Date: September 2011
Re: Critics Are Meanies!
To: M†SS GAGA
From: Johnny Darling
CC: critics, bloggers, Daphne Guinness, Halston, Mark Zuckerberg, NetFlix, The Northern Hemisphere
Dear Mother Monster,
Brava on another steaming pile of brilliance in V magazine! We await your column each month with the same sort of anticipation one feels on the way to a colonic. It’s as though you’ve reached up inside yourself and extracted the intellectual bile potential we’ve always known lurked within you. Oh, the hard truths that you tell! The searing observations! We feel challenged—inspired! Allow us to quote a sample of your pristine prose:
“Accomplished creators of fashion and music have a visceral effect on the world, which is consequently why they are publicly distinguished. So why do so many notable critics seem so impervious to the emotion of the work? Why such indifference? Does intellectualism replace feeling?”
“It’s so easy to say something is bad. It’s so easy to write, “One star, hated it, worst show of the season.” It’s much more challenging to reckon with and analyze a work. It requires research, but maybe no one does their research anymore. …When does the critique or review become insult and not insight? Injury and not intellect?”
When you sat down to write this treatise on the role of the artist and the critic, your immaculately rhinestoned nails filed to dagger points as sharp as your wit tapping away at your keyboard (style doesn’t rest simply so one can type) we have to believe you were channeling us! We’ve often pondered why writers, who’s job it is to critique other people’s art, have to be so damn critical!
Why don’t more notable critics understand that the artist must never be questioned? It’s obvious to us, as we’re sure it must be to you, that if a journalist pans a work of true art, he or she clearly just didn’t get it.
“One star. Hated it. Worst show of the season.”
We can’t tell you how many times we’ve received those kind of reductive and unsatisfying reviews, sometimes word for word. We agree that it’s unfortunate most critics cannot project their vital living spirits into the soul space of an artist’s work. Why don’t they teach that in journalism school? The ability to feel the essence of a work’s energy, to taste of its essential aura of creativity and risk, the violence, the subtle chafing and itchiness inherent in the creative process! All of this is lost on intellectually and spiritually bankrupt critics, such is the sad state of fashion journalism. But you offer a solution:
I’m going to propose a term to describe this movement in critical journalism: Extreme Critic Fundamentalism. I define this term as instilling fear in the hopes and dreams of young inventors in order to establish an echelon of tastemakers. There is a difference between getting a B- in Biology with a series of poignant red marks from your teacher and being given a spanking with a ruler by an old nun. The former we can learn from, while the latter is just painful.
The biology analogy is so astute, but we actually think you could have taken it further! Screw your B- grade, Herr McBiology Professor! The work must be allowed to flow from us. It shouldn’t matter if our answers were right or wrong—the answers were an act of creation, of expression of our view of biology, and to question it is to stifle, to stanch, to strangle, to choke the very chicken of our artistic selves!
The true learning process of the artist must be one of lawlessness, of experimentation and rule-breaking, of don’t-give-a-fuckfulness!
Back to the column for more riches:
Back to the column for more riches:
In the age of the Internet, when collections and performances are so accessible to the public and anyone can post a review on Facebook or Twitter, shouldn’t columnists and reviewers, such as Cathy Horyn, employ a more modern and forward approach to criticism… The public is certainly not stupid, and as Twitter queen, I can testify that the range of artistic and brilliant intellectuals I hear from on a daily basis is staggering and inspiring.
We’re glad you brought up The Internet, Gaga. That last intellectual bastion of articulation, nuanced expression, reasoned debate, thoughtful exchange, and avant-garde tweets! We’re sure you’ll agree that the Internet has brought about a new era of democratic expression: Everyone’s opinion matters now and can be heard, read, seen, experienced, breathed, channeled thanks to this worldwide platform.
Why do we harp on the predictability of the infamous fashion critic? The predictability of the most notoriously harsh critics who continue writing their notoriously harsh reviews? Why give the elephant in the room a peanut if it has already snapped its trunk at you? That peanut was dead on arrival. … The more critical question to ask is: when did the pretense of fashion become more important than its influence on a generation? Why have we decided that one person’s opinion matters more than anyone else’s?
Really, what can 25 years as a respected journalist teach you that a week on Tumblr can’t? Why should we give any more credence to Vogue or The New York Times or V, for that matter, than we do to a 12-year-old goth girl in Boca Raton who posts runway 
photos that she pulled from NYMag.com? At least that goth child has the courage and intellectual capacity to “Like” things without being beholden to some outdated code that polices creativity. From the Twitters of babes…
We fear, however, MM, that this latest column betrays a bit of your naiveté—your unsullied, uncorrupted artist’s heart, your foolish optimism. This is not a world where fashion can live and breath freely, out of the crosshairs of dogmatic reviewers. We don’t live in a world of mutual respect and admiration, where fashion journalists heap praise and accolades on top designers each season.
