In a series called Mondo Bullshittio, let’s talk about some of the most glaring hypocrisies and faux pas in pop culture… and all that it affects.
Among many cringe-inducing moments during Friends: The Reunion, perhaps the most uncomfortable of all was seeing Lady Gaga participate. Not just “participate” in the way that, say, Reese Witherspoon did by talking about her cameo role as Rachel’s sister, but showing up as more of a fangirl who wanted to attempt to emphasize the notion that Phoebe Buffay was “different.” “Dared to be,” as it were. If that’s what is intended by wearing plushy, bright orange jackets that were actually on-trend at the time, along with playing guitar at a coffeehouse.
In some sense, however, it’s easy to imagine the Stefani Germanotta of the Upper West Side in the mid-90s taking some inspiration from that breed of “divergence” from the normal. Seeing as how the Upper West Side is not exactly “real New York” so much as a more palatable TV version of it (hence, why so many series and movies have been and continue to be filmed there), maybe Germanotta really did view Phoebe as a seed to her eventual persona. “Daffy,” musical and “open to all” thanks to her period of living on the streets, Phoebe would obviously be the character Gaga could most “identify” with since, evidently, she felt the need to promote some form of affection for the show by appearing on its reunion for no ostensible reason other than to deface her image.
The strange irony of it all, obviously, is that Friends is pretty much the antithesis of post-00s twenty-first century wokeness… which is everything Lady Gaga claims to be about. But possibly because she herself can’t help being a byproduct of the 00s, having risen to prominence in 2008, just four years after Friends went off the air, she still has an unshakeable attachment to this “watershed moment” in pop culture history.
“Popping in” to Central Perk (like she’s Miss Yvonne on Pee-Wee’s Playhouse or some shit) in the same aesthetically tailored getup as Phoebe (complete with the “two ‘messy’ buns on each side” hairstyle), Gaga rolls in with a guitar and a hideously-toned sweater to ask if Lisa Kudrow needs any help getting back into the groove of singing “Smelly Cat,” a song with as much lyrical variety as “Just Dance” and “Poker Face.”
Kudrow, not wanting to work too hard for her 2.5 million dollars, is eager to oblige. Gaga then sits down on the couch to join in on the song that won’t die. Like a cat with nine lives. “I love ‘Smelly Cat.’ It’s one of my favorite songs,” she gushes before diving into the chorus with the same overwrought intonation that Ally from A Star Is Born would. In truth, because of how guttural it sounds, we kind of wish Miley was singing it instead for, at the very least, a more “Angels Like You” (as opposed to “Shallow”) effect. But perhaps she’s more faithful to her LGBTQIA+ audience (even if not her “slutty” female one) than Gaga by choosing not to materialize.
For how could Lady G not fathom the hypocrisy of honoring a show that paraded homophobic joke after homophobic joke? Even coming for hermaphrodites with the Brad Pitt-appearing Thanksgiving episode, “The One With the Rumor.” Sure, maybe that sort of demeaning rhetoric was “fine” for Gaga and many other millennials in its time and place, but why help continue to legitimize the mockery at the expense of others in the present by consenting to a cameo for the reunion? Tellingly, the hypocrisy also extends to Gaga constantly prattling on about being a self-respecting New Yorker and yet paying homage to one of the most ersatz depictions of the city ever rendered to screen. After all, she’s sitting on the set of a coffeehouse that sees fit to wield the kind of décor that only coffeehouses (other than Starbucks) outside of New York would deign to (specifically, a giant framed picture of the Statue of Liberty’s head in the background).
The glaring issue regarding Friends’ longstanding commitment to a lack of diverse representation, one would think, should come across as antithetical to Gaga’s “brand” of promoting a colorful rainbow of coexisting humanity. Not to mention it also negates her numerous declarations about being proud to come from a city that’s purportedly one of the most multicultural. Something one would never guess from watching Friends, which is why it also doesn’t seem like it would be the kind of “project” that should gel with a “true” New Yorker (so maybe it’s as some of the initial rumors reported and Lady G really is secretly from Yonkers).
The debasement reaches a crescendo when she licks more asshole by thanking Kudrow for being the “offbeat” character of the show that supposedly allowed viewers to see that it was okay to be “weird.” Or rather, act totally cunty and vexing by selling it as “eccentric.” Thus, Lady G feels obliged to phrase her gratitude as: “I don’t know if this is the right way to say it, but [thank you for being] the different one, or the one that was really herself.” Almost as “herself” as Gaga seems to be with her hooey about “tolerance” and “creative freedom” being utterly invalidated by 1) pronouncing herself a fan of Friends and 2) selling Oreos.
