Hi. My name is Andi, and I am a Lady Gaga addict. I find her methods creative, unconventional, and often inspiring, but i find her message--though often taken out of context--uplifting and empowering. In fact, I am going to confess (since the old group confession is the setting I chose) that not long after my first blog entry, I gave up on myself as a novelist, a writer, and an activist. I am more than willing to confess that watching Gaga interviews--on how badly she was bullied, how she sometimes STILL feels like "such a loser," how she was signed to a record label, dropped, and reinvented herself, and how she doesn't think that makes her special, but that anyone can do it--is at least half of what has made me believe in myself again. See, somewhere in all of that, along with a brief chat with my mother, i realized that my family, friends, and fans' belief in me was not enough. Nor was belief in myself going to drop on me like a cloud out of heaven, or happen when some agent validated that I can write compelling and relevant novels. I have to believe in myself, and that is not a feeling. It is a decision. Sometimes a daily decision. Sometimes hourly. Sometimes even minute by minute.
I am open here about the fact that I am a Christian. My first blog entry made one hell of a splash and let you know I am not a conventional Christian by any means. Yet, the Bible said to commune on what we have in common, and more than that, Jesus said to love your neighbor as yourself (which i believe to be the mantra of mantras for how we are to conduct our lives). It's just been recently, though, that I've been putting any weight at all on the "love yourself" part.
That being said, I will let you in on a little secret: On days when i feel tempted to wallow in self-loathing (or am just bored), i often find myself on youtube, scouring for unseen (by me) footage of gaga interviews and performances. Today, more on the bored side (since I am working hard at self-love and am really optimistic about the supreme court/prop 8 trial) I found a Gaga performance (posted below) where Lady Gaga tells her entire audience that Jesus loves everybody. No, wait. She screams it.
I've known for about two years that she believes in Jesus. She said so on her Larry King interview on his 25th anniversary week in 2010. She's professed to be Catholic in other interviews, and this clip was the latest evidence of her faith (there being a difference in religion and faith, she does loudly proclaim her religion to be pop art and her little monsters (aka, fans)). i thought this clip of lady gaga in scantly clad in black leather, lying in stage fog, screaming of the love of Jesus was great. In fact, I went to Google in order to try to find her exact quote, since there are a few lines i can't discern from the following:
"Jesus, Jesus are you listening? Jesus some people say that you only love a certain kind of person, (here
she listed two things i can't make out) or sexual orientation, but Jesus you have blessed me and every
night I bleed to death (a reference to part of her performance) in front of 20,000 people and all my
friends talk about love and unity, so I am quite certain that Jesus must love EVERYBODY! Jesus loves
everybody.”
With that, the self-proclaimed free bitch segued into introducing her bisexual guitarist with a tongue-in-cheek comparison that, like Jesus, he loves everybody. I say tongue-in-cheek because obviously, knowing what she says about acceptance of others, self-acceptance, love, unity, on and on, she is obviously not saying that Jesus' love for everybody is of a sexual nature. (Although, who am I to say whether or not Michael, her guitarist, on top of being bisexual, is a loving person towards everyone? Maybe that was the comparison. Maybe she was further illustrating that Jesus loves everyone, regardless of orientation. Or maybe my first instinct was on and it was just a segue.)
Sadly, when I went to Google to find the completed quote, all that seemed to come up were websites like radio.foxnews.com, headlining "Lady Gaga: Jesus is Like a Bisexual Dancer." Foolishly, I opened the link, hoping for a full quote, but, no, they didn't have the balls for that. My first clue should have been that she segued into talking about her guitarist, not a dancer. Sure that could have been an oversight. Those happen, and I am sure you will catch me in one one day. The thing is, the entire entry was an oversight--an oversight of what she said, of what her art is, and of her message: love, self-acceptance, empowerment, and that Jesus loves every man, woman, and child who attended that show (and the whole world). Instead of "fair and balanced" reporting, the writer went on to site her controversial video Alejandro, which was publicly known to be an artistic statement on the U.S. military's former Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy (DADT) and debuted shortly before DADT was tackled by the U.S. congress and eventually overturned. In the video she, at times, dresses as both a monk and a leather-clad nun. I dare say that this was a commentary on religious oppression (which happens in any faith) and not on any one particular system of belief. They also drudged up Judas--a song and video she has stated was about how she worked out within herself why she kept going back to the same sorts of men. In the video, there is anything from Jesus and the twelve portrayed as a biker gang, or her washing Jesus' feet while Judas pours beer on her ass, to her dressed in the iconic (yet not historically correct) Mary colors, and even a mini pope outfit while being stoned (which, ironically, or prophetically, this entry did to her in a literary sense). Unless there really is some offense in the thought of Jesus wearing leather (which he did on his feet at least), of him not being white, or riding a motorcycle, there is no imagery of Jesus in the video that plausibly construes as blasphemous picture. Rather, it is all imagery, showing her torn between the two, and even Jesus placing his hand on her head in forgiveness as she turns her back on him. I like the song, and it's not my personal favorite, but I think we can all identify to that pitfall we consistently return to, to our own detriment. However, the article on this website seemed intent on making her out to be nothing more than what her lyrics state in irony towards the end of the song (not in the video but on the CD): "In the most Biblical sense, I am beyond repentance: Fame-hooker, prostitute, wench, vomits her mind."
All of this defaming, judgment (without real context), and mindless stoning is happening while she is using her fame and art to spread a message of love and acceptance, as well as consistently using her own money to help those in need--through charities, personal connections, and her own volition.
I feel a personal connection as an artist to Lady Gaga. Take that as you may, but when I read the passages in the Bible that analogize of the body of Christ I can't help but think of myself in two ways: on one hand, I'm an elbow jabbing into people who have neglected to make love priority number one, and on the other hand I'm a hand, extending love and acceptance in places society has withdrawn it.
That connection in mind, I cannot help but pose the question of who is more closely following the message of the gospel of love? the painfully honest girl in her underwear, smeared with fake blood from an earlier song, lying in stage fog, using much irony in her performances, and screaming from within her soul, "Jesus loves EVERYBODY!" (skip to 6:25 if you want to stay on topic), who has poured her money, heart, and soul into ending bullying and lgbt suicides, or the hordes of people, who have neat looking, pretty lives and would never openly dare say "the F word," use the term bullshit, (again, openly) watch her sexier videos, or sing her more profanity-laden songs, yet have no qualms when it comes to tearing down Gaga--and all the others who, like her they don't understand--throwing verbal and literary rocks about how blasphemous and unholy she is?
I can already see the "but she could do it another way," and the "yes, but she's wrong about A, B, and C," comments now. Before you type those out, I challenge you to watch 60 minutes worth of interviews about her life and what her work means to her. Furthermore, I challenge you to see that this entry is in the spirit of my artistic and activist hero's works: more than it seems at face value, but also an analogy. In this instance, one of true faith, true love, goodwill, and of many teachings of Jesus (Ryan, because you asked for scripture, here's only a few: Matthew 25:32-46, Matthew 7:1-6, Matthew 7:21-23, Matthew 21:28-32, 1 Samuel 16:7, Luke 16:15-16), and of how society is vs how it should become.
btw: DOWN WITH PROP 8 (Ezekiel 16:49-50)
