Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta is at it again. Over the past year or two America’s latest cultural craze, known by her ridiculous stage name “Lady Gaga,” has been doing her level best to help complete the transformation of the rock music genre into little more than a template for gutter-level, hyper-sexualized shock theater. With her bizarrely androgynous plasticized getups and mindless songs auto-tuned to robotic perfection, Ms. Gaga has managed — with the help of a veritable army of cosmetologists, choreographers, costumers, and techno-geeks — to land at the “top of the pops” and become the cultural phenomenon of the moment.
Ms. Gaga’s most recent stunt came last week with the release of the audio portion of her latest musical effort entitled “Judas,” in which she portrays the biblical character Mary Magdalene in the scripturally untenable position of expressing her love for the betrayer of our Savior and Lord. According to the Vancouver Sun, the song from her album “Born This Way” was supposed to be released during Easter week, but was leaked on the Internet early, leading to the media hype about the as-yet unreleased video.
While the lyrics are predictably crass and blasphemous, what one is most struck by is the extent to which Ms. Germanotta, a lapsed Catholic, seems to be mimicking the audacity and contrived rebellion of an earlier lapsed Catholic — the slightly more talented shock-rocker Madonna.
As did the artistic efforts of her erstwhile mentor, Lady Gaga’s Judas appears to be motivated mainly by a demonic impulse to sully the symbols and stories that millions of Christians hold precious — in this case the legacy of a woman from whom Jesus cast seven demons, and who in turn committed her life to loving and worshiping the Son of God with abandon.
While some Christians reacted with outrage at the singer’s blatant and intentional sacrilege, at least one Catholic spokesman had the presence of mind to point out the true insignificance of Gaga’s outré side-show antics. Speaking to a reporter from hollywoodlife.com, an online tabloid that specializes in the tawdry and salacious, Bill Donohue (pictured above) of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights pointed out that, far from making a meaningful criticism of the faith of her youth, the singer merely co-opted the religious imagery and symbols of the Christian faith, using them to shock and titillate. “I find Gaga to be increasingly irrelevant,” Donohue told the reporter. “She thinks she is going to be groundbreaking. She is trying to rip off Christian symbols to shore up her talentless, mundane, and boring performances. Another ex-Catholic whose head is turned around.”
Perhaps the most relevant comment about Lady Gaga’s irrelevance was made by Gary McCullough, director of Christian Newswire, a faith-based press release service, who chided those who considered “Judas” a legitimate attack on the church. “To consider Lady Gaga’s latest Madonna-aping act an attack on the church, is like calling a toddler riding her tricycle into the Empire State Building a terrorist attack,” McCullough said in a statement appearing on the Christian Newswire website.
In response to the gratuitous depravity that makes Lady Gaga’s anti-Christian “artistic” statement seem so absurdly immature (though wicked nonetheless), McCullough suggested that “our response to little Miss Stefani should be to offer her a band-aid for her skinned knee while trying not to laugh. This is no attack on the church. It is just one more anxious cry by Miss Stefani to be the center of attention.”
