The unconscionable deal between Lady Gaga and Target — where the pop star tried convincing her fans to spend money with the anti-gay retailer in order to get her deluxe album — is reportedly over. How come? Maybe because all the bad publicity the deal attracted despite Gaga’s asinine assurances the retailer was going to change its ways (namely, donating money to anti-gay candidates). As Queerty explained, Target put in place exactly zero steadfast policy changes to ensure a Tom Emmer-like situation wouldn’t happen again, despite Gaga claiming “part of my deal with Target is that they have to start affiliating themselves with LGBT charity groups and begin to reform and make amends for the mistakes they’ve made in the past…our relationship is hinged upon their reform in the company to support the gay community and to redeem the mistakes they’ve made supporting those groups.” Or, you know, maybe the deal went sour for pure business reasons, like Gaga not selling as well as Target hoped. Who knows. Either way, I’m still not shopping at Target. As for Ms. Gaga, well, her real problem is her “Born This Way” rip-off, now isn’t it?
David
Good for her. She’s at that difficult 2nd album stage in her career. Aligning with the bigots at Target is a sure way to alienate a LOT of her core audience. I can’t believe she was stupid enough to ever think it was a good deal.
Mikey S
I don’t get while you are so angry? She did exactly what she said. She made a deal pending that they change their ways – by doing this she was using her celebrity to do good and hopefully cause some positive change. When Target failed to keep up their end of the deal she pulled out. This in one way teaches Target a lessen and in another highlights the fact that Target has failed to change their ways – something I would not known if not for her involvement in this matter.
Also, her new CD has not even been released yet so the deal going sour would have nothing to do with sales. Her new single is in fact selling very well despite the editors here personally not liking it and having an agenda – which is getting very old.
beck1940
I don’t get while you are so angry? She did exactly what she said. She made a deal pending that they change their ways – by doing this she was using her celebrity to do good and hopefully cause some positive change. When Target failed to keep up their end of the deal she pulled out. This in one way teaches Target a lessen and in another highlights the fact that Target has failed to change their ways – something I would not known if not for her involvement in this matter.
Also, her new CD has not even been released yet so the deal going sour would have nothing to do with sales. Her new single is in fact selling very well despite the editors here personally not liking it and having an agenda – which is getting very old.
She did the right thing here and the fact that you can’t take a step back and objectively give a least a golf clap is pathetic. You are as unabashedly biased as Fox News. Sad.
beck1940
I don’t get while you are so angry? She did exactly what she said. She made a deal pending that they change their ways – by doing this she was using her celebrity to do good and hopefully cause some positive change. When Target failed to keep up their end of the deal she pulled out. This in one way teaches Target a lesson and in another highlights the fact that Target has failed to change their ways – something I would not known if not for her involvement in this matter.
Also, her new CD has not even been released yet so the deal going sour would have nothing to do with sales. Her new single is in fact selling very well despite the editors here personally not liking it and having an agenda – which is getting very old.
She did the right thing here and the fact that you can’t take a step back and objectively give a least a golf clap is pathetic. You are as unabashedly biased as Fox News. Sad.
justiceontherocks
Target is not an anti-gay company. They aren’t a pro gay company. They are a publicly-traded multi-national retailer that made at least two contributions that went to a candidate with anti-gay views.
It would take you a long time to find a corporation anywhere near the size of Target that hasn’t done the same thing. Corporations aren’t in the social policy business.
The people who are pissed with Target because of the contributions (and the company’s lame explanations) were expecting too much. The people who praise them as heroes because they threw HRC a few bucks tried to make too much out of token gestures done for business purposes.
Can we all please just move on?
Red Meat
oho the Madonna bitter queens are at it again. BTW is so far tracking as the most preordered album of all time on multiple retailers, iTunes, and amazon.com
Justan
I’m going to get a few things off my chest.
First, Queerty, shut the fuck up with your bitchy, catty, self-absorbed vitriol toward Gaga. You people are the worst bloggers in the history of blogging.
Second, to David, it’s her THIRD album.
Third, Queerty, it had nothing to do with “her not selling as well as they hoped”. You morons, she’s maintained a #1 spot on iTunes and Billboard Hot 100 for the past 3 weeks and the single went Platinum.
And last but not least, let the Madonna shit go already.
Madonna attended the Monster Ball in Madison Square Garden, and sent her support to Gaga and praised the new single.
Jesus tapdancing Christ, what DOES this girl need to do to prove she is on our side and is a talented artist? She’s part of our community.
