"....it seemed worth noting what it takes for Zizek to make the Post."

It's not like there's anything wrong with being associated with Lady Gaga. On the contrary. She's an amazing performer and popular among some of the most progressive youth. That she knows and is interested in a known "communist in a qualified sense" speaks well of her, and can only make "communism" in some sense more attractive to the fan picking up and perusing that cast-off copy of the Post on the subway.

Oh, I completely agree. I think this is delightful, even if it isn't true. If it is, so much the better. I was party to a discussion on Facebook in which Gaga was characterized as "bourgeois" and accused of "distracting the working class from reality." A POV I couldn't help but find a little quaint.

From what I could find in 10 minutes of research, Stefani Germanotta (A.K.A. Lady Gaga) has given millions of dollars to Haiti relief projects, the Japanese tsunami crisis relief, as well as HIV and AIDS prevention organizations. By becoming an advocate for LGBTQ rights, she has possibly made a significant contribution to the ongoing struggle of many members of the LGBTQ community. All that being said, her current net-worth is 110 million dollars (http://www.celebritynetworth.com/richest-celebrities/singers/lady-gaga-net-worth/) and she seems to have a few different companies. Her CD's, T-shirts, and coffee mugs all come from an exploited workforce (wherever they are manufactured) and she personally benefits from that.

Why would Zizek have anything to do with her? I don't think he would. I really think this is all bullshit. It makes "Lady Gaga" look edgy and non-materialistic; when in fact she seems to be the epitome of a starlet/philanthropist whose IQ is only slightly higher than your average pop sensation. Isn't it more likely that it was her people who leaked this, hoping to give her some cred amongst us leftists in order to sell more albums? Just something to keep in mind, from the music journalists/critics to your local DJ, leftists control what music is hot and what music is not... hot (as it were).

Jacob, is it not true that Engels owned factories and Jane Fonda was a movie star who went to Vietnam and had herself photographed with Vietnamese rebels? The content of a persons politics is not narrowly determined by their income. Many radical people have come from great wealth. Reality and human consciousness are so much more complex than that.

I love Lady Gaga myself and have often thought she was misunderstood on "the left".

@Eric Fair enough, people who are born wealthy or who come into wealth aren't inherently bad people, but they certainly have an obligation to give up their class privilege or use it for the benefit of the working class. For example, Engels funded Marx and spent his life in service to the working class... Are you seriously going to compare Lady Gaga and Engels? (No comment on Jane Fonda)

When I see Lady Gage in Madison shaking her fist at the fascists stripping away collective bargaining, funding anti-zionist groups in Palestine, or supporting the FARC I will apologize for all of my comments. For now it seems like she is benefiting more from her philanthropy than she's sacrificing, therefore my criticisms are valid.

Aside from her monetary place in the global capitalist system, she has received a fair amount of criticism from radical queers for her making herself a 'spokesperson' for a supposedly homogeneous 'gay community' ... She is much closer politically to Madonna than to anything significantly to the left, and while I do think that the 'distraction' argument is oftentimes total bullshit, with Lady Gaga it definitely seems to be the case as she is a representative of the vein of capitalism which tells us "anything can be possible in the world market!"

I am pretty sure this story is a hoax made up by the Deterritorial Support Group https://deterritorialsupportgroup.wordpress.com/

I got into an argument about Rage Against the Machine's Zach de la Rocha recently. Someone said that he was a poser because he drove a nice car all while singing about peoples 'plights'. My response was that was great -- don't we want people like that supporting us? Don't we want a revolutionary united front?

Jacob:

I really can't get down with the Gaga like many of my other progressive friends have, but I think you are being a little too rough and self-isolating. You characterized her as having a low IQ when she gained early admission to NYU, a very selective college. As mentioned, she's very passionate about her queer activism. She speaks (and use to perform) at a lot of pride events and donates a lot to the cause. Her career started (as she herself credited) within the gay community, and her music is very reflective of that. "Poker Face" was about her bisexuality, for pete's sake. On top of that, what about when she spoke out in Arizona, to a crowd that responded by booing her, about SB1070? We need find allies where we can find them, and she is definitely an ally that inspires a lot of gay and progressive youth.

@celicfire Yes we want a revolutionary united front; made up of revolutionaries and the working class... Do we want people who drive around in fancy cars and own obscene amounts of capital to support our cause? Not really. I don't really understand why those people would support our goals in the first place, if they did they would most likely not own that capital, or they would be using their capital in a revolutionary fashion (i.e. buying a boat and sailing supplies to Gaza).

This makes me realize that I don't know how much of our personal wealth we have to give to the cause in order to be considered "truly" revolutionary (Orwell's "Down and out in Paris and London" comes to mind). Certainly we have to keep limited amounts of capital to keep fighting, but there seems to be a line where we stop being part of the solution and start becoming part of the problem.

@labor I said slightly higher IQ, but point taken she does seem to be rather intelligent, however I don't know if that helps her cause. I'd refer you to Balzac's comment concerning the "gay community". As for speaking out against SB 1070, I'm not going to say that's not something, but I am going to say that it probably helped her record sales more than it hurt them.

Just FYI these are a few people who also spoke out against SB 1070:
-Texas Association of Business Executive Director Bill Hammond
-Competitive Enterprise Institute policy analyst Alex Nowrasteh
-News Corporation Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch
-Former Florida Republican Governor Jeb Bush
-Texas Republican Governor Rick Perry
-Florida Republican Congressman Connie Mack
-California Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
-Former George W. Bush political strategist Karl Rove
-New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg

@Mike E Yes... all of the above. When I said "revolutionaries" I wasn't speaking in a strict professional revolutionary sense, but in a more broad sense (i.e. revolutionary doctors, lawyers, professors, etc..). I think artists have always and will continue to be part of the revolutionary movement. But surely you're not suggesting we turn to Rupert Murdoch to lead the charge against capitalism. Shouldn't the members of our "revolutionary united front" have at least managed to shed their bourgeois interests?

