Lobbying low
Lady Gaga panders to gay fans with new YouTube plea, but there's no meat in thismessage
Lady Gaga's new black-and-white YouTube message to the Senate regarding the appeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," represents the most public activist moment of her career, a three-year roller coaster ride of fame that has been characterized by her strident embrace of fans, and in particular, her gay "little monsters."
"I am here to be a voice for my generation," she pleads into the camera, "not for the senators who are voting, but for the youth of our country — the generation that is affected by this law, and whose children who will be affected."
In the melodramatic video, just released today, Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta (the performer's birth name) is seated before an American flag and addresses such Republican senators as John McCain, Kentucky's Mitch McConnell and Oklahoma's James Inhofe, beseeching them to vote in favor of the Defense Authorization Bill on Tuesday, which includes language that would repeal the military stipulation that has discharged 14,000 Americans since its institution in 1993. The seven-and-a-half-minute heart-string puller ends with failed attempts to leave voicemails with the senators.
Lady Gaga's progressive ideals are just as laudable as any liberal, politically earnest celebrity, and while her music can be catchy and gay equality is a timely issue, Gaga's assumption of the voice of a generation and the face of gay rights comes as a disappointment. For a performer whose very name is ripped from a Queen song, her YouTube video seems more like pandering to her gay fan base than a true call to action.
Part of what makes Gaga's gay activism so dubious is the inherent flightiness in her manufactured persona.
The endlessly costume-changing, shape-shifting performer has her place on the stage, and while pop artists have the advantage of publicity to address pertinent issues, Gaga's signature taciturn presentation diminishes the validity of her argument. With each video and performance, she's established herself as a provocateur, not an articulate game-changer.
The YouTube video is not Gaga's first public address of gay rights.
At the MTV Video Music Awards, she accepted an award while decked out in a costume made of raw meat that has already received icon status. Gaga appeared alongside four members of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network.
On the Ellen DeGeneres Show the following morning, Gaga clarified that the meat suit was a reference to the policy, saying, "If we don't stand up for what we believe in, if we don't fight for our rights, pretty soon we're going to have as many rights as the meat on our bones," but then she added, "I am not a piece of meat," suggesting that the costume was also a statement on the sexualizing and commodification of pop music.
That Gaga would flip her message within a 30-minute talk show speaks to the transparency of her politics.
Elaborates Kira Cochrane of The Guardian, "Gaga seems to live inside a mass of contradictions: One moment she says she's not a feminist, 'I hail men'; the next she's declaring she is a feminist, and making feminist remarks ('When I say to you, there is nobody like me, and there never was, that is a statement I want every woman to feel and make about themselves')."
She has even self-proclaimed in interviews, "Gaga is a lie," and "I profusely lie." Is this the voice of a generation that Gaga so obsequiously communicates?
Gaga's posturing herself as the hero of her gay fan base is a convenient choice for a demographic that slavishly attaches itself to pop divas, but it is this slick embrace of eager followers, which she terms "little monsters," that comes off as most disturbing. The shallowness of Gaga branding herself as a misfit has already been revealed, but to posture as the foremost fag hag of the 21st century and to brand all gay people as symbiotic misfits is offensive. On a basic level, is there a more condescending or diminutive term than "little monsters?"
Gaga may profess, "I love my fans more than any artist who has ever lived," but it remains to be seen if her gay activism is just another baroque affectation, a costume stunt no different from another asymmetrical wig or straitjacket-studded airport stroll that define her stylized cult-of-personality.
While Lady Gaga's YouTube video racks up views, the elephant in the room remains: Why is it that there is nobody speaking for gay rights on the spectrum between senators with full voicemail inboxes and avant-garde performance artists? Why is this most calculated manifestation of subversiveness being chosen by SLDN as its partner in crime?
Surely the American gay lobby can summon a more compelling voice than a character, who may be a talented performer, but is above all a derivative pop star and an empty provocateur.
When Gaga ends her video with the words "God bless," it's never been so vague how sincere her message is: Whether she's identifying with or mocking America's political-religious ties, or just being sweet as she speaks through her almost tearful gaze.
Lady Gaga's YouTube appearance only proves that, yes, you can put a fag hag in front of a flag and turn on a camera. While both Lady Gaga and homosexual men share an affinity for disco sticks, that commonality can't incite progress.
See the new video for yourself:
