Queer Cyborgs

Watching Lady Gaga's Alejandro video, I suddenly realized she had read Donna Haraway's Cyborg Manifesto. Well, maybe not, but certainly both Haraway and Gaga realize the power of the cyborg imagery to disrupt traditional male\female, man\machine binary polarizations. The cyborg is a sort of permanent hermpahrodite, neither one thing nor the other, but stuck in a liminal space. Gaga celebrates the cyborg imagery through her combination of cyborg imagery with fascistic elements borrowed straight out of Fritz Lang and the 90's cult classic Dark City. I don't know how comfortable I am with gay cyber Nazis, but there it is . . . if it was not weird, it would not be Gaga. I can at least say one thing for Gaga . . . she's a lot more readable than Haraway, and with a catchier beat.