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LADY GAGA
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Heretic or Believer: Lady Gaga’s Catholic Faith
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The Catholic faith is characterized by a rigid, sacred, and well-established hierarchy of authority. However, between the ranks of priests and bishops, a new, powerful voice has emerged to preach to the masses: Lady Gaga. Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, known by her performance name Lady Gaga, has captivated audiences since the release of her debut album, "The Fame" in 2008. Known for her chart-topping singles, edgy music videos, and often preposterous red-carpet fashion, Gaga has been a fixture of pop culture for over a decade. Woven through her public persona and performances are both overt references to Catholicism and pervasive religious imagery. Lady Gaga's Catholic upbringing and enduring personal faith color how she sees the world around her and how she incorporates different Catholic themes into her work. Despite religious controversy and public backlash to her more pointed religious references, some Catholics, like Gaga herself, appreciate her use religion as an artistic device and embrace her message of religious acceptance. By using Catholic symbols in her work and acting as an interpreter for religious principles, Lady Gaga has become a religious authority herself, one that is often at odds with traditional Catholic leaders but presents a hopeful, accepting vision of faith.
<br><br>For any casual listener of Lady Gaga, religious references would be apparent in her lyrics and music videos. However, for those paying close attention, her use of religious material extends beyond references as she builds narratives and her personal brand around Catholic text and ideology. In her music video for "Judas", Lady Gaga portrays not only Judas, but also Jesus as members of a rowdy biker gang vying for her heart. This portrayal of Jesus with all the accompanying religious iconography led to outrage amongst some Catholic viewers while others saw it as mere symbolism. In Billboard’s track by track music review of Born This Way, the religious impact of “Judas” is minimized, as they write “Calm down folks, it's just a bad boy metaphor, not religious commentary” (Mason). However, Gaga does not simply use Judas and the disciples as props for the video but incorporates this biblical story of betrayal and good versus evil into the song and her discussions of her faith and personal life. In her 2011 interview with The Guardian, Gaga states that " I didn't pop out of nowhere and become a pop singer. It's been a very real and arduous journey through Judas all the way to Jesus." This dichotomy of Judas and Jesus is never as clear as in the lyrics of "Judas" as she sings "Jesus is my virtue / And Judas is the demon I cling to, I cling to." Other songs such as "Bloody Mary" use the crucifixion as inspiration. Lyrics such as "When Punk-tius comes to kill the King upon his throne" allude to Pontius Pilate and the chorus repeats "I won't cry for you / I won't crucify the things you do / I won't cry for you / See, when you're gone, I'll still be Bloody Mary" in reference to both the crucifixion and Mary Magdalene. To Lady Gaga, these biblical figures and their accompanying stories of suffering and faith define how she sees the world and her use of them as characters in her musical work is a natural extension of that worldview.
<br><br>Lady Gaga’s use of religious symbols in secular and often sexual contexts has generated significant public controversy and sparked debates over Catholic authority and modernity. Her incorporation of symbols such as the cross, rosary, nun’s habit, and crown of thorns into her seemingly secular, progressive art has been called blasphemous or even heretical. These critiques have come both from conservative religious groups and Catholic figures of authority. The leader of a youth organization in the Philippines protesting Gaga’s upcoming concert argued that the protest was “not against Lady Gaga as a person but on her music and on how she declares distorted views of Jesus Christ” (Yuan). This debate is about more than religious symbols, but about the clear influence that Lady Gaga holds and her ability to interpret and preach religious themes. In 2011, the President of the Catholic League, an organization created to defend perceived attacks on Catholicism, wrote that “Lady Gaga tries to continue to shock Catholics and Christians in general. She dresses as a nun, she gets raped, she swallows the rosary She has now morphed into a caricature of herself” (Donohue). Religious reactions to Lady Gaga’s music demonstrate that “as conventional religious groups interact with popular culture in these ways—through representation in the media, adoption of its techniques, and rejection of its production—the dividing line between religion and popular culture blurs” (Chidester 32). While groups such as the Catholic League fight to keep religion apart from culture, it is an increasingly futile task. As they interact with Lady Gaga’s use of religion in popular media, religious groups delve further into the space they claim to condemn.
<br><br>Criticisms of Gaga’s use of religion have also focused on her incorporation of the sacred in the theater of her performances. While these symbols have long been sacred to the Catholic faith, “the successive interpretation and re-reading of the symbol, a process that includes the possibility of its mixing and amalgamating with other symbols, makes it possible for the symbol to be flexible. This has allowed us to not only access, perceive, communicate, but also, to a considerable extent, to shape the reality we live in” (Gellel 12). The tension surrounding Gaga’s use of religious symbols centers around the ownership of the symbols themselves. While Catholic institutions believe that they belong the Church, Gaga uses these theological symbols as pieces of her own reality, reshaping and reframing them at will.