No, we live in a world where the the Times and GoFugYourself.com spew out scathing reviews and relentless negativity; where the critic is king and the designers behind some of the most extraordinary, complicated and downright inspiringly unwearable designs are beaten back and oppressed by their tyrannical reviews.
This is no world for us, Peanut.
xxx
Darling
Vetra
Hey, I have an open letter to Lady Gaga too! I wrote it in 2 language version. For English, you can read it here: http://vetrachapel.blogspot.com/2011/09/my-memo-for-gaga-memorandum-no-3.html Please read it, comment it, like it, and share it 🙂
CHEEKIEY
lmao
ChrisC
What a piece of shit artical. Just some losers jelouse of Gaga. Queerty, I love you, but I love Gaga more, and I know I speak on behalf of countless Queerty readers when I say: Enough with the Gaga bashing! It’s really getting tired.
soakman
Seriously, I think she has some valid points. Additionally, the writer completely opted to ignore critically reading her position, make up some BS summarization in his head, allow himself to be personally injured by it, and then attack her with passive aggressive verbage.
What a toolbag. This is why sarcastic people bother me so much. More often than no, they communicate so indirectly, they’re not even having the same conversation that you are.
Pitou
I think ChrisC is that whiney “Leave Britney ALONE!” Gurl-turned porn whore (Curious.. what’d you get for that flick? $10k? $15k? Hollar in 10 years and tell us it was worth it!)
Chris darling, Its a piece of shit ARTICLE, and they’re JEALOUS, my pet.
If need be, write it out in Word before you go posting rants, MmmKay.. Thanks.
BUT, I will totally second that.
Queerty does seem to have some hairs across its ass in regards to M.M.
What gives?
You act as if she’s Maggie Shrivastav or something.
Chris
I think I began to understand by the five hundredth sarcastic sentence that the author didn’t appreciate Gaga’s opinion. The problem is that no substance was ever offered. Yes, she made some weird comments about Twitter and transcendental experience, but I think there is a valid discussion to be had about critic group-think and what makes a “critic” more of an authority over our friends. Everyone makes jokes about “Oscar Baiting” movies, and I know some people who think that the opposite of a critic’s grade must be the true grade.
This is comparable to what has happened in Jazz or Classical circles. Sure, it is technically cool that you did a fifteen chord progression over seven time changes and three instruments, but is it enjoyable to listen to?
And someone always brings up the fact that the winners in award shows are often not the most remembered or influential works of the given year.
velocifero
Gaga is killing her career due to manager douche bag Troy Carter. Next year a lot of crap is gonna hit the press about her lip synching, money laundering and stealing material. She will be uncovered us the 21st Century Milli Vanilli.
MattCA181
There is a serious problem with both professional critics and articles such as this one. Critic’s responses have become so expected. I go to read something with thoughtful analysis, and so much of it ends up being one-liners or just pointlessly mean/effusively(bought off)gushing.
I also read so many critics who are consistently negative about everything. So I’ve stopped using them as reliable critical sources because because there ends up being no real dimension to what they have to say.
Lady Gaga’s memo could have been more concise, but this issue has been bothering me for awhile. I don’t mind disliking something, but give me a valid reason why.
Gii
Dear Dan Avery,
Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit.
Sincerely,
Gii
j
Our culture is a cesspool of megalomaniac critics who (at least in private) think of themselves as just as creatively brilliant (if not more) as the subjects they write about despite the fact they contribute absolutely nothing to our cultural heritage. This manifests itself indirectly in every snarky, pretentious, holier than thou opinion column and I’m sick of it.
MikeE
I work in the arts (albeit, classical, not “popular”), and know OF Lady Gaga rather than know her.
This I can say: her “open letter” is well-written, and actually shockingly profound.
Dan Avery appears to miss many of the perfectly valid points Gaga makes.
A “critic’s” job is not to criticize.
A “critic’s” job is to comment from a place of knowledge and understanding.
Having a degree in journalism doesn’t make you a “critic”. It makes you a potential journalist. Having talent and integrity then actually makes or breaks whether you ARE that journalist.
There are far too many “music critics” who know squat about music.
Come to think of it, Dan, there seem to be far too many people with delusions of journalism who think of themselves as – gasp – journalists.
Kev C
I don’t usually read memos written by agitated cokeheads, but when I do, I never take them seriously.
