WHY WAS LADY GAGA A CULTURAL ENTITY?
Long before Andy Warhol's 15 minutes of fame, Planet Earth was obsessed with its icons and, in the Modern First World context, our pop stars are still close to deities. Hollywood Babylon continues to prevail via multi-god Pagan worship even though it's more so a Planet Hollywood cheeseburger glossy magazine map we're looking at. Still, humans are always sniffing out the next representative of empowerment (Beyonce) or self-destruction (Amanda Bynes), Virtue (humanitarian Angelina Jolie) or Virile (sexxxy hot mess Angelina Jolie).
Lady Gaga is not a genius but... dare I say it... American pop culture definitely needed her presence. It's not really HER presence but THE presence of something LIKE Lady Gaga that has been somewhat enriching for mainstream culture. However, Lady Gaga as a cultural entity grew somewhat out of hand. It's a bit ridiculous that USC offered a class about Lady Gaga exploring "business and marketing strategies, the role of old and new media, fans and live concerts, gay culture, religious and political themes, sex and sexuality, and the cities of New York and Hollywood". And where I obviously love the idea of such a class (the combination of counter culture and capitalism is a favorite interest of mine), why would this class just focus on one pop star? Why Lady Gaga?
Since The Fame came out in 2008 (re-released as The Fame Monster in 2009), Gaga has been on the world's radar as a petite NYC powerhouse with a knack for songwriting and infused other-worldliness in all her clubbed-up aesthetic undertakings. Above all she made herself highly visible, creating a demi-Goddess via methodically marketing her persona as a different breed. Instead of the demure sex kitten many pop stars play, Gaga blatantly embraced an artistic angle, slight shock-tactics with lyrics about hate fucking and shout outs to glam rock aesthetics. A party-fried princess from outer space with a bad attitude, even if you hated her music, you noticed. She wasn’t the typical peach tan nubile flashing her panties in a school girl skirt. Gaga was doused in glitter and gasoline, her Italian nose probably crammed with cocaine in a fury of blonde hair, crazy stupid shoes and shiny jumpsuits. Her "look" became weirder with time... dare I say it? Avant garde. At least for suburbanites.
Avant garde is exactly what Gaga wants to be. In a multi-media capable time frame where "performance art" has entrenched our galleries and art school ideologies, it makes sense that Gaga wants to be MORE than just a musician, though her success with it is debatable. Gaga's artistic flairs mostly have shown through her aesthetic choices (uh hm, fashion). And it's not just that Lady Gaga’s wardrobe was built for an icon but first glimpse would suggest that what is worn by the girl can make a girl more Goddess-like. The word “war” is in “wardrobe” after all and Gaga's war paint was fierce as fuck from the beginning, regardless of how industry-encrusted she is. Thus all over the world the Lady was either hated or loved.
House of Gaga conglomerated things fantasy-loving ladies love: David Bowie lightning bolts, white lacy “Like a Virgin” bustiers, Alexander McQueen with a little Jersey Girl bling. That was the wave of the Future then is the current culture happening now: all pop stars suit themselves in junk culture cosmos (hello Katy Perry, Nikki Minaj, Azealia Banks, anyone and everyone). I believe at least we can give credit to for this change in culture. Gaga's conceptual get-ups (meat dresses, alien prosthetics, diamond wheelchairs & high fashion disability accessories highly criticized) were weird enough for society to find her worth examining. Whatever the message, Gaga seems outrageous compared to the Faith Hills and Mandy Moores of before, landing Gaga in the category of either insane, fantastic, or both.
WHAT ESCAPES THE MEDIA & EVERYONE GUIDED BY IT is that Lady Gaga is no origin of anything whatsoever (Madonna has even accused Gaga of ripping her off, but the homages to Madonna barely scratch the surface of Gaga's spectacle). Gaga will never be the first (or last) pop star to be overtly and aggressively sexual especially in the expected pornification of pop culture. Gaga did however bring the sexpot slant to repeatedly touch on disturbing sexual subjects. I don’t trust the masses to understand the statements being made in the “Paparazzi” video considering that it sexes up “murders” in a perhaps careless manner. "Paparazzi"'s fetishizing violence against women has been analyzed in both a positive and negative light. Female musicians in mainstream rock have touched on the sexual AND self destructive nature of the femme psyche before (answer: “What Is Kinderwhore”). Is it revolutionary to touch on similar subject matter in an arena of palatable model-thin bodies accessible to a perhaps vapid audience? This depends on what kind of faith we have in the idiocracy that exists. Taking the shock factor of rock’n’roll and packaging it into a Brazilian waxed pop star glitter girl in impossible shoes could get misconstrued.
