"Born This Way" Music Video
A missed opportunity by Lady Gaga.
It's doesn't matter if you love him, or capital H-I-M. But it does matter if you love the new Lady Gaga music video. Because you shouldn't. At all.
After holding my breath for months, the song "Born This Way" was finally released a few weeks ago. I instantly fell in love with the song. With a killer dancing beat and an incredible message, the song was quickly put on repeat.
The song is all about being proud of who you are, regardless of class, religion, race or ethnicity. But it was especially powerful for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans community. (Although she forgot the queer community?)
Other pop stars, like in Pink's "Raise Your Glass," just kindly tell you to be yourself, with no specific mention of the LGBT community. Artists are probably afraid that if they sing about being gay no one will buy their music or play their songs. But as we all know, Lady Gaga is never afraid.
She sings in "Born This Way" that "no matter straight, gay, bi, lesbian or transgender life, I'm on the right track, baby. I was born to survive." I found this line resonated with me because she was willing to stand up for the LGBT community, which made me so excited for the video.
And now that I have seen it, I'm gravely disappointed.
I was hoping, no, expecting the video to be just as empowering as the song. Instead Gaga wasted this chance to tell some pointless narrative about aliens and outer space. I know it's about symbolism, about being creationism, how our unique traits make us interesting, and that we are all made up from the "same DNA" that she sings about. But it seems like she was more interesting in wanting to weird out her fans once again rather than motivate them.
I don't think Gaga realizes how much this song means to people. This past weekend I went to Midwest Gay Lesbian Bisexual Trans Ally College Conference in Ann Arbor, Mich. where they played the song almost on a loop.
One of the most amazing moments at the conference was when all 1,500 of us were waiting for the first presentation to start, when the college blared "Born This Way." Literally hundreds of people got up and started cheering and dancing, expressing their joy for being in such a safe and enjoyable atmosphere where they were allowed to finally be themselves.
For the rest of the weekend, whenever I heard this song I felt confident and proud to be who I am. But after seeing the video, I feel cheated by Lady Gaga. Instead of creating a monumental video to go along with a song that will become an anthem for the LGBT community, she instead decided to waste seven minutes of my life dancing around in space. And for me, that is unforgivable.
Reaction to Missed Opportunity
I would like to disagree with your statement that we should not like Lady Gaga's new video for her single, "Born this Way".
I believe that this video is being over critiqued by the media (particularly the queer media). This is evident in your own critique.
You say, "Other pop stars, like in Pink's "Raise Your Glass," just kindly tell you to be yourself, with no specific mention of the LGBT community. Artists are probably afraid that if they sing about being gay no one will buy their music or play their songs. But as we all know, Lady Gaga is never afraid."
If your last part there "Gaga is never afraid" is to be taken as true, then you hurt your overall argument.
Look at the other videos that have been deemed "Queer Anthems"
Raise Your Glass: Overt image of 2 men kissing
Firework: Over image of 2 men kissing
We R who we R (if you will consider it one): 2 Girls looking at a PlentyofFish site that contains both females and males on "matches" (Bisexual is the assumption here).
These other pop stars have overt images of queer culture. Gaga, as you say, is never afraid. She is not afraid to go out of the norm as set up by these three, as well as other videos. Even in Gaga's other videos, you will recall, we see depictions of queerness.
So while her video may not be what was expected of a queer song, I believe it is what is to be expected of Gaga herself. She knows what the majority of her Audience wants. But since when has Gaga supported the majority?
The thing is, this video is unequivocally queer. It is queer in the sense that it is different than the other queer anthems that have been released/claimed.
While she didn't mention the queer community, this video, in my opinion, is a tribute to the queer community. It is a tribute to the QPOC community, the Pan community, the Asexual community, the Intersex community. All of those communities normally marginalized or at least left out of the traditional mainstream Queer community that consists of White Middle Class Gay Males (occasionally Females).
To move on to my final (for now) point. Let us not forget that this video is being viewed in the context of Gaga's other videos. Furthermore, we cannot forget that her other videos tell a story. When viewed sequentially, a longer more coherent story is laid out for us.
I am not aware, because Gaga has not released any information about the album as a whole (aside from a small snippet of sounds) whether or not this will be the start of a new story, but I can imagine it will. Her last "story" contained multiple songs. Perhaps this one will too. Perhaps Gaga will revert to the Mainstream Queer Culture and show two men kissing. However, I believe that this is going to be the first in a series of music videos that relate to each other.