A Contrarian View of Lady Gaga

Andrea: I may have to (sorta) take back what I said about LG not taking from women of colour. This article says she bites Kelis’ style.   Gaga just doesn’t culture-rake, unlike Madonna.

Thea: Hoooweeeeee!

Hm, do you think this is a fair allegation? I do remember that Kelis had over-the-top sexuality and that that whole “I hate you so much right now!” stuff made a bit of a dent, but was she as surprising and challenging of gender norms as Lady Gaga? I don’t see them as being that parallel…even though Kelis’ “Caught out There” video also features a dead (drugged?) man. It’s interesting also to think about cultural support – maybe Lady Gaga came onto the scene more at a time when people were willing to see her art/music as confronting gender normativity, than they were able to recognise that in Kelis.

But at the same time, I really do think we have to weigh the role of race in this – why have all the gender studies academics gone mad for Lady Gaga, and there was nary a spike over M.I.A.’s, Kelis’, and Beyonce’s evolution? I think you see the same thing with MCs like Foxy Brown or even Trina; within their art there is a bold attack and a pushback on a certain idea of what makes a woman – often in fierce and creative ways – but they are not getting the cred or the recognition that these virginally blonde women, like Gaga, Madonna and Cyndi Lauper.

Which I think both has to do with the fact that women of colour are already non-norm, but also just the fact that racist media gives much less time to women of colour than white women.

And then a few weeks later…

When two of the most original singers of color back up your opinion, you get a whiff of the minty lemon scent of vindication.  At least that how the two of us felt when none other than Grace Jones and M.I.A. recently gave Lady Gaga direct side-eye in the press.

Perhaps what we made explicit is what Jones implied to in her comment about Gaga:

Has she copied her? “Well, you know, I’ve seen some things she’s worn that I’ve worn, and that does kind of piss me off.”

Is she talented? “I wouldn’t go to see her.”

So, did she ask to play with her? “Yes, she did, but I said no. I’d just prefer to work with someone who is more original and someone who is not copying me, actually.”

And M.I.A. said this:

Again, there’d Lady Gaga – people say we’re similar, that we both mix all these things in the pot and spit them out differently, but she spits it out exactly the same! None of her music’s reflective of how weird she wants to be or thinks she is. She models herself on Grace Jones and Madonna, but the music sounds like 20-year-old Ibiza music, you know? She’s not progressive, but she’s a good mimic. She sounds more like me than I fucking do!

M.I.A.’s comments seem particularly spot on: while the spectacle of Gaga is dazzling, ironically as a singer, her music is the least progressive thing about her. Especially when you contrast it with M.I.A’s bonkers rhymes and bold call-outs to volatile political conflicts.

Is this just a media-fed beef of two women of color against a white woman who reached out to at least one of them (Jones) because they want to create some buzz for their projects?  (The color-coded dynamics of that set-up alone…)

Perhaps. But, within their individual complaints, is the very real observation of how the media (again) marginalizes the innovations of female entertainers of color by exceptionalizing or otherwise exoticizing them as they hail the white woman who copies their style all the way to the bank and back to the pedestal.

Photo credits: WireImage

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