Out Magazine: Lady Gaga Lyrics Comparable To Words Of Martin Luther King, Jr.

gagathumbWell, sure.

Because there hasn’t been enough said about Lady Gaga’s new song, Out goes there:

Months before Lady Gaga’s latest single, “Born This Way,” hit the airwaves, we were prepped to receive what we were told would be the queer anthem to end all queer anthems. […] We asked two gay men, cofounder and chief creative officer of Fab.com Bradford Shellhammer and writer Mark Simpson, who fall on wildly opposite sides of the “Born This Way” debate, to tell us why we should be turning the song up — or turning it off.

Good lord.

I try to ignore things that I think are stupid (Lady Gaga, Lady Gaga music, “debates” on the internet, Out) in the hopes that they’ll just magically fade away. Even if they don’t, at least I won’t have contributed in the slightest to their place in the zeitgeist. But look at me, paying attention and writing about the things I wish I could ignore.

Bradford Shellhammer’s “side” of the debate (excerpted below) defends Lady Gaga:

I have been blogging for over 10 years. I have been a designer and an artist. I was the first voice of the blog Queerty and I am cofounder of Fab.com. I’ve been around gay people and I love gay people. I’ve made a career of being gay. And I understand the age-old traditions of “reading” and the need for self-depracating [sic] humor, snark, and “cuntiness.” They do serve a purpose.

How is being self-deprecating, which was misspelled (Out’s publisher laid off several copy editors last year), comparable to cuntiness? And the reflexive labeling (not just here, but everywhere online) of anything critical as “snark”? Stop doing that. Snark has become the catch-all term to marginalize any piece of writing with an opinion, and that’s boring. Also, the fact that you’re gay doesn’t necessarily make you an authority on being a cunt. Having written for Queerty might though!

But there’s a fine line between being a smart-ass and being a jackass. We’ve lost sense of that. In a pop culture world that celebrates violence and superficial, we’ve allowed ourselves to get mean. To attack. It is evident on reality TV shows that no longer celebrate the human spirit, but rather belittle it. It is evident in the political discourse of this country’s leaders. It is evident on my Facebook wall, where one by one many friends of mine have ripped apart Lady Gaga’s new anthem.

I am cool with people not liking it.

No, you’re not. You wouldn’t be writing this if you were.

I am bothered by the need to tear down something so uplifting. The lyrics to “Born This Way” are nothing new. They’re uplifting, feel-good, empowering. Similar words have been spoken by Martin Luther King, Jr., Harvey Milk, Oprah Winfrey. What’s she’s saying is not new. But the generation she’s speaking them to, singing them to, is new. Let’s not forget that.

[…]

Lady Gaga wears wigs and ridiculous costumes and belts dance floor stompers that millions of kids sing and dance to. She brings happiness into this world. We need more angles [sic] like her. We need more wigs. More dancing. And more positive influences on our youth, whether gay or straight. The next time you belittle her, attack her music or her artistry remember you’re also attacking an ally and a voice of a younger generation. Your words, whether quoted on a blog or a simple Facebook status update, have power. We’re all born superstars after all.

If you’re the kind of person who would ascribe actual power to a Facebook status update or, worse yet, something someone said on a blog, I can see how you’d also be the kind of person who would unironically equate Lady Gaga song lyrics to Martin Luther King, Jr. speeches. And if you’re the kind of person who thinks that everyone is a superstar (whatever that means) when in fact some of us are just idiots, I can see how you’d also be the kind of person who would idolize a woman who wears dresses made of raw meat. Fine. But calling criticism of some asshole who rides around in an egg the same thing as an attack on gay rights or gay youth? No.
 

18 thoughts on “Out Magazine: Lady Gaga Lyrics Comparable To Words Of Martin Luther King, Jr.”

  1. Western culture is made out of refferential shit—every fucking novel is based on Cervantes and he was ripping off Romance. Now all distance dued, pop culture has no reason to be different. Pop Art for instance was constitued by refferencing the non art-world and that was a big part of the whole avant-gard in it. I don’t think Lady Gaga can or should be compared to MLK. However if you are gonna judge a singer for copying a prior one and actulizing it maybe you should go back to pop 101. Now, I know the point of this thing was making fun of how stupid the guys at Out Magazine are, but come on! making fun of something so lame is not even fun it’s actually just kind of pathetic.

  2. holly cybersocket

    Lady Gaga should take Justin Bieber and move to Mars .. Over her and to compare to one of the greatest men in history is not only short sighted but ignorant!

  3. ideas belong to know one. in fact all ideas are referential. even the “originals” like David Bowie are influenced and referenced by other people and ideas.

  4. You people are too cynical. Why tear down someone that has made a career of being fun and supportive of the gay community. She isnt a politician so there is only so much she can do for gays, however, It is admirable that she would wNt her fans who are mostly gay to feel good about themselves. Get over yourselves she is so harmless it says more about yourself for attacking her.
    Ps
    The writer wasnt comparing her significance or eloquence to mlk ; but her sentiment And her sentiment is the same.

