Lady Gaga Does Something Rational

If you think you're sick of the Mama Monster, think again. I was about ready to be done with her, too, and she had to go and express her very rational political views. Lady Gaga called for a boycott of the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. If you feel confused about this conflict of interests — Lady Gaga's annoying-ness versus her rationality, not gay rights versus the Winter Olympics, but we'll get to that — you're not alone.

It's not hard to have mixed feelings about Lady Gaga. Her music is great for dancing or working out, but it all sounds exactly the same. (She has a song with the lyrics "applause, plause" which... what?) As a pro, I suppose she offers something a bit different than other pop singers, but as a con, how dare she try to shock us by riding in to an awards show on a horse made of people when she's already shown up to a red carpet while inside of an egg.

I thought I'd had it up to here (you can't see me, but I'm gesturing at eye level) with Lady Gaga and I was just starting to feel confident that I would be totally okay with her going away for a long while, but her recent statement about how the Sochi Winter Olympics should be boycotted due to Russia's views on gay rights has me rethinking things. Here's what she said to Alan Carr of the show Chatty Man:

I would never take anything away from [the athlete’s] hard work, I just think it is absolutely wrong for so many countries to send money and economy in the way of a country that doesn’t support gays.

If you're someone who supports gay rights, what Gaga says makes a lot of sense. Nations battle it out for the chance to hold the Olympics because it brings so much revenue into the country. If America did something like not participate that would be huge. That's never going to happen, though.

For one, as a country we aren't exactly 100 percent settled on gay rights ourselves. For two, even though the Olympics aren't being held in the US, they're super money driven here as well with the national television coverage and the ad sales that go along with it.

Lady Gaga's call for a boycott will not have any effect on the Olympics going forth as scheduled or it being aired in the US, but because she's high profile it does keep the issues in Russia in the news and perhaps brings them to a new audience.

The fact that Gaga speaks out strongly about this cause is great. Maybe we're tired of her publicity stunts and repetitive songs, but since she's using her popularity to bring attention to something meaningful, then we might just have to be fine with her sticking around.