Pop singer Lady Gaga is at it again, this time offending Catholics.
At least that’s Bill Donohue’s contention. Donohue is the president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. The object of his dudgeon is a video called “Judas,” which stars one Stefani Germanotta — that was Lady Gaga’s name before she went ga-ga.
“This is a stunt,” Donohue said about the video, according to a story on hollywoodreporter.com. “Lady Gaga continues to shock Catholics and Christians in general. She dresses like a nun. She swallows the rosary. She has now morphed into a caricature of herself. She is trying to rip off Christian idolatry to shore up her talentless, mundane and boring performances.”
That was Donohue talking back in April, before the video was released. (And believe me, in calling Germanotta’s performances “talentless, mundane and boring,” he was understating the matter.) Now that the video has been released, Donohue has issued a statement saying the video isn’t all that bad.
“In her ‘Judas’ video, Lady Gaga plays fast and loose with Catholic iconography,” Donohue said, “and generates several untoward statements, but she typically dances on the line without going over it. Perhaps that is because the video is a mess. Incoherent, it leaves the viewer more perplexed than moved.”
Once again, Donohue understates the matter. A mess? Incoherent? That’s typical Lady Gaga fare. Has Donohue seen the video “Telephone,” for heaven’s sake?
A “Thelma and Louise”-type duo — played by Germanotta and Beyonce Knowles — commit mass murder in a restaurant by poisoning the patrons. What was the point? Why, none whatsoever, apparently.
“Judas” has an awful melody, even worse lyrics and some of the most pathetic choreography I’ve ever seen in a music video. Believe me, “Thriller” it ain’t. But here’s where I part company with those who criticize “Judas” on religious grounds. They see the video as flirting with blasphemy or even sacrilege. I see it as a blessing in disguise.
Believe me, I’d rather have Germanotta defending — or trying to defend — one of her music videos than commenting on social and political matters. Remember her comments about Arizona’s SB 1070, the legislation meant to curb illegal — and often dangerous — immigration into that state?
“We have to be active,” Germanotta said. “We have to protest. I will yell and I will scream louder. I will hold you, and we will hold each other, and we will peaceably protest this state.”
Germanotta uttered those now inanely immortal words at a concert. After “yelling and screaming,” she subjected her audience to an apocryphal tale of some illegal immigrant who supposedly had his home raided over “a parking ticket or something” and whose brother ended up being deported.
Not content to cram her foot down her throat on the matter of illegal immigration, Germanotta weighed in on the repeal of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy shortly thereafter.
“Doesn’t it seem to be,” she asked a crowd of people who supported repealing the military policy known as DADT, “that we’re penalizing the wrong soldier? Doesn’t it seem to you that we should send home the prejudiced straight soldier who hates the gay soldier?”
Well, no, it doesn’t. If a gay Navy SEAL happened to be among those who smoked Osama bin Laden, then I’m OK with that. If one of them happened to be “homophobic,” then I’m OK with that too. I want the best armed forces we can have, not the most politically correct ones.
As long as Germanotta is forced to defend terrible music videos like “Judas” and butts out of military and political matters, I’ll be one happy man.
Columnist Gregory Kane is a Pulitzer-nominated news and opinion journalist who has covered people and politics from Baltimore to the Sudan.
