The Daily* Squizz

Well, sadly in this case, “proof” isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Rather than “empirical substantiation of my argument”, I mean “a batshit insane* parody video of Lady Gaga’s ‘Poker Face’, produced by the loathsome twats at the Westboro Baptist Church” (found via Muckmakers). Don’t even bother with your morning caffeine hit if you haven’t had it yet; this preposterous nonsense will snap you into consciousness quicker than shooting Red Bull into your jugular:

* Now, normally, I’m an ardent opponent of the casual, dismissive use of words like “crazy” and “insane” to describe generically unusual things. However, it’s difficult to argue that Fred Phelps’s followers are anything other than legitimately mentally unwell.

Did you notice, at about 1:28 in the video, the none-too-subtle allusion to the belief among some in the televangelist community that 9/11 was God’s “revenge” on humanity (including, presumably, Lady Gaga) for its immoral behaviour?** I’m no psychiatrist, but I don’t think that anyone who earnestly believes that homosexuality caused the World Trade Centre to fall (or who feels it’s morally righteous to keep a “days Matthew Shepard has been burning in hell” counter on their website) could possibly be given a clean bill of mental health.

[** Come on, you dummies, God's revenge will come in the form of freaky ice cream men with distended limbs. I saw Legion, okay?]

Lady Gaga is, of course, an easy target for these wingnuts and their ingrained anti-homosexuality biases because she’s popular, outrageous, has been rumoured to be a lesbian/bisexual/hermaphrodite (!) herself and is apparently a shining beacon to the LGBTQ community (or so Wikipedia tells me).

But regardless of her ostentatious appearance, controversy-courting music videos and ubiquitous AutoTune-enhanced collaborations with anyone and everyone, I find Ms. Gaga (nee Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta) to be a fascinating figure. A lot of that comes from the fact that despite the fact that she’s a 23-year-old American recording artist with a deliberate “in-your-face!!!!” approach to music and style, she appears to have a very solid head on her shoulders.

For instance, there aren’t too many young pop divas with tattoos quoting German poet/philosophers floating around these days, I reckon. Sure, you could write off Gaga’s ink as another silly attempt by a vapid moron to seem deeper than they are (see: countless yahoos getting Asian characters permanently scrawled on their epidermis).

But I’m willing to believe she comes by her philosophy honestly, mostly because of an old essay of hers from her time at the Tisch School of the Arts in New York. In a brief assignment (“Reckoning of Evidence“), a then-18-year-old Stefani Germanotta (rather articulately) lays the groundwork for what would end up becoming her Lady Gaga persona. The essay begins as such:

The terms of the human body, some might say, are determined through a theoretical dissection of both the private environments and public atmospheres in which we live. By terms, the rules and evaluations of bodily condition, I mean to establish a division of perception.  The first divide is that of the social body, the perception of our bodies in relation to a larger intellectual and sexual community, one that views each other in groups.  The second divide is the condition of our nature, a perception of the body without relation or comparison, a singular entity that is independent, formless, and free.

Yeah, I don’t see Taylor Swift turning out anything like that.

I’m a bit of a word nerd, and tend to overestimate people if they can write well (and underestimate them if they can’t), but if I may be so idealistic as to presume that the paper is entirely a production of her own thought and work, suffice to say that the woman we know as Lady Gaga is actually a rather intelligent, thoughtful being who has clearly put a good amount of thought into the public image she displays and its sociohistorical relevance.

Contrast that with this:

Right.

I suppose that should make the choice pretty clear. If there is a man sitting up on the clouds, and his idea of loyal followers comprise the Westboro Baptist lot, then we should all strive to be affronts to God. We should all do our best to be “fag enablers”. We should all dress as Lady Gaga for Halloween (or on a daily basis, though this could get dicey depending on your workplace).

We’ll have the satisfaction of knowing that we’re standing up for what is reasonable and right, and the Westboro loonies will have an endless stream of material for their new parody music videos. Everybody wins!