for, and for people who once loved both men for many of the same reasons, that is a crying shame. The sole reason why Cantona's views are in any way controversial is because the world is so incredibly fucked these days. As for Steven, you can't claim to be a dissenting voice if your deplorable views are shared with the deplorable Leader of the Free World. It doesn't work like that. If the dickheads are in charge, being a dickhead is just falling in line. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4ebeHHsDuE The easiest target of ire in the modern age is Muslims. It's dead easy to single them out for focused hatred. Whereas Morrissey condemns the Prime Minister for wishing people well on the religious day of Eid, and claims ISIS bless halal meat, Cantona - who himself is not especially fond of organised religion - says this: "It is dangerous to say 'All Muslims are like that'. And it is important not to say that a Muslim is 'moderate', if he is just a citizen like you or me, What does 'moderate' mean anyway? Does it mean that Islam is an extreme religion? This is latent provocation. And it's very dangerous. We do not have to paint everybody with the same brush. That is the danger I think." Heart open, and heart closed. Now you may question, so the fuck what? Two individuals have differing views shocker. To an extent that is fair. But in the context of idol worship and the having of heroes, it is saddening to see someone you looked up to for their sensitivity and wit, become so acrid and predictable. It makes you question everything you once loved about them. In the case of Morrissey, he's not even original anymore. He sounds like a 17-year-old keyboard warrior regurgitating what some dickhead has told him on YouTube whilst flogging Brain Force pills. Alas that's the problem with living in the ever-decreasing prison of own insecurities - you start harking back to an era you were slagging off at the time. https://twitter.com/momsgoldqueef/status/986200039549698048 And you know what? Fair enough. Everyone's got the right to their own twatty views. It just means you lose people along the way is all. People who adored you with every fibre of their being. And really, everything else aside, we're talking about an ex-footballer and a has-been singer. They are only as relevant as the fans who still chant their name.

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They say never meet your heroes, and that's sage advice. But once, these two particular stars collided. There was a crossing of the streams and in hindsight it was glorious. As Morrissey recounts in his autobiography: 'Leaving the hotel for the soundcheck I catch the glare of the very famous Eric Cantona frozen for an age-long few seconds as I emerge from the lift. In the mid-90s Cantona had been asked during an interview the very lazy 'So, what have you been up to lately?' question, and he had replied, 'Listening to Morrissey.' With my usual tact I had been quoted in Time Out magazine during more or less the same period, saying, 'I'm very fond of Eric Cantona as long as he doesn't say anything.'  'On this day in Paris, Cantona has clearly measured both quotes, and although I offer him a rarely used smile, he doesn't want it and he turns away coldly, and I am nixed like a fatty at the church steps. Eric takes his place in the hotel restaurant for the catch of the day, which is evidently not me.' Eric knew.