I kind of hate this song. The clunky transitions, the obnoxious intro, the longer and even more obnoxious music video intro, the atonality of the chanted chorus, the preachiness, the pretentiousness – it’s all bullshit.
But there are two redeeming qualities. One is the adorable double stomp of the dancers in the music video. The second is that the jingoism, the triteness of the message, the sheer banality of it all is absolutely necessary.
For years homophobes have dominated that corner of the public discourse. There are plenty of articulate, compelling works in a variety of mediums about homosexuality and homosexuals’ particular brand of struggle (pick up Middlesex if you’ve got a free summer to flip the page 529 times or just happen to like really good fiction), but the reductive banners, the regurgitated cliches, and the mind-numbing arguments – that sphere belonged solely to the homophobic.
Until now. Lady Gaga is hitting back. Gays, too, can be entirely unoriginal and bland and gain huge amounts of public traction despite it. So suck it.
It’s the ’90s again, when singers appear in their own music videos, one costume is enough, old black guys have belting saxophone solos, everything is in earnest, boobs jiggle, and dancing to your own music is actually pretty cool. [Born this way.]
Excellent.