<br><br>Beyond her incorporation of religion in her music, conservative religious commentators have taken issue with Lady Gaga’s messages of inclusivity and her overall progressive attitude in her music and personal life. Modern Catholicism has often remained at odds with growing social change and American liberalism. While many Catholics struggle to reconcile their faith with controversial and discriminatory church stances, Lady Gaga openly expresses both her faith and messages of acceptance. Her relationship with her faith “confounds a popular narrative of religion in America. She is considered both a practicing Christian and a passionate advocate for progressive values. She simply doesn’t fit in the controlling narrative…that relegates religion to be the sole domain of social conservatism” (Graves-Fitzsimmons). Lady Gaga’s openness over her religion is apparent in her interviews and social media presence. She sees religion as an integral part of her life, saying that her album Born This Way is about “pop culture as religion, my identity as my religion: ‘I will fight and bleed to the death for my identity.’ I am my own sanctuary, and I can be reborn as many times as I choose throughout my life” (Hattenstone). Lady Gaga has chosen to “employ religious symbols derived from myth, and those developed by pop culture” and then point “to her audience that the symbols she makes available to them may be used to generate meaning” (Gellel 14). Tying her identity so closely to religion risks alienating both religious and secular listeners, however, Gaga has constructed her own meaning of religion that she presents to her fans and has established a Catholicism of her own that she practices.
<br><br>Messages of acceptance and belonging expressed in songs such as “Born This Way” demonstrate Lady Gaga’s understanding of Christianity and what she believes her role as an evangelist is. Lyrics such as "I'm beautiful in my way / 'Cause God makes no mistakes / I'm on the right track, baby / I was born this way" are reminiscent of Christian teachings and could be words straight from a youth group leader’s sermon. The way in which Gaga uses her platform demonstrates how “the celebrity functions as a component of a pantheon that exists to dramatize social concerns, endorse certain forms of normative behavior, and fulfill narrative fantasies of an inchoate, disconnected, and ostensibly secular public” (Lofton 208). Lady Gaga has been open about her criticisms of modern-day religion, saying that “the influence of institutionalized religion on government is vast. So religion then begins to affect social values and that in turn affects self-esteem” (Hattenstone). However, in the same interview she makes it clear to the interviewer that they shouldn’t “say I hate institutionalized religion—rather than saying I hate those things, which I do not, what I’m saying is perhaps there is a way of opening more doors, rather than closing so many” (Hattenstone). This understanding of Christianity, focused on love and acceptance has resonated with many of her listeners. Lady Gaga’s assessment of religion “is the same as countless progressive Christians who recoil at the hypocritical judgement of fundamentalism yet still seek to follow Jesus. She prays to an affirming God with expansive love, not a narrow-minded magician in the sky who damns nonbelievers to eternal conscious torment” (Graves-Fitzsimmons). Gaga makes this prayer visible with multiple Instagram posts showing her head bowed in prayer with a rosary or standing with a priest. Religious leaders have also used Gaga’s Christian message in their own evangelism, with church signs declaring “Lady Gaga knows Christianity and so do we LGBTQ welcome here.” Across the country, churches have used message boards that often display bible verses to acknowledge Lady Gaga as an authority figure in Christianity.
<br><br> For Lady Gaga, faith is both deeply personal and publicly significant. Her continued expressions of Christianity demonstrate that she is not using religion as theater, but as a part of herself. Despite apparent overwhelming religious outrage, some Catholic figures have given more measured analysis of her use of religion and even praised her adherence to faith. America Magazine, a more progressive Catholic publication, wrote that “the best way to approach such flirtations with Catholicism may be not to consider whether they are offensive, but to ask whether the artist is using them purely for effect or as part of a personal dialogue” (Sweeney). Considering Gaga’s clear deeper understanding of the religious texts she uses and how she “preaches honest self-expression ardently if somewhat heretically, it seems clear that Gaga still cares about her God” (Sweeney). Lady Gaga never seems to assume the role of God herself, but rather as an extension of the type of loving, forgiving God she sees in her personal faith. She’s described her role as an evangelist as “more self-worship, I think, not of me. I’m teaching people to worship themselves” (Hattenstone). Nevertheless, for many, Lady Gaga is the type of accepting religious figure they wish they had. Her fanbase resembles “the group of outcasts and misfits who flocked to Jesus. The religious authorities then are the same as they are today in prioritizing the policing of boundaries and fearing any threat to their authority” (Graves-Fitzsimmons). Regardless of her intent, Lady Gaga has become a religious authority for Christians around the world by speaking openly about her faith and focusing on messages of acceptance rather than worrying about religious dogma and proper representations of Catholicism. Many Catholics have become disenchanted with strict religious authorities who focus on tradition and the sacred. While Lady Gaga uses Catholic symbols in provocative ways, she also makes a point to focus on the positive and loving parts of Christianity that many believe are missing in today’s religion.
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