December 7, 2009

Q: I thoroughly enjoy the music of Hikaru Utada, who, unfortunately, has never done very well on the American music charts. Do you have any idea if she is gay-friendly/supports gay rights? – Dylan, Virginia

A: Utada is, of course, one of the top-selling artists in Japan. That’s probably why I wasn’t able to contact her directly, so I’m reaching a bit on this answer. Still, she did write and record “Prisoner of Love,” the theme for the Japanese program “Last Friends,” which includes a lesbian character.

Then there’s the lyric to her 2009 song, “On and On”:

Honeys if you're gay
Burn it up like a gay parade
Honeys if you're straight
Pump it up, take it all the way
Intoxicated, emancipated, unapologetic
Is what I am today

Finally – and this is really reaching, but I hope you’ll be impressed – there’s the fact that her song “Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence – F.Y.I.” samples music from the 1982 David Bowie movie Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, which deals with homophobia and homo-eroticism.

I always hate to say definitively that a star is pro-gay when I haven’t had some kind of direct interaction with them, but I’d bet that Utada is cool.