Gaga : An Outsider’s Best Friend?

by Gypsy Tart

‘But, she’s not even fit’ says a certain straight male friend, ‘I don’t get all the nudity and stuff if she’s not fit.’ And so it is that the debate of Lady Gaga and her appeal to the queers and weirdos of the world rises again.

To those of us looking in from the outside of the sugary, fluffy world of mainstream pop culture, Gaga’s appeal is exactly that; although she’s still a skinny, middle-class white girl like the rest of the pop tart army, she’s not ‘conventionally’ attractive. Body snarkers find great delight in pointing out her voluptuous derriere and Roman nose, and the cheaper glossies frequently mock her small but beautifully formed breasts in their gossip pages, using the notoriously vile Red Circle to point out her physical imperfections. All this is indicative of what these Gaga-haters revile most about her; the way she bares herself in all her glory, shoving her body – and therefore her sexuality – in your face, daring you to question her. She embraces the dirty, gritty side of herself; indeed, she commodifies it, selling it back to the corporate world for multi-million dollar endorsement deals.

Her obsession with commercialisation doesn’t simply take the form of laughably obvious product placements; she presents herself as an object, therefore satirizing the very nature of western capitalism and its focus on young, nubile bodies and their market value. She takes ‘sex sells’ to the extreme, revealing the raw, even deviant side of sexual desire whilst simultaneously demonstrating that it can’t simply be bottled and sold back to the consumer.

Watch the Alejandro video – mind you, seeing as its had over 16 million views, and you’re probably a lady of the gay persuasion, chances are you already have. It’s essentially a glorious, nine-minute celebration of hot, sweaty, leather-bound BDSM queerness, filled with enough blatant homoeroticism to keep the message boards on Gaydar buzzing for at least another six months. She proudly proclaims her bisexuality in a way far more genuine and sincere than the Katy Perrys and Britneys of this world could ever achieve. Sure, it may be all for show, but Gaga demonstrates such true and endearing support for the LGBT community that it’s hard not to feel at least some affection towards her.

She revels in her raw, slutty, dominatrix image, proclaiming her desire to ride your disco stick whilst posing on the cover of Q with a rather alluring strap-on (a brilliant, fuck-you response to the ridiculousness that is the media rumour mill). It might be OTT, in might be in your face, but at least it’s honest. She has sex, lots of it, she enjoys it, and she likes to sing about it, an approach far more empowering than the airbrushed, vanilla, incredibly straight sexuality of the Mileys and Taylor Swifts of this world, whose declarations of ‘purity’ and virginity merely reinforce their status as sexual objects and the belief that female sexuality is inherently sinful, nothing more than a commodity to be given to The One in return for eternal love and respect – ‘cos that’s totally how it works. Those who push away from such an image in an attempt to rebel against their early incarnations – Britney, Christina – feign bi-curiosity to appeal to the ever-present male gaze. It’s arguable that Gaga is also adhering to this model, but surely the filthy, visceral nature of her act, the way she highlights the performitivity of sexuality in a way that would make Judith Butler proud, suggests otherwise?

In a world of Silver Ring pledges, Ex-Gay movements and Madonna-Whore complexes, Gaga is a refreshing antidote to the impossibly beautiful, completely contradictory, sexy-but-sweet model every ‘good girl’ is expected to fulfill. She epitomizes everything and everyone outside the mainstream, whilst simultaneously working within it for her own advantage. You’ve got to give the girl some credit: who else can make a video out of every gay girl’s fantasy – hot androgynous butches and bitch-fights in the middle of a prison that dresses its inhabitants in S&M gear and fuck-me boots? I’ll take that over your standard writhing, warbling, and boringly hetero starlet any day.

Like Gaga?  Like Top Tens?  ‘Course you do.  Related : Top Ten Reasons Why I Would Never Hang Up On Lady Gaga