Please Shut Up, Adam Lambert

Hey Adam Lambert. How you doin'? Good? Good. Okay let's cut to the chase. You've done a series of boneheaded stunts lately--like that AMAs nonsense--that's taking this gay rights movement further and further back towards the stone age. I realize you're willfully fighting against the notion that you're hurting Gay America even as you see your left arm brandishing the knife. Sheesh, man. Take it down about a thousand notches. All that glitter, plus the making out with the keyboardist bit, plus the shoving your crotch into the muzzle of some random wasn't shocking. You're trying too hard. There are more effective ways of achieving camp value. This is just kind of tragic. I see what you're striving for, though: To become a self-made sex symbol. But it's just kind of weird-looking and stilted. You trying to do "sex symbol" is like Madonna trying to do "sex symbol" nowadays or Posh Spice trying to sing...ever. It's not convincing. None of us are fooled.

You can’t shock someone into submission. We tried that in Iraq and it has yet to take. Being gay isn’t a bad thing! So stop ghettoizing it with stupid photo shoots. I know Sarah Palin would have you believe being gay is a sin, but to her, recycling is also a sin.  Also, most of us unfortunately operate on binary modes of sexuality. It’s The Way We Are. People are gay or straight. And in many of our minds, never the twain shall meet and so forth. Maybe you’re gunning to be an ambassador against such outmoded values. But if you are, is this the most effective way to do it?

I consulted Spread Magazine’s Sarah Louise, who, in addition to serving as Production Manager, knows a thing or two about this niche where you, Lambie, want to make a name for yourself. She offers this, “I see him trying to do something Bowie-esque and failing. Maybe he’s trying to be the outrageous Marilyn Manson of pop. He’s overtly sexual on stage, saying ‘Look at me look at me look at me!!!’ I would look, if he commanded his sexuality in a way that was...umm...sexy? He’s like the young kid at the kink club, the one who interrupts your conversation to ask if you’d like a spanking with the fuzzy paddlin’ implement he bought at Hot Topic for way too much money. And you’re like laughing in your head and stuff, but you just have to grin and bear it and say, ‘No thank you.’ No thank you, Adam Lambert.”

No thank you, indeed. On The Early Show, Lambert, you were singing a different tune. You reductively chalked up all the fuss over your AMAs showboating to this simple fact: “I think it’s because I’m gay.” Oh? What the hell’s this about, then? Boys kissing girls isn’t gay. I totally checked.

Probably more disturbing is this quip from Details: “It shouldn’t matter what a person’s sexual preference is--it doesn’t change their appeal.” Preference? Oh, honey. No. Perhaps, therein lies the heart of the problem. What most people categorize as biological urges, you categorize as sheer whimsy. So you have no problem commodifying it. Whatever it is. This is a major problem, Lambert. And maybe in wrapping your sexuality up in a glossy package, Lambert, you came upon the cracks, the insecurity and hoped no one else could see them if the bow was puffy and shiny enough. But we all kind of couldn’t turn our heads away when you made that insecurity the centerpiece of your performance.

You’ll sell well. Or at least For Your Entertainment will, in spite of being total floss. And after that, it’s not looking good. A Kate Bush-like hiatus may be in order until you sort the shards of your image out. Best of luck and all that. Although, Spread’s Sarah Louise puts it best: “I think Gay America should take a nap while he self-destructs.” Ditto for the rest of America.