Finnish Fundies Ban Alice Cooper

Alice Cooper, comparatively tame predecessor of Marilyn Manson, has been banned from a performance in Finland because he does not espouse the right “Christian values”. This despite Cooper being a practicing Christian.

Cooper and his band were booked to perform at Tampere Areena Oy, an arena in Tampere, Finland Dec. 11.

However, the owners of the arena cancelled the event when the supposedly dark nature of Cooper’s “Theatre of Death” show came to light.

Harri Wiherkoski, managing director of the arena said that “artists who express suspicious values from Christianity’s point of view cannot be allowed to perform at the venue.”

He also told reporters that his venue doesn’t “arrange concerts where Satanism or non-god-worshipping occurs.”

Cooper, known for big hits like “School’s Out” and “I’m Eighteen“, apparently puts on quite a show. He compares it to Shakespeare. While he was not immediately available for comment, Cooper had spoken in an interview last year about reconciling his on-stage and personal lives.

As a Christian, I don’t declare myself as a ‘Christian rock star.’ I’m a rock performer who’s a Christian. Alice Cooper is the guy who wants to entertain the audience – it happens that he’s a Christian. Alice (the character I play on stage) began life as a villain and he remains one. There’s a villain and a hero in every Shakespeare play.

Alice is no more dangerous than a villain in a cartoon or a Disney film. We have fun with him. He snarls and wears make up. He’s punished for his crime and he comes back on the stage in white top and tails. We put on a good show. I’ve always put limits on Alice because I believe there’s a certain amount of Alice that’s a gentleman. He’d slit your throat, but he’d never swear at you. And there’s always a punchline; he may kill you, but he’ll slip on a banana peel. I get right-wing Christians down on me and I always ask them the question: ‘If I was doing Macbeth, would it be OK?’ And they always say that’s Shakespeare so of course. I say that’s about four times more violent than anything I do on stage.

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Mike Daniels is co-editor of Secular News Daily.

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