Lady Gaga's 'Born This Way' Album Banned In Lebanon

Lady Gaga's religious firestorm may have blown over in the United States, but the government of Lebanon found it so enflaming that they've banned the popstar's new album from the country's stores.

Multiple reports say that the Lebanese government impounded shipments of "Born This Way," the already-platinum album due to its alleged insults to Christianity and its all around "bad taste."

The Lebanese government has made clear their distaste in Gaga, having already banned her single "Judas" from the airwaves. That song caused a brief ruckus in the United States, too, as conservative religious leaders, including those from the Catholic League, initially protested the song's lyrics and pending video.

"This is a stunt... Lady Gaga tries to continue to shock Catholics and Christians in general: she dresses as a nun... she swallows the rosary. She has now morphed into a caricature of herself," Catholic League President Bill Donohue said in a statement before the video came out.

He then sang a somewhat different tune, waving off the video as a mess and incoherent.

According to Metro UK, the song "Born This Way" was banned from radio play by the government of Malaysia, too. In response to that banning, Gaga, responded, "What I would say is for all the young people in Malaysia that want those words to be played on the radio, it is your job and it is your duty as young people to have your voices heard."

"Born This Way" went platinum in its first week out, selling 1.1 million copies in the United States alone.

According to one Lebanese blogger, he had already downloaded the album via Amazon, with the songs existing safely in the cloud; so, many Lebanese still have the ability to listen to Gaga's latest opus.

In a prescient comment, in a recent feature in the British newspaper The Guardian, Gaga decried religion's impact on government.

"The influence of institutionalised religion on government is vast. So religion then begins to affect social values and that in turn affects self-esteem, bullying in school, teen suicides, all those things," she told the paper.

Lebanon has a history of banning entertainment they find religiously offensive; in 2004, they banned the Tom Hanks-starring big screen adaptation of "The Da Vinci Code."

Comments

[Superboh]

10:37 PM on 06/13/2011

I think she's doing great work promoting gay rights. Just posted some vids and an mp3 of Lady Gaga's appearance at EuroPride Rome 2011. Wonderful stuff. http://t.co/vL2YNlA

[samuraifrog37]

05:27 PM on 06/09/2011

To bad it's only banned in Lebanon. She has great business sense but sounds way to much like Madonna. None of these types of entertainer can't let the music do their talking and have to rely on sexist demeaning imagery to sell their music. Compare Janis Joplin or Ella Ftizgerald to any of today's so called Rock Star Women...lol

[Donns]

05:34 AM on 06/09/2011

The artist couldn't set up or buy this kind of publicity. I admit that I am not an admirer of her tactics or talent but she clearly has the ability to get attention focused on herself and that always translates into money.

[Chris Morrison]

07:18 PM on 06/08/2011

"This is a stunt... Lady Gaga tries to continue to shock Catholics and Christians in general: she dresses as a nun... she swallows the rosary. She has now morphed into a caricature of herself," Catholic League President Bill Donohue said in a statement before the video came out."

It's easy to shock and offend those who continue to go out of their way to be shocked and offended.

[LaoShur]

06:40 AM on 06/09/2011

I am offended and shocked by your statement!

[Portal]

04:47 PM on 06/08/2011

Good for Lebanon banning this Trash.

[twninja]

02:47 PM on 06/08/2011

Its working!

[GR8 Amrika]

02:05 PM on 06/08/2011

Ugly, talentless, puppet

[PoliticallyAffiliated]

01:10 PM on 06/08/2011

The article fails to mention that Lebanon has a huge Christian population, making everyone assume it's their association as being a Muslim country against Gaga automatically.

[MelissaGoldman]

12:23 PM on 06/08/2011

LOVE Gaga...if she managed to get a bunch of middle eastern freaks all in a tizzy then I love her that much more...you go, Gaga!

[European1919]

12:19 PM on 06/08/2011

The Lebanon is not a point of reference in other things, so who cares whether they throw a hissy fit regarding Lady GiGi's album. They live in the late middle ages. They have no bearing at all on the civilised world.

[MightyObjectiveObserver]

10:52 AM on 06/08/2011

I´m not a fan of Lady Gaga, but I´m infinitely less of a fan of censorship on religious grounds.

[mulegino]

10:38 AM on 06/08/2011

I like how people are outraged at Lebanon's government's quite forthright censorship, yet completely unaware that censorship in the US media- via the tacit consent of media and government, is far more pervasive, effective and comprehensive, as it provides the illusion that the people are getting the full story, when in reality, all inconvenient truths are hidden in a flood of lies and bad information. The same is true for the popular culture as well.
Far be it for us in the US to ban outright things like Lady Gaga, or the latest "Joys of Excrement" exhibit at our local gallery. That would be censorship, and a violation of the First Amendment- which, of course, is true! The one would have the proles throwing a fit, much like they did in 1984 when Winston observed them rioting over a shortage of pots and pans.
The other would draw attention to the dismal state of the fine arts today, but since fine arts is now the province of the elites, well, that's not too important; it would only create a little fuss.
The really effective way to turn people into passive and clueless media consumers is to learn a lesson from Gresham's Law: synthetic pop culture drives out authentic folk culture. As nasty Coca-Cola or MacDonald's transfat deadens the taste buds, bad pop culture deadens the aesthetic sensoria.

[sully36]

10:15 AM on 06/08/2011

Watched her interview on 60 minutes. A blah little nothing re-inventes herself into a mega star, Go for it Girl! If the public is dumb enough to buy the act then she deserves all the success she can suck out of us.... As the old circus master, PT Barnum, once said , "A sucker is born ever second"

[Chris Morrison]

07:19 PM on 06/08/2011

I blame the schools.

[Assumed Name]

09:51 AM on 06/08/2011

Banning Gaga won't have the effect of banning Gaga and I'm not a supporter of banning music in any event; that said, I'll exercise my free speech by writing that I don't care for Gaga. (IMHO there are far more superior artists...Pink comes to mind, for example.)

[Futurama]

10:16 AM on 06/08/2011

Pink is awesome too but she disagrees with you about Lady Gaga:

"“I think I’d have to go with Lady Gaga because she really, really just took over this year,” Pink says of Gaga’s chances of winning Album of the Year with “The Fame.” “She was everywhere. She’s fearless when it comes to fashion and videos and I think a lot of other people play it really safe. I think she’s been a total breath of fresh air. I love her videos. In some ways I think she’s the most interesting without seeming to try to hard since Madonna. I think she’s marching to the beat of her own drum. And I really, really like that,”

[Assumed Name]

11:58 AM on 06/08/2011

(No problem: there are no two people on earth, I imagine, that agree on every same issue for the same reasons/motivation to the same extent. ;)

[SangZe]

08:24 AM on 06/08/2011

Good riddance to rubbish.