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:

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Movie Review

Meta-comedy remake Anaconda coils itself into an unfunny mess

Photo by Matt Grace

Jack Black and Paul Rudd in Anaconda.

In Hollywood’s never-ending quest to take advantage of existing intellectual property, seemingly no older movie is off limits, even if the original was not well-regarded. That’s certainly the case with 1997’s Anaconda, which is best known for being a lesser entry on the filmography of Ice Cube and Jennifer Lopez, as well as some horrendous accent work by Jon Voight.

The idea behind the new meta-sequel Anaconda is arguably a good one. Four friends — Doug (Jack Black), Griff (Paul Rudd), Claire (Thandiwe Newton), and Kenny (Steve Zahn) — who made homemade movies when they were teenagers decide to remake Anaconda on a shoestring budget. Egged on by Griff, an actor who can’t catch a break, the four of them pull together enough money to fly down to Brazil, hire a boat, and film a script written by Doug.

Naturally, almost nothing goes as planned in the Amazon, including losing their trained snake and running headlong into a criminal enterprise. Soon enough, everything else takes second place to the presence of a giant anaconda that is stalking them and anyone else who crosses its path.

Written and directed by Tom Gormican, with help from co-writer Kevin Etten, the film is designed to be an outrageous comedy peppered with laugh-out-loud moments that cover up the fact that there’s really no story. That would be all well and good … if anything the film had to offer was truly funny. Only a few scenes elicit any honest laughter, and so instead the audience is fed half-baked jokes, a story with no focus, and actors who ham it up to get any kind of reaction.

The biggest problem is that the meta-ness of the film goes too far. None of the core four characters possess any interesting traits, and their blandness is transferred over to the actors playing them. And so even as they face some harrowing situations or ones that could be funny, it’s difficult to care about anything they do since the filmmakers never make the basic effort of making the audience care about them.

It’s weird to say in a movie called Anaconda, but it becomes much too focused on the snake in the second half of the film. If the goal is to be a straight-up comedy, then everything up to and including the snake attacks should be serving that objective. But most of the time the attacks are either random or moments when the characters are already scared, and so any humor that could be mined all but disappears.

Black and Rudd are comedy all-stars who can typically be counted on to elevate even subpar material. That’s not the case here, as each only scores on a few occasions, with Black’s physicality being the funniest thing in the movie. Newton is not a good fit with this type of movie, and she isn’t done any favors by some seriously bad wigs. Zahn used to be the go-to guy for funny sidekicks, but he brings little to the table in this role.

Any attempt at rebooting/remaking an old piece of IP should make a concerted effort to differentiate itself from the original, and in that way, the new Anaconda succeeds. Unfortunately, that’s its only success, as the filmmakers can never find the right balance to turn it into the bawdy comedy they seemed to want.

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Anaconda is now playing in theaters.

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