Lady Gaga’s “Corporate Gay” Single, “Runway”

When The Devil Wears Prada came out in 2006, Lady Gaga was still slumming it at shows on the Lower East Side. Which is, incidentally, where Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway) lives with her douchey boyfriend, Nate Cooper (Adrian Grenier), in the movie. And who knows if Gaga actually took time out from her “busy schedule” of hustling to go see it at the movie theater? Or if it ever occurred to her that she might one day get to provide a song for the soundtrack to its sequel.

Madonna, on the other hand, was all over the original film to begin with (and, in this way, being “old” has its perks—for you can say you were a part of something iconic that youths don’t have the luxury of being able to). For it was “Vogue” (the song that mirrors the famed fashion magazine’s title, therefore making it perfect for this movie, despite the alter ego fashion magazine at the center of it being called Runway) and “Jump” (a then brand-new track from Madonna’s Confessions on a Dance Floor album) that punctuated two scenes in the movie. The latter playing within the first fifteen minutes to soundtrack Andy going to work on her first day and the former playing after she has an epiphany about needing to dress better—ergo, a montage sequence of her clothing improvements as she goes to work every morning. Letting the streets be her runway, as Manila Luzon would put it.

Talking of drag queens that have appeared on RuPaul’s Drag Race, there’s no denying that “Runway,” the single Gaga has come up with for The Devil Wears Prada 2 Soundtrack, has the same aura of “corporate gay” energy. And, of course, when one says “corporate gay,” what is meant is not a gay who works corporate, but rather, the commodification of gayness by presenting it in a reductive (no Madonna-Gaga allusion intended), catch phrase-y kind of way.

While some might argue that Madonna’s “Vogue” is an example of that, the reality is that such an assessment doesn’t apply when considering that Madonna was the one who brought gayness to the mainstream in the first place. Therefore, it was technically everyone after her who commodified it at a more corporate level. Increasingly so as the years went on and an event like Pride Month turned into little more than a brand advertising smorgasbord. That advertising generally consisting of slapping a rainbow motif onto the logo. Gaga’s single for The Devil Wears Prada 2 Soundtrack is very much that.

And as for Gaga, she’s decided that her version of “Vogue” is “Runway.” Which is trying, in so many ways, much too hard to be “a serve.” More telling still is that it requires a feature on it. Namely, Doechii (who seems keen to feature on any white lady’s track, if “I’m His, He’s Mine” was an indication). But she’ll come in a bit after the thumping rhythm of the Watt, Cirkut, Bruno Mars and D’Mile-produced opening that aims to announce, “Gay friendly!” And yes, that combination of producers clearly shows just how much corporate effort went into this song’s backbeat. Though, for as much as Gaga wants it to be a gay anthem, that’s about the straightest group of producers she could have put in a room together.

The opening verse wastes no time in throwing around what amounts to an impression of gay attitude as she sings, “I’m feelin’ fab/I’m feelin’ free/I feel exceptionally me/Hate all you want but I’m dangerous.” Says the woman backed by corporate funding, making it a bit of a challenge to be truly subversive. As further evidenced by her next round of lyrics, which makes it sound as if she’s short-circuiting in a manner that forces her to spit out random “gay phrases.” As in, “You gon’ burn your tongue on this tea/Might show up late might be on time/Just wait, I’m coming, kiki.” She then self-references her 2009 hit, “Paparazzi,” with the lines, “This paparazzi routine/Bitch, I came to be seen.”

So, too, did Doechii, who enters the song just under the thirty-second mark with her own glitching-out form of “gay” catchphrase delivery, “Yes/Serve a lil’ sass/Yes/With a little side’a ass/Yes/Got the front row screamin’, okay, okay!” The “front row,” in this case, not referring to a concert, but a fashion show. And it’s also Doechii who gets to be the one, before Gaga, to sing the chorus, “Monday through Sunday/I can turn a dance floor into a runway.” Though, honestly, not so much with this song. Which, although well-suited to a Pride Month event in the Meatpacking District, isn’t exactly the type of song on par with, say, Tronco Traxx’s “Walk 4 Me” (which FKA Twigs recently sampled on “Sushi” from Eusexua Afterglow). In fact, it has none of that authenticity to it, even though this is clearly the era of music in gay culture that Gaga and co. are seeking to emulate. But in trying to essentially “copy and paste” it for the fundamentally corporate aims of this soundtrack, something has been patently lost in translation. Which is why “Runway” just doesn’t feel as, let’s say, boppable as even something like “The Dead Dance,” another recent Gaga song made for a soundtrack (i.e., the Wednesday: Season 2 Soundtrack).

At least during that song, Gaga didn’t lose all sense of what was cringe, whereas, with this, she has the audacity to shout, “Sashay, Gagay!” Then concluding by continuing to insist, “You were born for the runway” as a Daft Punk-inspired musical outro ensues. And, although it might seem like an esoteric reference/correlation to some, there’s a kind of second-hand embarrassment quality to the song that’s on par with Vanilla Ice’s (a former “flame” of Madonna’s) own soundtrack outing, “Ninja Rap.” Which, fittingly enough, also served as the lead single on a sequel soundtrack: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze. An album that was described by Select magazine (RIP) as being “despicable. Every kind of dance music has been drugged and sodomized into submission until it becomes anodyne and trite enough to accompany the weakest of children’s parties.” And honestly, that kind of applies to “Runway” as well.

Of course, it’s not as if its “corporate gay” classification will keep it from playing throughout the clubs of L.A. and New York ad nauseum. Especially once The Devil Wears Prada 2 actually comes out. However, if the rumors of a Madonna and Gaga collaboration for said soundtrack prove to be true, it’s surely got to be better than this iteration of corporate gayness. And, if the rumors aren’t true, then, well, there’s always “Vogue” for the movie to rely on.