Gays against Gaga: A note from a reader
I doubt you’ll accept this post but really, this is too much. Lady Gaga is said to be a gay superstar not because she is said to be gay, but because she represents them. And for you to be turning down support from someone with such a big name is fucking stupid. Consider this: even if you don’t like her music, even if you don’t like her, she is trying to tell everyone to accept you through music that everyone has heard, meaning this message is global. If you don’t want her help, then you obviously aren’t in as much of need of support then you make yourself out to be. It’s disgusting and filthy that you people would reject a woman who puts her work and money and time into being a voice, and your going to oppress her? That makes you worse than homophobes, and I’m speaking as a gay American. So please, if you don’t want her help, don’t announce it to the world. Fuck the owner of this blog. Fuck you.
About 1/3 of our inbox is stuff like this. Equating our expression of dissenting views with a kind of treason and telling us basically to shut up.
Well, no, she doesn’t represent all of us, even if you may feel she represents you. No, dissenting voices and thoughtful critical voices aren’t oppression—in fact, queer culture desperately needs to get over its aversion to autocriticism if we have any hope of building an effective movement. And no, we are not going to shut up. Sorry.
With that out of the way, I want to reflect briefly on the significance of this reader’s erroneous understanding of “oppression”. See, oppression is, of course, rooted in unjust exercise of power. You can only be oppressed by people who have power or authority. Citizens like us, armed only with our words and ideas—we couldn’t “oppress” a multimillionaire pop star with the backing of multinational corporations if we tried, any more than we could oppress Kim Jung Il. Obviously.
But Lady Gaga doesn’t really want you to think about the mechanics of power. She doesn’t want you to think about the way the culture industry sells you different flavors of superficial commodified rebellion, both pro-gay and anti-gay (e.g. Odd Future) while leaving the overall unequal distribution of power largely unquestioned—never addressing the corporate hypercapitalist ruling class that undergirds misogyny, racism, homophobia, transphobia, militarism, and poverty. She teaches her little monsters to redefine oppression as “someone having a different idea than you and saying it out loud and you having unpleasant feelings as a result”. If it points out contradictions or unpleasant realities or creates a speedbump on the road to you “rejoicing your truth” it must be stamped out like a cigarette butt under your stiletto.
In Gaga’s world, oppression isn’t about power, but about “haters” who are being “a drag”. But, she promises that if we march lockstep in gleeful consumption, together we can look forward to an empowered future free of oppression.
taking a break from the usual fare to reblog this
especially the bit "in fact, queer culture desperately needs to get over its aversion to autocriticism if we have any hope of building an effective movement"
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