Yeah, Gwen Stefani Has Kind Of Always Sucked Though
Her 'MAGA turn' is not all that B-A-N-A-N-A-S when you think about it.
Over the last year or so, you may have heard some rumors about Gwen Stefani becoming a weird Jesus freak and promoting a Catholic phone app called “Hallow” that costs $70 a year. I admit, I haven’t kept up with it much, because I don’t actually care that much about Gwen Stefani or what religion anyone is, so long as they keep it out of my face. The fact that Stefani is religious shouldn’t be that much of a surprise anyway, given that she waited to have her marriage with Gavin Rossdale officially annulled by the Catholic church before marrying Blake Shelton, and that was a pretty long time ago.
Last week, however, a whole lot of people were pretty grossed out to see Stefani praising an interview that Jonathan Roumie — who plays Jesus on a show called “The Chosen” — did with Tucker Carlson.
The Daily Mail reported last week that despite having done many fundraisers for Barack Obama and Joe Biden, Stefani appears to have fully adopted her pro-Trump husband Blake Shelton’s ideas entirely:
After massively supporting Democrats for years – she appears to have gone MAGA,' the source explained.
'Some of this can be attributed to her marriage, as Blake is an infamous Republican. She shut out everyone for him.
'She doesn’t seem to care about her fans anymore and has shed her persona to become the unrecognizable opposite of what she once was.
'The Tucker Carson situation is not anything new, though. This is who she has become,' the source continued. 'Gwen is not even trying to hide who she has become and this person is unrecognizable to her fans, friends and even her label.'
Apparently it’s not done anything great for her record sales either — though after listening to a few tracks from Bouquet, an album she dropped a few months ago, that could also be because she’s just not making very good music.
Like, I am not opposed to country music, but this is just not very good.
Stefani’s politics have been publicly questioned for some time now, particularly after she refused to say if she was a Republican or not in a Paper magazine interview a few years ago, dodging the question by saying that voting is personal and saying “I think it’s pretty obvious who I am.”
Is it though? Given her many years of cultural appropriation, it’s pretty hard to imagine that she’s especially woke.
Many years ago, when No Doubt first came out with Tragic Kingdom, my girlfriends and I were absolutely obsessed, to the point where we thought it would be super cool to go to Claire’s and get rhinestones to put in the middle of our foreheads, like so:
Were we all that swift? No, we were not. We just liked glitter and rhinestones and, yes, ska. I thank goodness that the moment I tried to pull this lewk off, my mother snatched it off my face and was like “Absolutely the fuck not,” helpfully explaining why we don’t do that shit well before “cultural appropriation” was in popular usage. She just explained that you don’t wear other people’s cultures as a costume (just as she did the time I wanted a dashiki from the ‘60s store), which was not actually all that difficult to grasp.
Whatever, I liked (the recently reunited) Dance Hall Crashers and Save Ferris better anyway.
This was perhaps the first hint that Gwen Stefani was not exactly someone to look up to politically or socially.
Over the years, in a series of Madonna-esque reinventions, she clearly never shied away from cultural appropriation — most infamously with the Harajuku Girls, her four Japanese background dancers whose names she literally changed to Love, Angel, Music, and Baby after her first solo album and clothing brand (L.A.M.B.), who were contractually bound to follow her around and only speak Japanese in public.
Content warning: extreme cringe.
Margaret Cho, along with many others at the time, called it an Asian “minstrel show” — which it was. Stefani defended it even years later by explaining that her dad used to go to Japan a lot because he worked for Yamaha, and that when she went there she realized she was basically Japanese?
"That was my Japanese influence and that was a culture that was so rich with tradition, yet so futuristic [with] so much attention to art and detail and discipline and it was fascinating to me," she said, explaining how her father (who is Italian American) would return with stories of street performers cosplaying as Elvis and stylish women with colorful hair. Then, as an adult, she was able to travel to Harajuku to see them herself. "I said, 'My God, I'm Japanese and I didn't know it.'" As those words seemed to hang in the air between us, she continued, "I am, you know." She then explained that there is "innocence" to her relationship with Japanese culture, referring to herself as a "super fan."
That’s definitely a take. Personally it’s never occurred to me that my fondness for Hello Kitty shit has had any impact on my actual ethnicity, but what do I know?
These are not the only times she’s played dress-up with other people’s cultures:
There was the time she was Native American for the No Doubt video “Looking Hot”:
And the time she dressed up like a chola for her “Luxurious” video:
Given that Stefani is (like me) Italian-American and there are certainly “close enough” aesthetics within our very own culture that also involve overplucked eyebrows, white tank tops and gold chains, this whole thing in particular felt not just ignorant but wildly unnecessary.
Stefani has always tried to defend this by saying she’s appreciating, not appropriating — though this would be a lot easier to buy if her “appreciation” did not so often look like it came out of a Spirit Halloween bag.
It’s not just one guy’s interview with Tucker Carlson that suggests this is the direction Stefani is headed. She’s also following noted Hitler-praiser Candace Owens on Instagram, which is not exactly a great look.
That’s pretty gross!
It’s not that this isn’t bad, it’s just that it’s not particularly surprising given Stefani’s actual history and long-time status as a problematic fave. Still, it’s understandable that fans are disappointed, because people always hope people they like are going to be better than that. And being better than following Candace Owens and praising Tucker Carlson is probably the lowest bar to clear.
PREVIOUSLY ON WONKETTE!
Occasionally I will hear fellow wonkers say that we shouldn’t question a persons faith because that is a personal decision and also the “no true Scotsman” fallacy.
I just have to call bullshit on that because if a person is using their faith to oppress other Americans like the LGBTQ+ or women’s reproductive rights then their faith is no longer a “personal decision” is it? It’s affecting other people.
So, no, When someone’s faith is hurting other people then we have every fucking right to question it.
This heel turn will no doubt ska her reputation.