gdp's Comments

Big Hollywood : Left-Wing Apologists for 'CSI's' Tea Party Smear Are Deluding Themselves

Wed, 29 Sep 2010 17:45:45 +0000

It's a common misconception that Darwin stated that "we evolved from monkeys." Monkeys and humans diverged at a recent point in time (biologically speaking) from a *common ancestor.* We're closely related, but we did not "come from" monkeys.

Big Hollywood : Lady Gaga: Servant to Stale Conformity of the PC Establishment

Tue, 14 Sep 2010 16:56:40 +0000

Haha! Sorry about that. I went through this so many times to change diction here and there. Little things inevitably get lost along the way. Hope it didn't bother you too much. ;)

Big Hollywood : Lady Gaga: Servant to Stale Conformity of the PC Establishment

Tue, 14 Sep 2010 14:07:18 +0000

This idea that you can change the way people think about others by calling them names (Bigot! Hater! Reactionary! Homophobe!) is ridiculous. Polls consistently show that once people understand that being gay is not a choice, the rest will follow. Everyone's working around periphery when we need to go straight to the core. My objection to the fight against DADT is one mostly of tone. I'm mildly against it, but there are people out there acting like it's most egregious miscarriage of justice in the West. This is ridiculous. The military is not a venue to push social equality, but to protect the homeland. Every attempt to integrate a group should be done only when the military thinks it's okay -- and that goes for racial minorities, women, and any other sub-group, too. A large segment of Gaga's fans are indeed teenagers, but most are not. I've been to a Gaga concert (September 2009); it was mostly twenty-something types, largely gay men and their friends. They eat this stuff up because our nation is producing people who are stuck in perpetual adolescent mode. Either way, I'm tired of the therapy sessions being offered to gay teens coming to terms with their sexuality. When I was 15, I should have had someone kicking my ass and telling me: This is the hand the universe dealt you, now go play it instead of brooding around! -- People need challenges, not therapy! They need to be shown that their challenges are never as great as their opportunities. That goes for teenagers, too, and people underestimate them. Er, and -- obviously, I'm not going to slam her for contributing money to help gay teenagers who have been kicked out of their homes. But at the same time, that's not a shield that repels all other criticisms of her.

Big Hollywood : Lady Gaga: Servant to Stale Conformity of the PC Establishment

Tue, 14 Sep 2010 13:56:44 +0000

I'm sorry, no: Lady Gaga is not a teen pop artist like Justin Bieber or Miley Cyrus. if she wants to help thirteen-year-old boys feel comfortable with their emerging sexuality, she should go join that set. But if she wants to be taken seriously in the same league as Beyonce, Rihanna, and Britney, then this therapeutic stuff has got to go. The entire point of what I'm going for is that getting depressed and despondent is pointless. Channel that energy into something productive rather than sitting around feeling sorry for yourself. If someone is feeling alienated, you can either pamper them ("It's alright, honey, you were born this way, there's a freak in all of us!") or challenge them ("Here's the hand that the cosmos dealt you, okay? Now how are you going to play it?") -- the former produces the spoiled-brat mentality; the latter produces interesting, self-sustaining individuals. "You're a star, and you were born that way" -- Entitlement-mentality claptrap.

Big Hollywood : Lady Gaga: Servant to Stale Conformity of the PC Establishment

Tue, 14 Sep 2010 05:49:20 +0000

Piggy Hilton! Oh, where to begin? The fact that he's Gaga's BFF makes my arguments for me.

Big Hollywood : Lady Gaga: Servant to Stale Conformity of the PC Establishment

Tue, 14 Sep 2010 05:48:18 +0000

Oh...this is so, so provincial. Has the Gay Party so colonized your mind that you can conceive of no other way to be supportive of gay people than to rally around the rainbow flag and march against Don't Ask Don't Tell? I mean, this is ridiculous -- I mean, arguably, I was largely critiquing Gaga from the left! I called for a "truly liberated, pro-gay ethos" that bypasses the establishment in favor of venerating artists like Oscar Wilde -- not for a pray-away-the-gay session. Gay people, unlike straight people, grew up with a sexual and emotional alienation that can be very helpful in creative endeavors. It's psychologically healthy to want to cultivate that and channel it into something productive. Gaga totally ignores this aspect of the link between artistry and homosexuality in favor of some dumb Oprah Winfrey therapy session: "We were born this way! God makes no mistakes!" This is awful. It's just such an incredible waste of her platform.

Big Hollywood : Lady Gaga: Servant to Stale Conformity of the PC Establishment

Tue, 14 Sep 2010 05:25:30 +0000

She's done so. Here's a video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0M2u-cu0so I'm not questioning her musical talent. No one can deny that she is a competent singer and pianist.