Little Kiwi
every generation has a pop music icon that is warmly embraced, and who in turn warmly embraces, a certain demographic group.
and every single one of these pop music icons gets the same bogus criticism from the same type of people.
we get it. you’re such unique rebels for not liking Lady Gaga. Madonna. Kylie. Cher. Barbra. Judy. Lena. Josephine.
*yawn*
some people just have to dislike (and be strangely vocal about their dislike) of whatever Pop Star is “huge” in order to trick themselves into believing that they’re one-of-a-kind unique rebels who are just oh-so-different from everyone else.
newsflash – you’re not. you’re tired and boring. werk
newcityspot
Gosh this was so funny, and dense in wit, much more dense compared to her weak brew intellectualism.
I’ve been waiting but have yet to hear about how she lacks the range of emotion and expression of a normal human being. Maybe her face is partly paralyzed or something, but what’s with the dead in her eyes? She has Garfield Syndrome. They never open more than halfway, and it just makes me feel like I’m looking at a person in a state of emotional coma. She’s talking, but I can’t really hear her as there’s no feeling behind those words. Is she completely drunk on ego? I mean if she was actually great as the innovator she believes she is, maybe I could see something into it, but I couldn’t see anyone asking more than the initial bid of .25 cents.
She’s a pro at masturbation for sure. Nobody needs to be with her since she’s already married herself. I’m surprised that she’s already been self-appointed to save the world, one heaping pile of adulation at a time. Maybe one day she will reveal to the world the missing consonants to her name. Lady GodGod.
Someone please ask the crazy bus to pick her up and take her to the rural asylum where she can wear other people’s clothes, do other people’s songs, and make the best youtube videos of Lady GodGod for us to look at. The staff will let her know that she indeed is saving the world, eliminating poverty, reversing disease, rewriting the laws of nature and letting the universe know who she truly is, it’s deedholder.
Until then, can she just smile a little, giggle like a normal girl, be something cute and acknowledge she is a paint by the numbers product?
Little Kiwi
it’s been 10 years since the September 11th attacks and as usual, a bunch of sad-sack lameass gay dudes need to criticize lady gaga in order to feel better about themselves. you guys fucking suck. if you think letting everyone know how much you’ve chosen to dislike lady gaga will help you get over your crippling misery about being born a homosexual i wish you the best of luck with that. hate all you want, Gaga still has done more to inspire people than you likely ever will, and this is coming from someone who doesn’t even listen to her music.
it aint for me. but i appreciate the incredibly empowering message she’s giving to countless millions. it’s not her fault you whiners have made no impact whatsoever.
Maddie
I hate gaga
the crustybastard
Johnny Darling wrote a sarcastic and superficial criticism of Lady Gaga’s essay criticizing critics for being sarcastic and superficial?
Well, gosh. How meta.
mike128
@ J and MikeE: I agree with you both, absolutely.
I live in NYC and can’t tell you how many “critics” I met who are simply overeducated 20-somethings whose parents paid too much for their educations. They got into the “right” schools, met the “right” people to get those underpaid magazine jobs, and are riding out an ego trip that’s all about how much they know, and how much better they are than everyone else. It’s great to have a good education and writing skills. But it’s far far easier to analyze and criticize ANYTHING than it is to create something. And, by that, I don’t even mean art. It’s tougher to create relationships, social policy, political action, decent children… on and on… than it is to talk about how bad a job everyone else is at doing this. I can hardly stand the meglomaniacs in the media anymore. The only criticism I’m interested in is someone else doing it BETTER, which I doubt is something we will ever see from “Johnny Darling”.
Red Meat
@the crustybastard: The cunt is pathetic.
christopher di spirito
Yawn. So some bitchy fag hates Lady Gaga. Who cares? Not me.
Eminent Victorian
This was a light dish of something awesome. Dear Stephi G: You are famous exactly because the public is stupid. Congratulations!
Little Kiwi
dear eminent victorian, you are not famous because you’re more boring than church. you losers are fucking pathetic. an artist out there is inspiring millions of people to be empowered and love themselves and your pathetic gay asses need to let everyone know how much you choose to dislike her in order to feel special.
don’t like Gaga? don’t listen to her music. don’t click on articles about her. the effort some of you guys go to to yet let everyone know how much you dislike Lady Gaga is fucking hilarious and sad. go tell your Dad. maybe he’ll be less ashamed of your gay ass now that he knows you’re not “listening to what all the other gays are listening to”
or you could, you know, focus your energy onto the things that you love. and just enjoy them.
for real. the “i can’t stand lady gaga!” gays are the biggest cliche, and you’re all pretty fucking pathetic.
werk.
