Conclusion

Abstract

After the demise of the Smiths in 1987, the cynic sensibility largely fades from view, with few if any figures emerging within popular culture showing the same key characteristics that the previous chapters have mapped out. Of course, Morrissey continued to pursue some of the same lyrical themes (such as the call for the obliteration of Middle English mundanity referenced in the epigraph), but in his pronouncements and artistic outputs from the 1990s onwards has tended to, on the one hand, focus on criticising the process of migration into the United Kingdom (causing some to label him as a neo-racist — at the very least he is guilty of gross nostalgia), whilst, on the other hand, gradually becoming more and more of a parody of his former self. Certainly his album and single output since the Smiths’ break-up has been of a uniformly lower quality. One feels that, in recent times, Morrissey has tended to rely on his past glories and past witticisms (as well as the die-hard loyalty of many of his acolytes) to retain his cultural cachet. Recent media statements as to the barbarity of “the Chinese” and “Canada” as a whole — due to their respective animal rights records — has reinforced the opinion of his detractors that Morrissey has travelled the time-worn path (shared by other cynics such as Kingsley Amis and John Osborne, to name but two) from youthful iconoclast to outright reactionary.