I’ll tell you the reason why I don’t hate Lady Gaga.
First of all her underground synthetic reimagined
soundscapes that are based entirely around controversial statements are the
guiltiest of pleasures for my inner shirtless go-go-boy.
More relevantly, Lady Gaga has served as an incredibly
fast-moving vehicle for advocacy as a state of action, pulling along with her
the pop-culture enthusiasts and academics as well as the fashion-forward,
celebrity spokespeople and the general opinions of nuclear domestic
participants. Many have dismissed her potential for initiating movements due to
their personal feelings about her music, her flair for that which is removed
from reality and operates from illusory facades and her lack of anything truly
educative to say. These people are relatively correct, and I wonder if not a
tad frustrated that the movements they started are now being attributed to a
young woman who uses her non-conformity to conform.
The thing is that Lady Gaga as a brand, a style and a genre
holds most of her power in the ability to fuel fires. Inflammatory statements
such as ‘I was born this way’ and ‘bullying is for losers’ will continue on
past the shelving of great books about liberation and anti-homophobia. What
opinion leaders should recognise, and even appreciate where possible, is the
fact that her place is crucial to the debate, discussion and progressive action
ongoing into future generations. Where most popular singers are whingeing about
the way their boyfriends treats them, or thrusting their wealth and
devil-may-care attitudes into the faces of teens with surplus incomes, here is
a woman aiming to be topical and bring the important topics subliminally into
the fore of young people’s thinking. And it is here I will go on to make my
actual point.
It seems to me at this point in the ongoing process of gay
liberation and equality for sexually diverse communities, that we’re talking a
lot about choices. For some, there is concern about an inexplicable tendency
for gay activists to seek and perpetuate a discursive unity that is apparently
required for credibility as we go forth to tackle THE NORM (cue foreboding
sound effects) and seek hospitality within its façade of safety. For others, it is simply a matter of craving
anarchy, desiring to tear down institutions and start afresh in order for them
to feel gratified in the efforts being made (ignoring the fact that this would
completely undermine the work of countless thousands who have sought to plant
seeds within the institution to make it better by lobbying, scapegoating
themselves, by being imprisoned, by being killed). Some of us just don’t get
why we have to argue or explain or lobby to have access to our human rights,
and the legal frameworks to enforce our right to access them. Who still thinks
that non-homosexual people (who for the most part aren’t even fully
heterosexual themselves), are sub-human?
In the last week we have questioned the fruitfulness of
fighting as hard as we are for same-sex marriage, we have blown poor Cynthia
Nixon to pieces for having an opinion about labels (labels that we don’t even
know or like the meaning of anyway), and thrown our self-righteous hate all
over Margaret Court and every single person who adheres to her political,
personal and religious agenda. But there is more about how we respond to come
in another blog.
If we must rally around one statement, my suggestion is that
it be this: it’s about CHOICES. At this point in time, gay people have so much
more than they did (just ask a straight person!), we are acceptable, even
exploitable in the media, we are welcome in professional sport, we are loved by
political parties and private business chasing a reputation for corporate
social responsibility. But there are alarming similarities to the way we felt
thirty years ago when it was still commonplace to castrate gay men and submit
gay women to electro-shock treatment. Why are books like Dennis Altmann’s
‘Homosexual: Oppression and Liberation’, films like ‘Word is Out’ and songs
like ‘Born This Way’ still stirring the brains and heartaches of gay and
gay-supportive people worldwide? Because the work that has been going on for
fifty years and beyond is still going on, asking for the same thing in
different syntax. We want the ability to choose.
I want to get married. I want to get married by a High
Priestess in the Far North of Queensland with two other gay people to witness.
I do not want to get married so my parents will approve of me, because they
already do. I do not want to get married so I can rub it in heterosexual
people’s faces, because it shouldn’t be so alarming to them. I do not want to
get married so I can say I won something. And I don’t want same sex marriage to
be allowed so I can start conforming either. And contrary to one young woman’s
suggestions, I don’t want same sex marriage to pass so people can feel more
justified in spousal abuse and matrimonial entrapment. I see no point in
tearing down an institution when I can just do my part to altar (alter, get
it?) it for the better. But what it comes down to is that I want same sex
marriage to pass so that if for any reason I happen to stumble across a great
guy who loves me and wants us to celebrate our love in a way that is
recognisable, that is the same as the way thousands of others have done it
throughout history, THEN I CAN CHOOSE TO DO SO!
Now when I say the word ‘choice’ I can hear the pores on
people’s foreheads start to atrophy and release sweat because we have all been,
for a long time very firm on the fact that being gay or lesbian is not a
choice. It is the argument we used some time ago that is one of the most
successful arguments we have had in terms of political and social progress: we
deserve our rights because we can’t help ourselves. Now for me, being gay was
not a choice, it was a fact of my existence in terms of my sexual and emotional
responses to my external environment. Did I choose to ‘be gay’ in an outwardly
way. I will say no again because anyone who has met me can attest to the fact
that at first glance, ‘well maybe, but all hope is lost when you open your
mouth’ said one friend, ‘or start to walk anywhere’ chimed in another. But then
I know that is a reality of my life, it is unique to me except where it is
unique to someone else! Homogenising homosexuals is a gross injustice not just
to non-heterosexual people, but also to the mental and perspectival capacity of
heterosexual people. For LGBT communities to participate in this homogenisation
would be an even bigger mistake, because it will ultimately lead to our being
“summarised” and dismissed as a closed culture that cannot be equalised or live
properly in coexistence with another.
So what then? Do we turn stiletto and fight against
equality? Do we alter our platform and hope no-one notices? Do we just log onto
facebook and continue our over-reactive tirades and push onward counting on the
sensibility of our leaders to see through to what we really want? What are our
choices? Stay tuned…
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