Hip-hop’s new pro-gay anthem can be misguided and self-elevating, but it’s also talking acceptance with straight teenaged boys on their own terms.
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The first time I heard Macklemore’s “Same Love,” a pop-rap indictment of hip-hop culture’s heteronormativity, I hated it.
Sanctimonious in delivery, front man Ben Haggerty’s declaration of allegiance to righting the wrongs of homophobia comes off as convenient and oblivious. Lifting themselves above an otherwise flawed musical community, Macklemore is oblivious of race — a white rapper using culturally-black means to lambast what remains a predominately black subculture. What’s more, “Same Love” does not stop there its self-elevation.
As with any self-appointed “Ally,” a position which allows straight men and women to elevate themselves through the co-option and commiseration of a suffering they cannot understand, “Same Love” forgets that homophobia is no different than bigotry. Differentiating the two makes it an issue of religion and morality, not civil rights, and “Same Love” does nothing to make this commonly muddied distinction more clear. After years of witnessing oppression by heteronormative popular culture, Macklemore apparently just couldn’t take it anymore, releasing the biggest “I Love You…but not like that” statement of last year.
But for all of its flaws, “Same Love” warrants attention, and yes, commendation too. While it is easy for me to criticize the song, I also cannot ignore the fact that it is so very unexpected. In the history of popular music, few songs have expressed support of the LGBT community’s youngest members in ways that come off as straight.
When I say that “Same Love” is “straight”, I mean that it stands in stark contrast to the gay-affirming pop that came before it. Too often, pro-queer pop is simply too queer for beleaguered teenaged listeners who want nothing more than to be straight. Songs like “Born This Way” gave gay teens everywhere the hope that they might someday find success in a drag or back-up dancing career, ignorant of the fact that many gay teens resent these suggestions that these are the only ways to be truly gay. Had “Born This Way” debuted when I was 15, I doubtless would have spent more time shoved against a locker and less time expressing my gay empowerment. I just did not want to be gay, and “Born This Way” wouldn’t have changed my mind.
Yes, Haggerty is not calling for loud and proud self-acceptance exactly, but he is criticizing the culture which makes being out so difficult. And despite the fact that he self-identifies as a gay “Ally,” he does so in a novel way. “Same Love” may be the first pop song that invites straight teenaged boys to adopt the ideology of an Ally by using their favorite medium, rap, to express its point on their level.
Ultimately, “Same Love” isn’t for now out gay-twenty somethings, and recognizing this made me consider it more favorably. Macklemore’s audience does not have the liberal arts schooling he and I do to understand the nuances of race as a white person, the problems that his reappropriation may suggest. They certainly don’t know what heternormativity is. What they do have, however, is the ear for Macklemore’s product.
I don’t think I’ll ever care much for “Same Love,” but that doesn’t matter. What does matter, and what is so exciting about “Same Love,” is that people like my little brother and his friends are listening to it. I could have used a song like this when I was 15, and for that reason alone, I’m glad it’s out there.
Photo: AP/Carlo Allegri
I also really do not like Same Love. The hook by Mary Lambert, though, is pretty awesome. Though, one wonders if she was chosen to sing the hook because she isn’t straight, thereby giving the song some “authenticity?” These two articles basically explain my thoughts about it (I didn’t write them, but I agree with them): http://www.fromthesquare.org/?p=5005 http://www.fromthesquare.org/?p=5031 On a more personal note, I get that the song is written for hetero people, especially hetero guys. The thing is, I get really tired of mass media that is targeted toward straight people. I get even more tired of the fact… Read more »
That’s a great point Heather, especially because there’s a burgeoning world of LGBT rappers addressing these issues from personal experience that are coming up RIGHT NOW that aren’t getting enough main stream attention—gay, black men like Mykki Blanco and Cakes Da Killah, or bi and lesbian rappers like Azealia Banks and Angel Haze.
Macklemore is basically an overblown motivational speaker, but I do appreciate that he didn’t go with his original plan (according to an interview)—writing from the perspective of a bullied gay teenager, which wasn’t his story to tell.
So because Thomas Harris was never a young female FBI agent in training assigned to track down a psychopathic serial killer, does that mean The Silence of the Lambs “wasn’t his story to tell?” Reading the pointlessly divisive comments on this article is depressing. I do feel like this song is being lauded as something it really isn’t, but some of you are being petty to the point of outright childishness. This reminds me of the completely absurd and fabricated “controversy” amongst some LGBT*T*T%QxX+E=MC people when Brokeback Mountain came out, who had a problem with the fact that Annie Proulx… Read more »
Is the end of the article cut off?
It’s a three minute song, it can’t express the complexities of gender and sexuality and expecting it to do so is ludicrous, furthermore, even the most educated and involved individuals within the LGBT movement cannot truly agree on what the correct position on this is. What is important is that it came from a good place in his heart and that should be what matters most, and the money he made from the song was put into legalizing same-sex marriage in Washington… which was successful! . And the argument that he’s a white rapper… take a look at his song… Read more »
“And Tyler the creater…. yeah that’s the classic “I don’t like such and such… but he’s okay””
Come again?
I always thought this was rather hilarious. “Hip-hop” artist makes a song about gay acceptance, and that’s supposed to be “groundbreaking” “revolutionary” etc etc, pass the tissues. First of all, Macklemore is NOT hip hop. He’s cut rate pop. Okay, the cut rate thing is my bias. My point is he is nowhere near the level of (what do the kids say these days…legitness?), nor does he have anywhere near the sphere of influence of an actual hip-hop group/artist like say, Madlib, 3-6 Mafia, Alchemist or The Game. Imagine 50 Cent releasing a gay tolerance anthem. THAT would be reason… Read more »
I have to disagree with you on this sentiment. Have you heard any of his music? I am not talking about his radio level songs. Not Thrift Shop or whatever that other song is. Listen to Otherside, or Starting Over. I also disagree with your idea that his message is not reaching a group that needs to hear it. There are many different sub Genre’s of rap, and if you want to go straight to Gangster wrap then go for it. But who is to say he is not reaching the “right” group? I have met plenty of teens, young… Read more »