Do you like Lady Gaga? Probably not, and if you do, then damn, bruh, you and I need to have a discussion about your clearly poor life choices. In the past, Gaga's fashion antics have been annoying, but digestible (see: v rare meat dress). You could brush them off like, "She's annoying. She's a troll. Who cares?" But now, the pop star has begun a new type of fashion shit storm through the leak of her new stereotypically Middle Eastern sounding track, titled, yep, "Burqa". In response, her fans, or "little monsters" as they prefer to be called, have begun to wear burqas in support of their favorite musician and her cultural movement of whateverthefuck.
If she did this simply in the name of fashion, then Lady Gaga can go fuck herself because that's clearly offensive. Like, if dudes just started wearing eccentric yarmulke's for fashion's sake, I'd be pissed no doubt because it trivializes something that, whether or not you agree with its principles, is sacred to certain people. And don't get me wrong, I'm aware this type of thing happens all the time in high-fashion and, yes, it's still more wrong than enlightening.
But this is Gaga we're talking about! A bloated star with some lofty, world-saving mission behind said wardrobe choice. According to various sources, the artist intends to show "appreciation" for Muslim women through this statement: to somehow turn a negative—Islamic law forcing women to cover up—into a positive. As in, "I'm wearing this because I don't want you filthy men to see how sexy I am." Because THAT'S totally not a preemptive misogynistic strike or reducing women to their physical appearance either, right?
Clearly, this is a position that can only be held by someone of wealth and, although an unfortunate circumstance of the world we live in, someone white, as The Atlantic so appropriately pointed out. But what's more disheartening is that we have Lady Gaga, overvaluing her cultural impact on the world, while simultaneously undervaluing her impact on her own fans, many of whom are young men and women who perhaps turn to "Mother Monster" for unwarranted guidance. If she thinks her privileged, hollow appropriation of Muslim culture will be understood by her followers, she's probably correct. It appears they're taking the entire thing just about as seriously as their mom.