Jakob
You gay activists are every bit as mean and biased as Republicans, if not worse. The only difference is you stand on the politically correct side. So what? Same bunch of hypocrites with different opinions.
Patrick
I really only read your Gaga related articles for a laugh. Talk about scraping the bottom of the barrel when you have to resort to trashing and slandering possibly one of the most powerful LGBTQ allies in popular media. I really don’t know what it will take for all the contributors to get over themselves, as difficult as that might be.
Britney
haha the writers at queerty are so fucking pathetic and biased … I can’t.
Ashton C
QUEERTY Free of an agenda, except of course the Hate Lady Gaga one.
Seriously it’s such a pity that a queer blog I love so much can behave so immature when it comes to a performer not afraid to stand by us in the fight for equal rights.
Get off the bully pulpit already Querty and grow the fuck up. We get it, you dont like Lady Gaga, now move the fuck on, it’s not like your shit don’t stink.
beck1940
Can I also add that I love the irony of the current situation going on with my browser: Above the Queerty logo is an advertisement for Lady Gaga’s new CD, Born This Way
So Queerty claims she is a phony and does not have the LBGT community’s best interests in mind; however, it is OK for Queerty to reap financial benefits from her… This sort of parallels the Target debacle that the editors here seem to be having a field day with.
You could not be bigger hypocrites…
beck1940
Also the deal was not inherently “anti-gay” as the title of this article implies. It was in fact pro-gay as it was contingent upon whether or not Target support more gay-friendly charities. Poor wording.
Kev C
And how fucking dare anyone make fun of Britney .. uh, I mean Lady Gaga. See what you bitter queens made me do? I forgot the rest of what I was going to say because I’m so mad. Leave Gaga alone!
John
Is this the line up for a helping of Target crow?
kernelt
I couldn’t agree more with everyone who find that Queerty hate on Gaga is just plain dumb and pathetic. She had been honest and trustworthy in her words, she did what she promised. And best of all a great allies to the GLBT community. One might disagree on her music and fashion but no way should assaulted her when she had been there with the GLBT community in reaching equal right.
Matthew Rettenmund
The anti-GaGa bullshit is juvenile and self-defeating. We have a major pop icon knocking heads about our issues and she gets these catty articles in response? Why would any artist ever give two shits about our community again?
I’m not saying everyone needs to love her or her music or refrain from mocking her style or whatever, but the pro-gay stuff is above reproach and should be welcomed and praised.
Matthew Rettenmund
PS How is “Born This Way” a problem for her? It’s been #1 for three weeks.
Yorban
It really astounds me how much gay men (ostensibly grown men) bother posting, either pro or con, about such a mediocre fluff of a topic. I HOPE it’s only the gay ghetto geeks in Manhattan and West Hollywood, and that across the country there are wide swaths and pockets of homosexual men with greater depth.
divkid
hill-ari-ous.
our queerty masters sooo now how to manipulate ya’ll
they throw the raw meat into the middle, sit back and laugh as you tear out each others throats.
(but to be fair these fine craftsman of the english language (or butchers depending on your view point) are bored, with not much to do do all day other than copy and past news stories, and (badly) word 13 line articles, and generally mangle facts)
on da music tip, im sorry to announce the future has already left the platform; and britney, gar goyle, and katie P, weren’t on it. and neither are you.
jessie j, adele, katie B, and others so kool and, like, sick and bubling-undery (yes thats a word) that you’re frankly not important enough to be told about, *were* on it.
so there you are. it’s settled. i’m done. your dismissed.
Michael
@Yorban: Like yourself? The person commenting on how pointless commenting is? You’re just so above it that you had to let us all know?
Oh, okay. Your interests and concerns are clearly far more elevated than anyone who comments on this article (other than you of course).
Yorban
Michael : That’s true. I was doing exactly what I criticized others for. I have to raise my own standards too and just ignore the subject.
Red Meat
Queerty is just interested in web traffic – trashing the best thing right now does just that.
