A reader writes:
I have such admiration for you as an advocate for sanity and gay civil rights. But I'm appalled that on the same day you attacked Lady Gaga as a gay-rights opportunist and back-handedly apologized for the odious, if not ill-intentioned, Kobe Bryant.
Well, I have long been a fan of unsafe intelligent pop-culture and also an opponent of excessively p.c. language policing. So this should not be much of a surprise. Cartman singing Gaga is my idea of America. But Gaga herself? Less impressive. Another writes:
Andrew, you’re entitled to dismiss Gaga musically if she’s not your cup of tea, but to assert, “There's a particularly irritating appropriation of gay culture for general consumption, perhaps guiltily over-compensated by Gaga's crashing every gay rights event known to man” is out of line. Gaga has been a tireless advocate for the repeal of DADT, and her “text your representative” campaign may actually have had an impact. She is not a craven business-woman riding a popular cultural shift.
Point almost taken. There is no inherent contradiction between being a shrewd businesswoman and also standing up for gay equality and visibility. In pop music, moreover, that isn't exactly brave. Madonna did it better when gays were far more culturally marginalized. Judy Garland even more so on every front. Another:
I don't like most of Gaga's music, but her compassion isn't an act.
She raised $500,000 for Haiti, and $1,500,000 or more for Japan Tsunami relief, half a personal matching donation to those of her fans. It went straight to Save the Children and American Red Cross.
In contrast, Madonna's school in Malawi, supported by a foundation she backs, doesn't exist. She raised $18 million, only a small share of that was spent in Malawi, and there is literally nothing to show for it. A big chunk of the money spent in Malawi was on multiple photo shoots of her playing in red African dirt.
It's true, as a 28-year-old gay man, I still have a larger part of my heart reserved for Madonna, but I have to say that if anyone panders to the gays without sincerity, it's Madge. I missed the show, but the first time I heard of Lady Gaga was May 2008, way before her first album release, when she played the Stud in San Francisco. The Stud is a grotty bar, host of Trannyshack, one of the oldest surviving gay dance clubs in town. This isn't a recent pander – gays have been a hugely important part of her fan base from day one, and she appreciates it.
Another:
You write that Gaga presents us with something "profoundly, commercially safe." If so (and I mostly agree), might this be the result of the very movement toward mainstream, conservative political visibility for gays (toward something profoundly, commercially safe) for which you yourself have so advocated over the years? Could we have a pop star (the pop diva of our time, whether you enjoy her work or not) who sings "No matter gay, straight, or bi / Lesbian, transgendered life" without the conservative turn toward gay marriage as defining the gay rights movement at the beginning of this century?
Gaga may appropriate a lifestyle to sell it back to its originators, but I would rather have Gaga than Britney. And we would do well to remember that there are places in this country where Gaga's lyrics (yes, often lacking) and stunts (yes, rarely unexpected by us) still carry a radical weight. Places where youth are still driven by cultural and emotional oppression to suicide. (And, after all, Bill Donahue is no stranger to barrel-scraping stunts.)
I, too, long for a gay movement more radical in scope for my and successive generations (I was born in 1985 and would welcome a discussion of gay rights outside "gay marriage"). But your advocacy for something radical and your impassioned take down of Gaga (like you, a gay marriage advocate) in this post seems strangely out of place on this blog.
I don't quite know where to start with this one. Except to say it is perfectly possible to be conservative politically and radical culturally. There may even be a link between the two. And while one can indeed see the gay movement's shift in the 1990s to a classic civil rights model rather than a culturally new left one as a "conservative" move, one can also see it as simply a maturation of the illiberal detour of the post-1969 New Left. But this is ancient territory. I don't want a "gay movement more radical in scope." I want the end of the gay movement. And then the equal flowering of a million perspectives in the culture – from radical to conservative and everything in between – in which different manifestations of homosexuality can bloom alongside different manifestations of straightness.
The Dish 