Eminent Victorian
@Little Kiwi: Help us help you! It doesn’t have to end this way!
Bryan
Why can’t most people who read the article understand that lady gaga didn’t criticize the critic in a “how dare you not like me way”, but what she was complaining about was that the critics comments were too vague. I have seen the critique in question and I get where Lady Gaga is coming from. I think what Gaga wants is for the critique to give a comprehensive reason for not liking a particular thing instead of just “I hated it, it was rubbish”.
@newcityspot: Your comment is a bit bizarre and has me scratching my head because despite her crazy outfits, she does act like a human in interviews. She laughs, she giggles and she frowns when she’s asked questions she doesn’t like.
harold osler
Who’s this Johnny Darling supposed to be?
x
One star. Hated it. Worst article of the season.
Allen D.
Love it.
mike128
All the lady gaga haters on here are, as of this post, challenged to make something more creative than she has – since they clearly have amazing ideas *in their heads* that have yet to be expressed. Inspire us.
newcityspot
@Bryan: Her eyes are constantly half open, she is frozen in a state of self-delusion, and she’s a mouth breather. Her “crazy outfits” are a really lame stroke at trying to say she’s just too genius for mere mortals to understand. I just don’t think you understand what I’m trying to say because you can’t see through it. Just like all the other low IQ idiots who follow her speech and walk. There’s basically 2 kinds of people to this GodGod. Those who can see through her and those who can’t. You can’t. You’re just too low IQ.
bbg372
@newcityspot: The Empress Has No Clothes
newcityspot
And to all those other people who defend her so strongly…she’s a visual insult. Why we all don’t like her so much is because of her subtext. She is persistently trying to tell everyone that she’s been divinely appointed to save the poor souls, her “monsters,” from the evils of the persecutors. Her Messiah complex is unfortunately supported by others who work much harder at creating original pieces of art (she’s not an original – her fashion is designed by others, her songs are derivative, and she claims to be allied with everyone who was truly original, like Grace Jones who can’t stand her). When Terrence Koh worked with her, he went from being a self-created artist, to another willing slave to her complex. She is not a self-created artist. Strip her of her visuals, go blind for a minute, and then she is reduced to a Berkeley hippy, strumming her guitar to Ani DiFranco songs. You wouldn’t like her if it wasn’t for the spectacle. She was saying she was great until people started believing it. That’s what’s so insulting. And if you didn’t join her, then you were suddenly a persecutor, decreeing a fatwa against her. Honestly, she’s not doing anything but serving her own needs of self-importance and delusion and I just feel ashamed for those who make themselves look stupid by believing in her nonsense. Remember she was nobody until she just started dressing all crazy everyday to look weird enough alongside other public images to have people google her and have her music heard. Her 1-2-3, A-B-Cs manual of how to get famous was pretty obvious. I just don’t think anyone before had the self respect to actually go through with it. She did and now she’s saying she wrote the manual herself. Bahahaha.
newcityspot
@bbg372: Exactly! Succinctly said.
Mike
Haha, you jelly. It’s okay, Avery.
mike128
I’m not a big Gaga fan (I’m 35 – not that old – but still feel she’s for the younger set). But I really don’t understand the outrage and hate so many people on here have for her. She’s a huge star but she gets put down for acting like she’s “important”. She’s interested in collaborating with artists within and outside of music and you all call her work “ripped off and derivative”. All art is a response to something else – there’s no such thing as “original” art. And all performers want attention. Name one that doesn’t. So why the outrage for Gaga? Especially given that she’s out there promoting positivity, creativity, equality… all these wonderful things that she’s lending her voice to. There could be much worse people getting attention. In fact, I think most of the young pop starlets for the last 10 years or so fall into that category of “much worse people” in terms of their impact on culture.
newcityspot
@mike128: I have never sought to clarify why I dislike her so much until today…and this will be the last time I need to put anything on the internet in regards to her. I don’t dislike her enough to think about her anymore.
Why I don’t like Lady GodGod:
In an interview with NME magazine Lady GodGod talks about her song Judas. This is the interview where she talks about song similarities to Madonna’s, “I am not stupid enough to put a record out and be that moronic. Why would I try to put a song out and think I’m getting one over on everybody? That’s retarded.”
Shortly after that she talks about how God communicates with her:
“I just like… I just have to say… (Starts crying) I feel like honestly that God sent me those lyrics and that melody. When you feel a message to give to the world and people are shooting arrows at it… there’s no way for something that pure to be wrong. (Reaches for Marilyn Monroe lighter) I need a cigarette.”
