Monday 30 May 2011

Faith, hope & Lady Gaga

On Saturday I picked up a copy of last week’s Telegraph review supplement with a picture of a ghostly young female face with pouting red lips, framed with straight peroxide hair. The caption, ‘Excess all areas’. The sub heading: ‘Lady Gaga is the world’s biggest, brashest pop star - but… does her music measure up?’ I read the article by Neil McCormick, text framing a medley of shots of the star in a panoply of her outlandish costumes. It’s one of those pieces of writing that stays with you for days after, because it touches on issues that matter to you personally - and, not to get ahead of ourselves, you feel could even in some small way impact on your future.
The 25 year old New York ‘global pop sensation‘, formerly ‘Stefani Germanotta’, garnered her huge following largely through her extraordinary flair for self-promotion via eye-popping visual panache (those costumes), a mastery for marketing and social media - 36 plus million face book fans, pushing 11 million on twitter… underpinned by raw musical talent. I first recall coming across her through using one of her less known early songs ‘Money’ in a Christmas feature about the Bradford-based debt charity CAP (Christians against poverty), made with Whistling Frog Productions end of 2009. Her twitter page image has the appearance of an unearthly statuesque creature from a sci-fi myth. As a role model for supreme ‘girl power’ and exhilarating excess, she is adored by the young and not so young the world over. She went to a Catholic girls’ school - you’ve got to hand it to this church, for all the mess it’s got itself into, it does have a knack, as with Madonna before her, for inspiring or inciting some kick ass boundary-pushing pop creativity. Some of her stunts no doubt generate their share of finger-wagging in some quarters, including some ’Christian’ ones I’m sure; I’d counter that on some level at least she’s actually a fizzing little microcosm of the endlessly varied pulsating creativity which animates the universe. A pop ambassador for God? I’m not saying you have to wave your hands and say EVERYTHING she does is awesome - a meat dress in a world of hunger might make you baulk - but overall it seems churlish and indeed beside the point to censor her excesses.

For me, the whole Gaga phenomenon this article explored, stirred up a host of questions and challenges - about faith, morality, and personal dreams and ambitions.

Self-promotion - or perhaps more fairly, promotion of your act, on this kind of scale highlights questions at the heart of the whole celebrity enterprise - about pride, ego, the place of humility. Is it just massively self-serving? I don’t think it has to be. It can’t be easy to restrain the whispers of vanity on such a vertiginous ascent. But if you keep higher values and goals in mind, such as recognition that your gifts notwithstanding hard work are just that, gifts - and that limelight presents an opportunity to speak for good - surely it’s possible to be a ‘star’ and keep your soul.

On a personal note… I won’t be alone in seeing qualities in someone like Gaga that I aspire to, or at least value. It’s often things you feel you lack isn’t it? The energy, colour, pizzazz, flowering of talent through uncommonly hard graft… there’s a danger it can cast a depressing shadow over those unfulfilled dreams and ambitions, those thwarted achievements of one‘s own past. Those things you allowed to hold you back. But you - I - don’t have to stay there. You can instead rise up and say, today is the day, now is the time, I’ve been shaken from slumber, his compassions are new every morning and there are opportunities ahead. It can breathe NEW life into your dreams. Timothy was told to ‘ stir up the gift’ in him, the church at Sardis to ‘strengthen what remains and is about to die.’

Pop culture, along with sport and a host of other modern preocupations, can seem so BIG, faith and the church so small. I’m embarked on a quest, working in radio and media, to ‘re-embody’ faith and spiritual issues, in a potentially big creative fusion with mainstream popular culture. That’s one way of expressing my dream. It feels like still relatively uncharted territory, which makes it exciting. I’m still searching, the dream is still incubating.

Finally, a verse I chanced to read today put the whole topic of greatness and achievement back into healthy perspective. The path to true greatness, Jesus said, was to serve. In that, Lady Gaga is on a level with the rest of us. She’ll be ‘great’ ultimately through using her talent to serve. And in whatever sphere of life and work we move in, we’re each called to do the same.

10 comments:

Billy said...

Have I missed something, but what has Lady Gaga got to do with god?

Bruce said...

good question, I tried to give a flavour here... at the very least something to do with creativity...

Billy said...

As in people create god in their own image? :-)

Anonymous said...

"she does have a cock, so you have been warned" ;)

I actually think there's some aesthetic consistency in your being impressed with Gaga, Bruce. Evangementalist offers church services that are essentially about entertainment (unfortunately, most of the songs are usually an ugly combination of shite tunes, stolen riffs and unintentionally homoerotic lyrics. C.f. the 'he took me on the kitchen table' number that's popular at SS). I always wondered why people listened to Christian rap (nicknamed C-Rap for a reason..) or similar guff when they could listen to real music. Any idiot can put references to 'Jesus' or 'God' in music and dress it up as something noble. Most 'Christian' artists are hucksters who wouldn't last five minutes in the real music world. So it's laudable of you to concede Gaga's merits - although personally I think that, although she's not quite, like Madonna, predominately a visual product, she's certainly heading that way. Her new album is, compared to genuine ambitious pop like Kanye West's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasty, utterly MOR.

Bruce said...

cheers Ryan, good points, will need to check out Kanye at some point. Billy, I think that intense creativity of whatever kind in a person reflects something of God - personally :)

Billy said...

Billy, I think that intense creativity of whatever kind in a person reflects something of God - personally :)


Why?

unfortunately, most of the songs are usually an ugly combination of shite tunes, stolen riffs and unintentionally homoerotic lyrics. C.f. the 'he took me on the kitchen table' number that's popular at SS).

Tell me more. I do recall feeling very uncomfortable with lyrics about wanting Jesus to be your lover.

Anonymous said...

Hey Billy, The actual lyrics are "he takes me to the banquet table". Not much better tho - it's the sort of phrase that should only be used by guys who've been on gay dates ;) Songs are possibly even worse than when you were there; a current fave includes the lines "I am my beloved's and he is mine" whereas another bangs on about 'intimacy'. It's ironic that the only homophobic pisky church in the diocese is the one that sings the gayest (and crappiest) songs! I should say that most pisky churches have far higher aesthetic standards than SS (you'd never get shite like Deeper at a real church! ;)). That said, David McCarthy was actually married by a gay bishop. Maybe he's overcompensating ;)

Here's Stephen Fry's new interview with Gaga. Intriguing.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/0cca76f0-873a-11e0-b983-00144feabdc0.htmll#axzz1Nx1NueKH

Billy said...

Yeah, I remember a few folk being uncomfortable with the songs.
At least they never played Delerious whenI was there.

Is that head dress what I think it is? :-0

Bruce said...

i'd head of the fry interview ryan, yes I'll check it out.
just a reminder, I sometimes flag up my posts on facebook - did this one - so please try and be a bit considerate what's said about SS!

Anonymous said...

Come on Bruce, you might be Mr Popular, St.Silas-wise, but the comments would suggest that only me and Billy actually read your blog! ;-)
j/k

Billy - depends what you think it is ;-) And if you think that's a disturbing look, check out :

http://www.footballshirtculture.com/11/12-kits/st-mirren-1112-carbrini-home-and-away-kits.html