A post about Lady Gaga and Born this way
Ok, everyone knows that I have a shameless love for Lady Gaga. I think she’s very talented (Disagree? Youtube “Lady Gaga Acoustic” and watch her actually playing and singing her songs) and yeah, she’s got the whole “I’m gonna shock you!” thing going on, but that’s no different from what many pop starlets in the past have done (Britney Spears, Madonna, Paula Abdul, Hell, even Olivia Newton-John have used shock value to get attention for their music before) but hey, it’s just showmanship. She knows what will sell her records and she’s not afraid to use the weapons in her arsenal.
The thing that I’m touching on here stems from a conversation I had with a friend a while ago. I was talking about the “Born this Way” Vinyl that I picked up during Record Store Day, and my friend told me that she hated Lady Gaga because she is not gay and has no right to talk about what it’s like to be persecuted as such in a song, that she could never know what it’s like to be bullied because of your sexual orientation because she’s never had to live through it.
I disagree, however. Not on the “she’ll never know what it’s like” part, because yeah, even if Lady Gaga is Bi, that’s still more socially acceptable than being gay and yeah, she never really can know what it’s like to be a closeted homosexual, to have to go through the terrifying experience of coming out to your friends and family, to risk the rejection of people that you love because they aren’t willing to accept that side of you. If she’s not gay, then no, she can’t know what that’s like because she’s never had to go through it.
What I disagree with is that part where she doesn’t have the right to write a song about it and talk about it. Lady Gaga is an artist, a musician, and a dancer, three fields or pursuit which have a large representation of gay people in them. Lady Gaga has no doubt made good friends, maybe even best friends, with a number of these people, and to see them persecuted for their orientation, it’s probably for her the same thing that any one of us, gay or straight, would feel if OUR best friend was being persecuted for any reason. So she sees this still going on in today’s society, she is outraged, and she decides to write a song about it and stand up for the gay people out there that don’t have a worldwide audience that they can spread their message to. When I watched the “Born this way” video on youtube a few days ago, it had 36 MILLION views. That is 36 million times that her message was broadcast to someone, and that’s not even counting the millions of times it’s been played on the radio, downloaded to someone’s iPod, played in clubs, had the video shown on TV. Her message of “Deal with it! I am who I am!” has been broadcast around the world.
So, so what if she’s not gay? She is preaching tolerance and acceptance, and you don’t have to be gay to have a desire for all people to be accepted for who they are.
What’s your opinion?
The thing that I’m touching on here stems from a conversation I had with a friend a while ago. I was talking about the “Born this Way” Vinyl that I picked up during Record Store Day, and my friend told me that she hated Lady Gaga because she is not gay and has no right to talk about what it’s like to be persecuted as such in a song, that she could never know what it’s like to be bullied because of your sexual orientation because she’s never had to live through it.
I disagree, however. Not on the “she’ll never know what it’s like” part, because yeah, even if Lady Gaga is Bi, that’s still more socially acceptable than being gay and yeah, she never really can know what it’s like to be a closeted homosexual, to have to go through the terrifying experience of coming out to your friends and family, to risk the rejection of people that you love because they aren’t willing to accept that side of you. If she’s not gay, then no, she can’t know what that’s like because she’s never had to go through it.
What I disagree with is that part where she doesn’t have the right to write a song about it and talk about it. Lady Gaga is an artist, a musician, and a dancer, three fields or pursuit which have a large representation of gay people in them. Lady Gaga has no doubt made good friends, maybe even best friends, with a number of these people, and to see them persecuted for their orientation, it’s probably for her the same thing that any one of us, gay or straight, would feel if OUR best friend was being persecuted for any reason. So she sees this still going on in today’s society, she is outraged, and she decides to write a song about it and stand up for the gay people out there that don’t have a worldwide audience that they can spread their message to. When I watched the “Born this way” video on youtube a few days ago, it had 36 MILLION views. That is 36 million times that her message was broadcast to someone, and that’s not even counting the millions of times it’s been played on the radio, downloaded to someone’s iPod, played in clubs, had the video shown on TV. Her message of “Deal with it! I am who I am!” has been broadcast around the world.
So, so what if she’s not gay? She is preaching tolerance and acceptance, and you don’t have to be gay to have a desire for all people to be accepted for who they are.
What’s your opinion?