She wants to be a feminist, little ‘f’, without being a Feminist, a man-hating dyke. The problem is that this stereotype, if it ever existed in reality, certainly no longer applies to the modern Feminist movement.

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It’s 10pm, last week, and I’ve just finished cringing through an awkward interview Lady Gaga gave last August to a Norwegian journalist. “You see what I’m best at is my pop-cultural performance art quality,” she says, before licking her hand and waving it at the camera. “I have a vision. I have an endless muse-like vision of monsters and playgirls.”

She seems on edge and cranky, and moments after making a good point about the sexual double standard in the music industry, goes on to say: “I’m not a feminist. I hail men, I love men, I celebrate American male culture – beer, bars, and muscle cars.”

That seems pretty clear – especially when taken alongside fantastic Gaga quotes like “Pop stars should not eat,” and “I don’t know if this is too much for your magazine, but I can actually mentally give myself an orgasm.” It becomes easy to write her off as another auto-tuned automaton – albeit one who appears on breakfast television to promote AIDS awareness amongst women.

But then in December last year, she admitted to being “a little bit of a feminist,” whatever that means. And even if she’s agnostic on the subject, people are drawing links between her lyrics, her outfits, and feminist causes. Maybe she’s caricaturing the entertainment industry’s obsession with the female figure by making her costumes intentionally absurd, and maybe her lyrics carry a subtle anti-marriage flavour. Or maybe she doesn’t know if she’s a feminist yet.


It’s 7:30pm, a month ago, and I’ve just finished watching the music video for Lady Gaga’s ‘Telephone’. I’m confused.

The song is exquisitely banal. It’s about a woman at a club who doesn’t want her telephone to keep ringing. Although it will undoubtedly win commercial success, my confusion centres on the music video, which Gaga has suggested is a critique of middle-American culture. In it, she becomes incarcerated in an all-female prison before being bailed out by Beyoncé, with whom she then embarks upon a murderous poison-rampage. The climactic scene sees them dancing in matching American flag-coloured bikinis to a roomful of dead roadside diner patrons. It is bewilderingly arousing.

Lady Gaga – AKA, Stefani Germanotta – may be an Italian-American from New York City, but there her resemblance to the sub-human detritus of Jersey Shore ends. Despite the grotesque costumes and nasal, Fran Drescher-esque conversational tone, the kids go crazy for Gaga. At a Japanese concert, one young woman leapt onto the stage and knelt in front of Gaga before attempting to join the dance routine. Startled, Gaga kept singing as several of the real dancers picked up the fake and hurled her offstage.

Gaga has a sort of charisma and savvy not usually associated with the ‘pop star’ label.


It’s 12:20pm, two weeks ago, and I’ve just finished watching a link posted on Facebook, in which Lady Gaga speaks passionately to Queer fans at a National Equality rally. Bisexual herself, Gaga has called her LGBT supporters ‘inspirational’, and her speech on their behalf in front of the US Capitol Building is moving.

Gaga carries immense gay cred. Even if she isn’t a hermaphrodite (persistent ‘GAGA HAS A PENIS’ rumours have proven sadly inaccurate), she’s flamboyant, androgynous, and quite clearly doesn’t give a fuck about what people think of her. At least, that’s the image she’s chosen for herself, and with a performance as consummate as Gaga’s, the ‘act’ is as good as reality. Whether her avant garde sensibilities spring from her legitimate aesthetic tastes or are simply a clever marketing ploy is ultimately irrelevant. She’s an icon.

She’s flamboyant, androgynous, and quite clearly doesn’t give a fuck about what people think of her.

The qualities that make her popular with gay fans also signal her potential as a feminist rallying point. Third-wave feminism in particular advocates being true to yourself, and this is an ideal Gaga espouses with conviction. Her ‘fame monster’ concept (the idea behind her most recent album, about the dark side of celebrity) lends itself to repackaging: Gaga could become a ‘girl monster’ overnight, if she wanted.

That’s the nub: if she wanted.

You get the impression she’s conflicted. On the one hand, she’s a strong and independent woman making a career for herself in a hostile industry – but on the other, she enjoys rough straight sex with men. She wants to be a feminist, little ‘f’, without being a Feminist, a man-hating dyke. The problem is that this stereotype, if it ever existed in reality, certainly no longer applies to the modern Feminist movement. But Gaga, always wary of appearances, doesn’t want to associate herself with a group of people that she suspects – perhaps rightly – is reviled by the general public. She wants to be edgy, but not too edgy.

So Gaga has feminist affinities implicitly, rather than deliberately. Does it make a difference? Not really. As long as she’s inspiring women to follow their dreams and campaigning for a more equal society, she could eat puppies during live performances and crazed Japanese women would still beg to service her. Of course, if she actually woke up to the third-wave principles her act embodies, she could do the movement a powerful good. But realistically, she’s a 24 year old pop singer. At 24, Britney Spears got married and had a baby. I think I’d prefer my little sister watch ‘Telephone’ over ‘Hit me baby one more time’.