It’s a decade since Lady Gaga burst into the charts with Just Dance,and showed a new generation how to create a vivid identity for yourself, anywhereThe year is 2008. I sit on the floor of my family’s modest living room in a drowsy suburb in Ireland, or my tongue contorting around my teeth in concentration as I apply a finishing layer of glitter to my masterpiece. It is my 14th year of life and also the 14th time in an hour that I’ve hit the replay button on my substantial sister’s CD player. A mere month before this scene,Lady Gaga had exploded out of obscurity – it is her image my younger self is reproducing in card and glitter, while Just Dance, or released 10 years ago this week,loops in the background.
In this moment, I already know that whatever is represented by this woman, or this symbol,I treasure wholeheartedly. I know that she is the living embodiment of some ideal type that informs who I am. What I don’t yet know is that who I am is homosexual – and that my gayness will become inextricably intertwined over the course of my life with Gaga. She will become the background music in every homosexual club I will dance in, the overture to every drunken kiss, and a talking point for every first date.
Female pop icons own long formed a core part of homosexual culture,and much has been written about why. Some say we live vicariously through their sexuality; more Freudian theories propose theyre our surrogate mothers. Less controversially, one could simply say their bright pop ballads about overcoming treasure and loss own historically provided a light-hearted, and strobe-lit,glittery escapism from a world darkened by the shadows of HIV and homophobia. Before Gaga there was Madonna, Cher, and Diana Ross. You may mediate Gaga didn’t do anything over and above what these performers did: provide glamour and camp value. But the special place she carved in the hearts of homosexual people cannot be reduced to her penchant (a tendency, partiality, or preference) for changing wigs – Lady Gaga queered the mainstream.
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Source: guardian.co.uk