Every generation needs its cultural icons.
Our parents’ era relied on some of the greats — The Beatles, Marilyn Monroe, Aretha Franklin, Andy Warhol. The ’80s got two of the greatest icons of any generation in Madonna and Michael Jackson. The disaffected youth of Generation X found a kindred spirit in Kurt Cobain.
So, who does that leave us with? Our generation, whatever people are calling it, is struggling to assert its identity in a highly globalized, digitized and increasingly turbulent world, and we are looking for someone who will speak for us and do so in a manner which also speaks to us and to our experiences and cultural values.
I’ve heard compelling cases made for Beyoncé, Eric Cartman and J.K. Rowling. All of these are valid, but I’m going to throw another candidate into the pool. I believe the potential voice of our generation is none other than Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, better known as dance-pop artist Lady Gaga.
I first came to this conclusion watching her appearance on last weekend’s episode of “Saturday Night Live,” as she duked it out with Madonna. The skit was some ridiculous faux talk show about house music, but it makes sense as a forum to study her impact. House music is all about excess, glamour, everything dripping with sexuality — all which seem to be thru-lines in discussions about the state of pop culture and the values of American youth.
Much in the same way Kurt Cobain was the explosive culmination of the alienation and entropy that followed the “greed is good” 80s, Lady Gaga is a wild exaggeration of both the positive and negative values and desires our culture has posed upon this generation: fame, excess, success, ferocious innovation, openness and an appreciation for diversity.
She has taken the obsession with this persona building and fame-for-fame’s-sake to which we have become so accustomed and turned it into 24/7 performance art.
But what’s remarkable about this is despite constant paparazzi exposure and so much time spent on building herself as this character, we still know little about her. In the same way the superheroes of old held mirrors up to society and revealed truths about how we operate without ever revealing their own truths, so does Gaga speak volumes about what we have become.
But it’s not just her persona that makes her our celebrity soapbox.
This weekend, Lady Gaga will have the opportunity few cultural icons actually come across — the opportunity to dine with policymakers and have the potential for conversation — when she attends the Human Rights Campaign’s fundraising dinner in Washington and dines alongside keynote speaker President Barack Obama. The next day, she will speak at the National Equality March, promoting equal rights for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning community.
Gaga, who has both spoken and sung with great frankness about her bisexuality, told a crowd following the “SNL” appearance according to GO Magazine, “I really believe in this cause, and as a woman in pop music I think that this is really an important weekend, and it’s not a ****ing joke.”
Lady Gaga represents what hopefully is a larger sea change in the American consciousness that has come with our coming of age: We are no longer satisfied with being young and fabulous, but we are looking to change the world.
Of course, there’s no rule that says you can’t have fun or dress fabulously while starting a revolution.