If this is ture, I consider it a welcome development. Are Lady Gaga's politics revolutionary communist? No. Do I agree with every aspect of the way she presents LGBT liberation? No (I take a pretty anti-essentialist-identity stance). But I could say the same thing about the vast majority of activists I work with, and most people I talk with, generally.

I'm not going to dismiss someone because they haven't gone all the way towards revolutionary consciousness and commitment. That doesn't mean that they have no contributions to make.

I also don't dismiss her because she's wealthy or because she's a (VERY popular) pop star. In fact, if this story is true, then it is precisely because of her wealth and popularity that this is significant. She may not be a communist, but for someone with her visibility to associate with a "communist in a qualified sense" intellectual - and therefore implicitly indicate that communist politics is not absolutely pariah and/or dead - that is important. That is a contribution. Think of how many people listen to Lady Gaga...

We absolutely need people like that, just like we need revolutionary organizations of the exploited and oppressed. For one thing, if class background were the only determinant in whether someone could make revolutionary contributions, then Engel's work would have been valueless, and so would Mao's (his father was a wealthy peasant). And we also know that during periods of radical upsurge in the 20th century, the contributions of radical intellectuals and even celebrities has been a part of the overall landscape in which new consciousness and practice can emerge. They don't make it all happen, in some top down way. But they are definitely part of the picture. They have a role to play. I'm glad someone mentioned Jane Fonda, becuase that was the example I thought of first.

Let's be very realistic. More people in this country have listened to Lady Gaga's music than have read Marx, Engels, Lenin or Mao. If Lady Gaga does anything at all to make people more open to revolutionary politics, we should welcome the opportunity. I never say "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth," but we should be prepared for gifts to appear from directions we don't anticipate, and to use them wisely.

And let's remember: Workers and oppressed people have to play a leading role in the revolution, but ANYBODY can particularly be won over the the revolutionary cause, and we need EVERYBODY that we can get.

Regrettably, but not surprisingly, the gossip is untrue. Grumpy Cat was on the money. From http://www.lefteyeonbooks.com/2011/06/slavoj-zizek-and-lady-gaga-arent-friends/ :
<blockquote>Yesterday, the internet was abuzz with the unexpected news that Slovenian Marxist Slavoj Zizek and pop superstar Lady Gaga are friends, perhaps more than friends. The New York Post appears to have broken this ‘news’ with a ‘Page Six’ (gossip) article. The Post refers to unnamed ‘sources’ who say they spent time together, and references a blog post entitled “Communism Knows no Monster” in which Zizek allegedly expounds on the significance of Gaga. The article ends by quoting Zizek, reached by the Post, as saying “I am terribly sorry to disappoint you, but this is all a fake!” This quote did absolutely nothing to stop the spread of this rumor. But I am almost certain that quote is the truth.

The key is the blog post, “Communism Knows no Monster”. Although it is attributed to Zizek, it is absolutely not by him. It appears on the website of something called Deterritorial Support Group. This is an anarchist/theoretical site. As those whose familiarity with Zizek dates back before June 20, 2011 probably know, Zizek’s main intellectual antagonists are anarchist theorists. They typically regard him as a rigid Marxist. He regards them as ineffectual and unwilling to take direct aim at power (on the other hand, Zizek and ‘anarchists’ like Micheal Hardt and Antonio Negri probably agree on about 80 or 90% of real world political questions. In practical matters everyone these days is less dogmatic than in theory). Zizek would not be writing for such a website. He regularly contributes to the London Review of Books, which, in any case, has a much larger readership.
The blog post has a link to an announcement that both Gaga and Zizek will appear at an event in March of this year supporting the University of College Union (UCU) strike of lecturers. In fact, neither showed up, even though Zizek was apparently in town teaching a course that week. Lady Gaga did send an email in support (source, Grietje Sabra, on the Facebook wall of “UCU Strike Teach Out with Zizek and Lady Gaga”). “Communism Knows no Monster” elaborates on Gaga’s supposed theoretical significance, which, in itself, is not implausible for Zizek. He has written about many popular cultural icons and texts. But the references are otherwise off. No Lacan, for example. There is a reference to abjection and public nudity, but Zizek has actually been quite critical of this sort of thinking and practice, associated above all with Giorgio Agamben. As a final note, the comments thread for the “Communism Knows no Monster” includes a question about the authorship of this post. Commenter ‘sprandrell’ responds “no, this is not Zizek”. If a small website like this actually did net a contribution from a giant like Zizek, it seems inconceivable that the editor would let this discussion stand, rather than jump in to let everyone know that this is in fact Zizek. Sorry, New York Magazine, Interview, et al, you’ve been punked. Zizek did not write a blog post about Lady Gaga. They did not appear at a protest together. And the likelihood they ‘spent time together’ (winky-wink) is practically non-existent. </blockquote>

Some good came of it......I now know who LADY GAGA IS !!!

My daughter filled all the details and even played 1/2 a track....my 3yr old grand daughter loves her and has her picture. So relieved she is not an aristocrat. We have a history of radical ARISTO's here........all quite BONKERS.. Zizek had a narrow escape.....................whatever her pedigree......

Salon has also judged this as a hoax:

http://www.salon.com/entertainment/tv/feature/2011/06/22/lady_gaga_slavoj_zizek_new_york_post_hoax