The bible-thumping boosters of Lady Gaga

The year is 1999. Middle-class America recoils in horror as a drug-addled white boy with an attitude problem conquers the country's youth with the most homicidal, misogynistic music heard since NWA hydraulic-pumped their way out of Compton to rule the world 11 years prior. Disparate groups unite in common disgust of Eminem and picket the rapper at numerous concerts and awards shows. Then a perverse thing happens: instead of halting his meteoric rise, the negative publicity galvanizes it. The two-album period that marks the most protests against Marshall Mathers also sees the best sales of his career. Slim Shady rode America’s shocked indignation to the top of the charts. George Santayana once said that "those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." In this spirit, it would be reasonable to assume that Catholics, being avid readers of a book revered for its historical as well as spiritual importance, know better than to repeat history's mistakes. Evidently not. In their zeal to oust Lady Gaga from the Philippines, the religious right instead handed her the same gift given to Eminem all those years ago: free publicity. A global pop star coming to the Philippines for back-to-back shows is obviously newsworthy. Without an overarching narrative, the media coverage was just supposed to fade away - thrown away like the costumes from Gaga’s last video once the novelty wore off, to make way for newer article fodder. Except that it didn't, thanks to the efforts of Catholic youth groups like Biblemode Philippines, whose consciences wouldn't allow them to remain silent. In their push to save tens of thousands from would-be blasphemous exposure, the relentless media coverage they sparked ensured that tens of millions were exposed to it instead. The end result was two sold-out shows, no concert ban, international coverage and egg on an awful lot of faces. Unfortunately for all those fledgling fundamentalists, the value that Gaga extracted from their bible-thumping goes far beyond mere ticket sales. Both shows would've sold out without all the added publicity, given that demand for tickets has outstripped supply for every leg of the Born This Way Ball tour thus far (additional concert dates have already been added to most countries due to overwhelming demand.) No, the real prize here is the international attention. News outlets from around the world have been happily churning out articles about these righteous Filipino youths marching against the blasphemous American icon: a simple Google search of "lady gaga protest" brings up articles from publications like CNN, the BBC, the Huffington Post, CBS, and so on. Of the ten top links, only two are from Filipino news sources. This is the kind of globe-spanning media mileage pop stars fantasize about. Why is bad press really good press for Lady Gaga? Not only does a Catholic uproar further strengthen her brand image as the queen of counter-culture, it also helps her tour build a head of steam as it gallops around the world. From now on, every news outlet in every country she performs in simply has to mention that her presence sparks protests, because it adds an interesting angle to an otherwise merely informative piece. The controversy has been assimilated into her mystique and she is stronger for it; the religious right, for all their bluster, have been found to be impotent. The Roman Catholic Church understands better than most that power is derived from mastering the means of communication. For a large portion of the church’s history, masses and bibles existed only in Latin to ensure that the uneducated plebeian had no choice but to intercede through priests in order to hear God’s word. How is it then that Catholic youth groups, the church’s future, don’t understand how to manipulate media to their advantage? A measly 200 supporters gathered for their anti-Gaga march; that is a spectacle for all the wrong reasons, especially when they claim to be the mouthpiece of a Catholic-majority country. Perhaps they ought to take their cues from Indonesian Muslims, who in a show of proper religious fervour, threatened massive social unrest in response to a Lady Gaga concert on their home soil and had the show cancelled as a result. If the concerned youths of Biblemode Philippines put down the Book of Leviticus and picked up a book on advertising instead, they’d understand that bad publicity only damages those entities that presume to occupy the moral high ground, as the church does. - HS, GMA News