Making Me GaGa
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Every once in a while something hits the ‘news’ that makes you look around and wonder where the candid camera is. No one seems to be stifling a laugh so you check some more and lo, this ‘news’ is on more than one site. It’s at these times that you must back away from the computer, pick up your blankey and roll into a ball on the sofa because, yes, the world has gone mad.
Case in point: Lady GaGa is intersex. The pseudo-story is that, during one of her concerts, she straddled a motorbike on stage and some peach of a person took a photo up her skirt. Nice eh? It gets better. The hero then got onto his computer, zoomed into her genital area and posted the results on the internet. According to this paragon of society, the pic shows that Ms GaGa has both make and female genitals.
Reality check – no it doesn’t. It’s a blurred pic of something. It could also be the Loch Ness Monster.
The levels of disgust that wash over me in waves at this ‘story’ are only overshadowed by how angry it makes me. Ok, Ms GaGa will do the right thing for a commercial star and just use this story to reinforce the, very sellable, ‘otherness’ of her and her music. She can just laugh it off as “I’m so different and cool, they can’t define me”. But the whole thing smacks insidious transphobia.
First of all, who the hell cares what gender or genders Lady GaGa is? She’s a music artist and a very popular one at that, that’s all the public need to know. Extending from that, who cares what gender or genders anyone is? Unfortunately a lot of people seem to care, when, as my mother would say “what fecking business is it of theirs?”
Transgender, intersex, hermaphrodite, gay, straight, bisexual – these are all labels to identify one aspect of a person. Just one. We all get up in the morning, brush our teeth and love a chat with our mates. It’s hard to get this across without coming on as wet and cliched. But life isn’t a Hallmark card and when people are sticking cameras up someone’s skirt and zooming in to get a look at what they’re packing, it needs to be stressed.
Whatever label you feel fits you, you are a person. A real human with real feelings. Can you imagine the type of mind that would take a pic of a person’s genital area to ‘have a look’. The damn cheek!
What makes it worse as if that were possible, is that this person isn’t alone and I feel like this piece could have been written about circus freak-show workers years ago. Are things getting any better for those of us in the margins of society or are we still prurient gossips looking for witches to burn?
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I don’t think this has anything to do with transphobia. The story, or the original quotes about her saying she has both “a poon and a peen”, allegedy game from Gaga herself last year and have just been dragged up again. Most likely, it was just made up by her to make her seem more ‘interesting’ like the countless other things she has lied about to perpetuate myths, intrigue and confusion about who she really is.
RE: the pictures of her genital area. They were actually taken on the official BBC cameras at Glastonbury. It was a stunt probably orchestrated again by Gaga herself. I was there, and the camera ‘just so happened’ to be filming at a certain angle when she threw her leg over a moped and flashed, which was broadcast on the big screen, much to the shock of the crowd.
If anyone should be berated for exploiting this whole issue, it’s Gaga herself.
Fair enough Una, thanks for clearing that up.
If, as you say, it was GaGa who initiated this, shame on her. I still think the freak-show ‘is she or isn’t he’ attitude wrecks of transphobia to he honest and I’m really disappointed in GaGa for exploiting it
I don’t think we’ll know who’s idea it was but the coverage and reaction to it by people is still wrong
I’m with you and your Mammy, Hal. The map of Gaga’s nether regions is really no one’s concern but her own. What I don’t understand is why you’re giving this story more oxygen by blogging about it?
I can see your point, Nelly. Although I do think it’s important to challenge the rubbish that’s being churned out into the internet about this “story” – otherwise the pernicious anti-intersex, anti-trans views being spewed will persist without any other voices out there.
Whether Gaga herself had the story put out there, or some blog spied the video and invented a story around it, it’s despicable.
Even the use of language is persistent: “hermaphrodite” being bandied about, clearly motivated by “freak-show” attitudes. This from Gaga herself (it would seem) and straight/mainstream media, and quite possibly queers ourselves.
I’d hate to be an intersex person right now listening to this horrible kind of “discussion” going around. (That’s assuming they didn’t have their “gender” decided for them at birth by doctors and/or parents.)
[Responding to 'click here'.]
You wrote:
‘I’d hate to be an intersex person right now listening to this horrible kind of “discussion” going around. (That’s assuming they didn’t have their “gender” decided for them at birth by doctors and/or parents.)’
Yeah, it’s horrible. It is just like the transphobic comments, but this one hits just an inch closer to heart.
BTW, my gender WAS decided at birth, and it’s not the one I live.
It doesn’t make it any easier either.
http://www.youtube.com/ellemueller