Big Hollywood : Lady Gaga: Servant to Stale Conformity of the PC Establishment

Tue, 14 Sep 2010 04:54:29 +0000

Let me put it to you this way: Jerry Falwell saw gay men as a homogeneous bunch of effeminate, shallow, fashion-obsessed drones whose lives revolve around their sexual orientation. Lady Gaga sees them that way, too. The only difference is that she likes this. As a gay man, I'd like to see this entire paradigm shattered. It won't be shattered by working with Gay Establishment hacks like GLAAD, the Human Rights Campaign, and DADT-obsessed professional gays. How about something that calls for taking the sexual alienation we felt while growing up and turning it into a creative force? Nope! That's not our Gaga -- she wants us to get in a circle, hold hands, and tell each other that "God makes no mistakes, because we were born this way." Lady Gaga, in this way, is more Oprah Winfrey than Oscar Wilde.

Big Hollywood : Lady Gaga: Servant to Stale Conformity of the PC Establishment

Tue, 14 Sep 2010 02:47:58 +0000

Leaves Eyes has never impressed me much; my favorite work of Liv Kristine's is actually the Nymphetamine Fix collaboration! Although -- "Skraelings" is a very good song. I'm a Nightwish fanboy, though, and love bands like After Forever and Epica. I should take this moment to evangelize my favorite female-fronted metal band that no one's heard of: Dawn of Destiny. YouTube "Days of Crying." So. Epic. Dr. Luke and RedOne can't hold a candle to the ladies of metal.

Big Hollywood : Lady Gaga: Servant to Stale Conformity of the PC Establishment

Tue, 14 Sep 2010 01:18:59 +0000

She is by far the loudest compared to her contemporaries in pop music. Who are the other female pop artists who have had recent #1s? -- For comparison's sake: Britney Spears, Beyonce, Rihanna, Kelly Clarkson, Katy Perry, Ke$ha. They're all very quiet about politics. It's Gaga alone who says that her concerts are "youth churches" to do things like stand up against the Evil Jan Brewer.

Big Hollywood : Lady Gaga: Servant to Stale Conformity of the PC Establishment

Tue, 14 Sep 2010 01:15:48 +0000

Did you know that the word 'amoral' has only one 'm'?

Big Hollywood : Lady Gaga: Servant to Stale Conformity of the PC Establishment

Tue, 14 Sep 2010 00:17:40 +0000

"I can't help but feel that the author of this piece dislikes Gaga merely for being pro-gay..." I'm gay, you twit.

Big Hollywood : Lady Gaga: Servant to Stale Conformity of the PC Establishment

Tue, 14 Sep 2010 00:16:18 +0000

Hah, oh gosh, no, I didn't take it offensively. I don't peruse everything with a fine-toothed comb, either. Can't realistically expect treatment given to my articles that I don't give to others'. Paglia and Hitchens are both intellectual role models of mine. I disagree with each of them probably half of the time -- maybe more -- but they're just about the only two out there right now who don't follow party-line dogma -- and I mean 'party' in its broad sense. Nothing about them is canned or prototypical.

Big Hollywood : Lady Gaga: Servant to Stale Conformity of the PC Establishment

Mon, 13 Sep 2010 22:58:54 +0000

To be fair, the Half-Hour News Hour was really, really bad. Red Eye, on the other hand...

Big Hollywood : Lady Gaga: Servant to Stale Conformity of the PC Establishment

Mon, 13 Sep 2010 22:57:17 +0000

Indeed. This article is largely my contribution to the discussion started by Paglia, whom I consider an intellectual hero. (I did slightly touch upon that, though, in the opening paragraph. Even more was left on the cutting-room floor, so as to make the piece's length appropriate..!)

Big Hollywood : Lady Gaga: Servant to Stale Conformity of the PC Establishment

Mon, 13 Sep 2010 22:51:03 +0000

She opened up a lot of uncomfortable questions in the culture about female and adolescent sexuality. See, for instance: her 1999 Rolling Stone cover, where she grasped a Teletubby doll while posing in her bra and panties. She was 17 at the time, and it was her idea. I mean -- wow, wow, wow. That's controversy, and the conservative and religious groups at the time erupted over it. Lady Gaga blabbering on about gay people being "born that way" is not controversy. That's straight out of the high school counselor's office.

Big Hollywood : Lady Gaga: Servant to Stale Conformity of the PC Establishment

Mon, 13 Sep 2010 22:12:44 +0000

I like the spectacle of pop music. Here's something I've written elsewhere: " I like pop. I admire the genre and view it as an interdisciplinary art form that thrives on the aesthetic interplay of music, fashion, dance, sexuality, and public relations. Critics of popular music often complain about the fact that a pop artist's image can override her music; I embrace this truth. The machinery of pop music is fascinating to me because it weeds out those who can merely sing and elevates those who are able to take hold of an audience's full aesthetic sense. The mistake that contemporary critics run into is their failure to understand the simple fact that pop artists are not 'singers.' Successful pop stars -- from Elton John and Madonna to Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake -- must successfully cultivate personae that cover all of the aesthetic bases. They are the twenty-first century heirs to the great opera stars, poets, and painters of the past..." That being said, I try to listen to all genres of music. A lot of people my age narrowly focus on pop, R&B, or rock, and that's not good enough for a fuller cultural understanding. One of my favorite genres is a little-known niche called symphonic metal, which combines traditional heavy metal with orchestral elements, and is usually fronted by an operatically-trained female singer.