I do LIKE Gaga's blend of references in her Pop Star creation. The less informed may rant “LADY GAGA IS SO GENIUS, SHE’S SO ORIGINAL” but those of us who know better see the references she wears on her sleeve. I don't believe Gaga acts like the entire '80s artsy fartsy New Wave era didn’t exist. Fantasy play has been abundant in the past and there was a huge abundance of past fantastical pop stars. One that Gaga particular resembles is Missing Persons' glam sex goddess Dale Bozzio, who before singing was a Hustler model/Playboy bunny and back-up singer for Frank Zappa. Dale lived in LA amidst neon sports cars, dayglo beach bikinis and the sleazy downtown night life with an accent purely from Boston. Superbly sexy, she chose to embrace an alienoid stage presence, making crazy slutty costumes out of plastic wrap and see-through trash. However, most people’s familiarity w/ Missing Persons now is hearing “Destination Unknown” in Best Buy (I wrote more in depth about Dale and Missing Persons here). There’s not only a strong physical and aesthetic similarity between Dale Bozzio and Lady Gaga, but both "don't fuck with me" attitude and disillusioned and distraught lyrics are also highly important for both babes' personas. Dale was her own liberated lady, surely, and there were MANY others like her. The 1980's was full of colorful pop stars with fantastical aesthetic who sang about fucking or sadness or alienation and that was COMMON.
The '90s checked out from the fantastical landscapes in favor of tanning booth-ed Britney Spears and the grim-realism-meets-ego-pumping of macho neu-metal and rap. The world happily welcomed Gaga’s blend of performance art and pop tunes as a new thing when really it was just a refreshing breath back to the old school from the prep/redneck/dude-ism party that had reigned for so long. We can thank Gaga for bringing back some magical sparkles to the girl next door because our society has been starving for escapism. The attention Gaga’s received above all others specifically DOES create some alarm though. There were no universities in the 1980’s taking particular artists as examples: “here’s the gender study class of Kate Bush”, even though Kate was all Gaga + more 20+ years ago. Is society really so desperate for a weirdo pop star mascot that we have to turned her into a subject of academic study?? Apparently so. What has happened to make us look at Lady Gaga for a moment like she was the only solitary pop genius pushing boundaries? How can anyone say Gaga's music is better than Prince or Madonna or Michael Jackson? And on the flipside what has happened to society that we expect Lady Gaga to be something more than a pop star, to perfectly dictate political beliefs and manifestos?
“This is the paradox and irony at the heart of Gaga’s entire project: a kind of earnest flippancy. I remember vividly one of her sermonettes at the particular Monster Ball I attended in Nashville. With a fiery conviction that would outdo any southern preacher, she proclaimed to us: “Jesus loves every fucking one of you!” And I have no doubt that she was aware of the signs being picketed about outside the arena before the show, urging “homosexuals” and other “sinners” to “repent.” Gaga assumed the role of counter-preacher, and she wasn’t kidding around. But her sermonette didn’t lead into some moralizing or tear-jerking song. It led into a raucous performance of “Boys, Boys, Boys,” as if to say, the only proper theological response to bigotry and hatred is to dance in its face to the tune of a (seemingly) vapid pop song.”
from Gaga Stigmata (online academic journal)
Maybe it's best to conclude this with the words of those who have thought it to put Gaga on a pedestal in the first place via a Salon.com article with the author of Gaga Stigmata:
"Lady Gaga has inspired more academic readings of her work than other current pop stars. Why do you think that is?
Vicks: Part of it is the way that Gaga appropriates symbols and value systems for her act: Mickey Mouse, Star Wars, Americana, freemasonry, capitalism, consumerism, Quentin Tarantino, Stanley Kubrick, Michael Jackson, Madonna, Christianity, monarchy, Kermit the Frog, to name a few. Taken piecemeal, they totally contradict each other. But together, they create a cohesive picture of Gaga. She embodies a number of oppositions: sacred and profane, man and woman, sexy and horrifying. Her performances continually underscore her ambivalent nature; she can’t be defined. She complicates categories of gender (masculine or feminine?), sex (does she have a dick, or not?), body (where does her body end and costume begin?), and human (is she human or monster, and is there a difference between the two?).
She also demonstrates the way fame functions; how we’re obsessed with spectacle. Lady Gaga enjoys the benefits of being a pop star while simultaneously revealing those trappings to be poisonous, frivolous, murderous and fake. It’s something that many conceptual artists do: they deconstruct ideology by too loudly chanting ideology’s slogans, or too blatantly displaying its symbols. The beautiful pop star is at the same time a monster (“Bad Romance”); the disabled pop star turns her disability into a dance, into artistic movement (“Paparazzi”); or what is supposed to nourish both nourishes and destroys (“Telephone”). Gaga dressed up as a queen when she performed for Queen Elizabeth, and fashioned herself as Barbara Walters when she was interviewed by Ms. Walters herself. These official figures are thus brought face to face with a spectacle of themselves."
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2 comments:
Shit you just made me feel so validated for loving the shit out of her 5 years ago. I was truly inspired and blown away by Bad Romance, "way back" then. But then I listen to her music now and...well, it can be catchy, but the intelligence emanated is far below the credit she is given (as some sort of higher artist/ academic). There's only so many times I can hear her self promotional lyrics and not feel...almost embarrassed for her.
I agree she's the most progressive pop artist...I mean basically she is just expressing the most logical embrace of paradoxes that living a hedonistic 1rst world life entails as a female or sexual other... I have sex, I like sex, I like to express myself, I like men, I did go to college once, etc etc etc. Things that are not contradictory and quite common but somehow drowned out by the mainstream culture garbage media pump.
And yes I am SO FUCKING sick of people exhaustively evaluating the political merit of pop stars. This whole "is Beyonce a feminist?"/ "are you racist if you think she isn't?"/ debate is just so weak and pathetic I can't bring myself to deal with it.
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