This past Halloween weekend was great.
Lady Gaga is part of the LBGT community, okay. She’s bi. She’s the “B”. Can we stop pretending that she’s some opportunistic fuck who is trying to take advantage of queer people?
You can have an opinion about her music, even her message, but I sense that a lot of her critics are equating her to Katy Perry’s bullshit, which just isn’t fair. Gaga isn’t a straight chick playing gay in order to make a hit/appeal sexually to men.
I know this is an unpopular opinion round these parts, but I actually do think that Lady Gaga is an opportunistic fuck. I don’t think that she’s making music or playing gay in order to appeal sexually to men, but to consolidate her cultural capital and increase her credibility with her fanbase. I was trying to find an free online copy of her Rolling Stone interview (I couldn’t obviously) but she said in it that her attraction to women was “purely physical” and that she was only interested in having LTRs with men. I’m sorry, but I find an occasional one-off insufficient for someone to claim to be some queer fucking savoir. The ability to gain the cultural capital that lesbianism can provide attractive, wealthy, and famous white women without the stigma and discrimination that women in gay relationships face on a daily basis is an exercise in straight privilege if I’ve ever seen it. She’ll never have a rock thrown at her head while walking down the street with her lover or be told that the obviously empty one bedroom apartment she’s just come to see is no longer available when the realtor realizes the woman with her isn’t just there for a second opinion. So yeah, maybe she likes to get her rocks off with other women. That’s good for her, many women do. But I’m going to throw a large amount of side-eye at anyone who so desperately invokes queer identity while simultaneously denying the possibility they could be in a queer relationship. Especially when they’re riding that identity all the way to the bank.
Call me a cynic, but if I’m looking for queer saviors, I’m not looking to Interscope Records.
So wait, she’s insufficiently queer for you to be calling herself queer? I have to say, I find that really problematic. Because what matters is what she calls herself, not what you think about her sexuality.
She’s a feminine cis-woman who is able to “pass”, I guess, as a straight lady. She doesn’t trigger many of the same cultural buttons that a more obviously gay woman will, because she doesn’t subvert as many gender norms. She’s a self-proclaimed bisexual woman, but she prefers to date men. She’s white, upper class, and will never face any serious discrimination or harrassment (although we are ignoring all the homophobic and transphobic slurs that have been thrown her way, regarding her “penis”.)
None of the above invalidates her queerness.
Born That Way was a terrible song, and I think her advocacy for queer issues is superficial and simplistic. That doesn’t mean she’s appropriating anything.
Also, there’s something to be said for people who are aromantic. Just wanting to fuck someone without dating them… what’s really wrong with that? Are those feelings less important, less valid than the feeling of wanting to have a romantic relationship?
She’s not above having romantic relationships in general, just ones with women. I would never say there is anything wrong with not wanting romantic relationships in general, that’s pretty much how I feel about the situation. But I still think its fucked up that she felt the need to point out that the ways in which she is attracted to women is different (and in a way, lesser-than) than the ways in which she is attracted to men. SHE is the only who is qualifying her sexuality here, not me. And I never said she wasn’t bisexual, I said “So yeah, maybe she likes to get her rocks off with other women. That’s good for her, many women do.” I didn’t deny that her sexual attraction may be genuine, but that doesn’t mean that she is somehow unable to manipulate the media, her image, and her fans in order to make that a more central part of her stage-persona than her off-stage identity. The fact that she likes to scissor doesn’t mean that she can’t exploit, manipulate, and generally work that image to her own economic advantage.
Here is the thing, I think Lady Gaga is a phenomenal businesswomen. And I don’t think she’s secretly some heartless homophobic straight girl who care nothing about gay issues. I think she genuinely believes in gay marriage and no bullying and DADT and all that rot, but she’s using these issues to her own advantage, in order to boost up her career. Which, strategically speaking, is BRILLIANT. It’s obviously worked hasn’t it? The problem I have is, however, is this incessant claim to authenticity which makes the whole operation ring hollow.
See here is the thing. Lady Gaga is not a person. She’s no more real than Ziggy Stardust or Cindi Mayweather. We seem to forget that that image is a construction and that Stefani Giawhatever is the individual responsible for that. Stefani might like to have a bacardi breezer and muff dive on occasion, but that doesn’t mean that her alter-ego isn’t problematic in the way that she interacts with and profits from the gay community while simultaneously trying to distance herself from any personal implications. And you know, you can be gay and still fuck over gays.
As usual, thusspakekate articulates my feelings perfectly so I don’t have to.