Red Meat
They even made a special photo to use every time they want to trash the Lady.
divkid
@Yorban: that took humility and a rare candour to admit. my big gay heart goes out to you dude.
but, also, can i say without sounding tacky, that im slightly juicing up, y’know,– down stairs– at how nice, sensible and reasonable you seem. ;-P
lol
onehundredeight
It seems like you’ve decided to loathe Gaga, regardless of her decisions, so fine. But you should probably know that she makes all of her business decisions, regardless of publicity, and unlike the cynics here, she actually believed that Target would change. But she pulled out, which was the honourable thing to do, and you can’t even give her credit for that? Also, I’ll punch the next person who compares Born This Way to Express Yourself; not only do they sound nothing alike, but one is a genuinely good pop track, and the other only got famous by using strong imagery and a diehard gay fan base. If you can’t figure out which is which, then don’t review music. Hint: the lesser one couldn’t sing her way out of a paper bag.
Cam
@justiceontherocks: said…
”
Target is not an anti-gay company. They aren’t a pro gay company. They are a publicly-traded multi-national retailer that made at least two contributions that went to a candidate with anti-gay views. ”
______________________-
No, their CEO, who’s son studies at an institute run by an anti-gay organization, made a donation at his discretion that cuased multiple mutual funds to threaten to dump TARGET stock if they didn’t put safte procedures in place to prevent an exec from every having that authority again. So the Stock Market turned on Target and their stock could have tanked, HURTING their shareholders. Yet even AFTER that, they AGAIN made an anti-gay donation. The Supreme court says that corporations are treated like people as the matter of donations go, so then they must be held responsible for their donations just like people are.
As for Gaga, good for her.
Daveny
lmao @ the people getting all crazy over this article!
Michael
As if Madonna were original.
And at least Lady Gaga can actually sing without auto-tune. She writes her own material, unlike Madonna. And Gaga doesn’t lipsync.
Love them both, Madonna is an awesome product and she’s done great marketing and a wonderful job of sifting out other people’s work, style, sound, dancing and tuning it to the times, but let’s be real. There is room for both of them and I don’t understand where all the bitterness is coming from. There is no Gaga vs. Madonna.
ML
I SO enjoy reading these posts and the comments that follow! Always good for a few laughs.
justiceontherocks
@Cam: Target stock has loved in lock step with the market averages for at least the last five years. It has not tanked. At least look at a stock chart before you make silly claims like that.
Tony
@justiceontherocks: Will you be collecting our clothes as they are marching us to the gas chamber?
Matt
Gaga and her publicity stunts stink.
Cam
@justiceontherocks: said….
”
@Cam: Target stock has loved in lock step with the market averages for at least the last five years. It has not tanked. At least look at a stock chart before you make silly claims like that.
___________________-
Read an entire comment before responding. I said that Target was under threat from several of the countries largest mutual funds, that they would dump Target Stock IF Target didn’t agree to their demand that they institute a new donation policy taking the final decision out of the hands of one person.
If and did are two different things.
M. Peters
@Michael–You are part of the reason everybody is turning against Caca. The claim that Caca writes her own songs while Madonna is just a producer’s puppet is laughable and wrong. Madonna wrote some of her own songs, COMPLETELY when she first started out. She wrote Gambler, Lucky Star, Angel and others all by herself. Then, she took the place as a cowriter. She writes her own melodies and lyrics, perhaps not the music.
Caca doesn’t write her own songs. She STEALS THEM from other people. The only talent she has is duping gay people into believing that she cares for them. Caca is a homophobic. She USES THE GAY community for profit.
Matt
fuck you Queertly… at least Gaga is making an attempt to stand up for the community and make the point known to more to everyone… she at least questioned and investigated the issue. Instead you just slam her. Even after she announces she’s pulling her album from Target…
And they you praised Ricky Martin’s album release even though he stayed with Target… your fucked up! Really fucked up!!!
jason
How on earth is Lady Gaga gay-friendly? She APPEARS to be gay-friendly but I reckon it’s a charade.
The thing that tipped the scales for me was Born This Way. It was promoted as the biggest gay anthem since Gloria Gaynor’s I Will Survive. However, in her video for the song, Lady Gaga refused to show any male-male interaction of a sensual kind.
jason
Both Lady Gaga and Madonna are the products of marketing. Their gay-friendly overtures are also the product of marketing. Only when a male music artist can come out and say he’s bisexual – and be allowed to use it in his marketing – can we then say that society has progressed beyond the current “bisexual females only” marketing paradigm.
At the moment, there is no progress. We are being fed supposedly gay-friendly divas who are only it for the money. Their gay-friendly statements are being driven by the need to make money. Their “bisexuality” is a gimmick driven by the need to appeal to sleazy straight guys, the type of guys who hate gay men.
justiceontherocks
@Tony: What are you taking for your spells of delusion?