    1. she made a career out of ripping all possible real artists off to produce a mediocre product to feed scene girls and naive gays who constantly need a pat on the shoulder and being told that it’s ok to be “different”….brb listening to david bowie….you know one of the many assholes she steals ideas from…

  5. I read somewhere that she wrote the song in ten minutes, which is obvious when listening to it: it’s not very tuneful and a bit too close to “Express Yourself”. Also songs that are direct and didactic tend to be dull since there is no mystery. A lot of old anthems were anthems because they were vague enough that groups could hear their own message in it. GaGa’s lyrics have always been bad: “Love it when you call me legs. In the morning buy me eggs.” So “Born This Way is no different with its hamfisted religious references and just because she gives a shout out to the GLBT community does not make it a good song. I’ll stick to the band Gossip

  6. Oh my! Two porn blogers debating of the quality of the lyrics of Lady gaga… it’s like two old drags in a catfight! Funny or pathetic? I’m noone to decide but… beware of the wigs!

    @Diesel Washington : 1/ you should engrave that profound sentence : “Lady Gaga IS NOTHING compared to Martin Luther King Jr.” (not sure that you need to keep the many dots at the en though…)
    2/ How old are you exactly to even consider that its “your” generation which is targeted?

  7. Yeah because people need to be told by a white woman from an upper class privilege family that it’s ok to be gay men and women,”cholas descents” and “orient made” (smfh)…..RIP POP CULTURE.

  8. Ummm…..

    Lady Gaga IS NOTHING compared to Martin Luther King Jr……….

    Her music does not define My Generation or Struggle/Empowerment/Direction…

    Martin Luther King Jr……..gave Hope/Faith to an entire race of people!!!

    And your going to compare THIS GREAT MAN to a singer that comes out of a bubble at the Grammys????

    The Editor of Out should be shot for even letting this be printed or placed online!! I’m done!!

    .

    1. Now, Diesel… she has given hope to a whole… umm. Well… okay, you have a very good point. BUT WAIT! MLK NEVER HAD 1Billion VIEWS ON YouTube!

      Oh, snap!

      :-/

      (And yes, I agree – the comparison is beyond the pale.)

    2. It’s okay boys, the stereotype police are gone. You can stop hating on Gaga to make yourselves seem more masculine.

      I’m asserting there are only two people in the world, people who love Lady Gaga and people who Lie about not loving Lady Gaga.

  9. Sure, Born This Way is no Your Disco Needs You, but it’s not as bad as its detractors want to make it sound. Lady Gaga, bless her heart, is Queen of the Try-Hards. Sometimes it succeeds and sometimes it doesn’t. Hopefully, the next thing she cooks up will do better.

    This Out piece is terrible/hysterical though. There should be a word for that.

    1. Perhaps the original article itself is on the verge of being Camp? I mean, they’re having a “serious debate” about whether or not a song with the lyrics “Don’t be a drag, be a queen” is a ready-made anthem. Even the detractors are treating the topic with enough austerity (by having the discussion at all) that the entire dialogue is as ridiculous as the topic that inspired it (but whereas the topic of the conversation is TRYING, the conversation IS NOT, and that means we may be in danger of adding this entire schlock to the pile [except for the song, which, as already stated, cannot be Camp by default].).

      OMG…

      “Out” is Camp, and Gaga is camp… how ironic… or not…

  10. Thanks, Mike… That was the point I was going to make: You don’t get to announce the release of an anthem, gay or otherwise. If a piece takes on a life of its own, becomes something more than the song it was originally intended to be, and then sounds fresh 20 years later… well… THEN you can be gracious enough to let SOMEONE ELSE give it the anthem regalia. Also, your point about Camp/camp is spot on: Something becomes Camp precisely because it genuinely takes itself seriously when no one else does (at least not for the original reason intended). If you’re talking about Camp, you’re talking about something that has been transformed into Camp against or in spite of its will/intent – in fact, whatever it is that has been transformed may not even be aware that it is now Camp. But when you talk about camp… well… that’s “Camp” on purpose, and that doesn’t count… Real Camp is an accident, and “Camp” is camp, and that’s just ignant.

    1. Yep, two of my favorites “Valley of the Dolls” and “Mommie Dearest” were intended to be dramatic powerhorses, and failed at the box-office spectacularly until studios noted gays were flocking to both in the days of their release. “Burlesque” bombed because you don’t tell us, we tell you. And “Black Swan” was just too good to be considered camp despite the popularity with gays. “I Will Survive” wasn’t written specifically as an anthem, but I saw “Priscilla, Queen of the Desert” in London and it is the big ANTHEM at the end to get everybody out of their seats and dancing. (That show is a scream, btw. Love how the announcer at the beginning goes: “Ladies, and………ladies, please – no flash photography……”)

      GaGa hung out with Perez Hilton too long to tell me to worship her.

  11. It’s just not as good as her previous stuff. I think she’s peaked. Around where I live, Kesha and Britney are outplaying it on the main pop station by three to one as least. Hate that bitch Kesha – everything is so awfully catchy and by the second time you’ve heard it you know all the lyrics.

    “we were prepped to receive what we were told would be the queer anthem to end all queer anthems”
    I liked what I read on DListed when it came out. You don’t have a song released as a “queer anthem”, it becomes one. The article Michael K linked to said it was like “camp” – artful camp does not set out to be thought of as camp, awful camp does.

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