And below are the excerpts to the lyrics sent by God to Lady GodGod:
When he comes to me, I am ready
I wash his feet with my hair if he needs
Forgive him when his tongue lies through his brain
Even after three times he betrays me
I couldn’t love a man so purely
Even prophets forgave his crooked way
I’ve learned love is like a brick, you can
Build a house or sink a dead body
In the most Biblical sense,
I am beyond repentance
Fame hooker, prostitute, wench; vomits her mind.
But in the cultural sense,
I just speak in future tense.
Judas, kiss me, if offensed,
Or wear A condom next time.
I wanna love you,
But something’s pulling me away from you
Jesus is my Virtue
And Judas is the demon I cling to
I cling to
Since she’s the contemporary chosen one, I’ll just go with it for a second, and criticize her boss, God.
Why did you choose a woman who is telling us to love everyone, yet slights people who criticize her for plagiarism and calls them retarded? It seems like you’re employee is sending us conflicting messages to love all except those that question her(/your?) creativity.
So, you spoke to people long ago telling them to write this book, which includes a character that betrays your son, and now you’re communicating to us to not only forgive and love him, but to wash his feet with my hair?
Shouldn’t your employee love everyone including her critics? She’s failing at the love part, but she’s really doing good at letting us know that she was sent by you.
Okay, thanks God. Now back to my reply.
So in this, understand that she likes to tell everyone that she loves loves loves everyone, aligns herself with God, and anyone that doesn’t love her has also betrayed her with their hate, just like Judas, so she must be Jesus’ sister.
To all her fans, she is here to heal your wounds, make the blind see again, forgive you for your sins, and help you understand that she is the one true, “pure” being sent by God to do this for you. God again is making the ultimate sacrifice for lowly humans by sending this Lady GodGod to you. And you must be knowledgeable of this truth.
Gosh, now I feel kinda sick thinking of her this much. Bluch, won’t be doing this again.
Red Meat
When the idiot who wrote this article dies in a hate crime because he was looking for sex with a secret homophobe in some bar please inform us, because I will laugh, I will laugh.
ChrisC
@Pitou: Shut the fuck up. And no, I’m not that mental mess Chris Crocker.
Trent
i enjoyed this article because it made me think and was not just mindless dribble. I am still a Gaga fan, but it was nice to see some other viewpoints. I will also have to say; I know many people with journalism degrees, that does not make them fashion/music/theatre/art critiques. It just means that they know how to form and sentence and use correct punctuation. Some things you need life experience on.
brandon
haha i like gaga but this article is great.
tookie
This article and the criticisms of Gaga are unreasonably bitter and just plain weird. Just because some of us like her as an entertainer doesn’t mean we go to her for philosophy or spiritual direction or anything. Why hate so much unless you have a weak sense of self? Why hate so much unless you secretly want what you say she is offering? Why pretend you can divine her true motives and parse her psychology when it’s clear all you’re doing is simply projecting?
newcityspot
@tookie: You just earned $10 for the “projection” defense. Another $10 for the “jealously” defense.
SKANK
Dear Queerty,
Lady GaGa just won an Emmy. Maybe a congratulatory post for the Queer communities most vocal advocate would be more appropriate then this nonsensical criticism of criticism of criticism.
Little Kiwi
the guys on here who are writing essays of excuses for “why” they dislike Lady Gaga are wasting their time. they’re no different than the sad-sack gay men who wasted time in the 90s and 80s complaining about disliking Madonna. the gays in the 70s who wasted time talking about disliking Cher and Barbra Streisand, and the old-school gays who couldn’t stop talking about how they didnt’ like Judy Garland.
you’re not unique rebels with piercing insight. you’re every other sad fucking gay man who needs to “not like” what you think “other gays like” in order to trick yourselves into thinking you’re special.
you’re not. you could, you know, do what i do – not listen to her music and accept that it’s simply for others, and be happy that others are indeed inspired by her message, her music, and her energy. the woman is saving lives. that her music is not “for me” doesn’t change that.
that you fucking losers have to come on here to let everyone know you dislike her speaks volumes. no wonder your dad’s hate having you for sons. you’re such idiots.
Red Meat
@Little Kiwi: Preach it brother
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Gagas not that bad lol
Queers always make the worst bullies.
Coyote40
@Little Kiwi: What’s with you, doofus? You still seem to think grown men (of any sexuality) even care what their fathers, or mothers, think of them.
Coyote40
@Little Kiwi: And why does a grown man keeep writing “werk” after his posts? What’s that?