What's Lady Gaga doing? I would call it ‘plan this way’.
1. What is Gaga’s plan?
Gaga is placing every pop icon references onto her, magnifying and dramatising them in order to impose a brain-wash effect on people.
Taking ‘Born This Way’ as an example, the blonde clear cut fringe reminds you no longer of Cher but of Gaga; the split front teeth reminds you not of Madonna but of Gaga; the dancing white gloves reminds you not of Michael Jackson but of Gaga. This has been happening in her previous music videos too: when you see latex, you think of Gaga in ‘Telephone’ and not Grace Jones; when you see a ‘virgin dressed in white’ image, you think of Gaga instead of Britney Spears. In fact, it is no longer useful to analyse ‘Where did Lady Gaga steal this idea from?’, because she ultimately wants to utilise every single pop star references and brain-wash you.
2. The brain-wash direction?
So Gaga’s method is using pop-star references on herself by magnifying and dramatising them. Her direction is to ‘make it abject, make it hysterical’. There are many ways to capture attention. One can do that by eating a spider in front of a camera, but Gaga chose the direction of shame and outrageousness. She will not stop unless you, the viewer, feel embarrassed and uneasy. She is clearly aware that she can’t sell cuteness or vocal skills. (Not that she can’t sing, but there are way too many people who sing better; She also knows that good singing doesn’t bring her to fame, being famous means being on top of everybody’s tongue.) Wearing raw beef, spurting blood on stage, having an orgy with fifteen men wearing high heels, including phrases like ‘I want your disease’ as lyrics – all these demonstrate Gaga’s most important theme of hysterics and abject.
cher雪兒3. Themes and subjects
In ‘Born This Way’, Gaga declares the openness in sex and body; In fact, this is an inevitable theme to choose from, as did all divas in every era: the naked Britney crying ‘I am toxic’, the Madonna in S&M outfit, the Christina Aguilera going the lesbian way, the Janet Jackson covering her breasts with her hands, etc. This is due to the primary character of a diva, which is being open to sex, all kinds of genders, sexual orientation, fetishes. Gaga must follow this subject because divas must use this theme, and one isn’t a diva unless she does so.
Interestingly, Gaga only discreetly advertises her interest in the subject. For instance, she conveyed that she likes gay males and wishes to have them in an interviews. However, she had not publicly mark out her themes in her songs. Take a look at her singles: ‘Telephone’, ‘Bad Romance’, ‘Poker Face’, ‘Paparazzi’ – her starting point was largely related to the theme of ‘Fame’, that is why she claimed herself as the ‘fame monster’. Only until recently she injected manifesto into her song - ‘Born This Way’. This is a watershed to her second phase of her career as a diva, starting a manifesto: every diva needs to start one.
madonna4. A catchy phrase?
An essential element of pop songs is ‘phrases’, for instance, ‘like a virgin’, ‘justify my love’, ‘that’s the way love goes’, ‘oops I did it again’. Gaga, of course, is aware of this and I didn’t understand why she didn’t use it as a tool (If you were to sing phrases from her songs right off the top of your head, you’d realise there actually aren’t any). This hinted that Gaga didn’t prefer the mass to remember her songs or its phrases, instead, ‘Lady Gaga’ herself. The release of ‘Born This Way’ is an example of determination and careful planning when she postponed the manifestation of catchy phrases in the second phase of her career. (In fact, I only dared to openly discuss Gaga after ‘Born This Way’ was released. It’s the second step, not the first, that counts when analysing a person’s planning.)
Oh, I don’t particularly like or dislike Gaga, just like how I can’t say if I like or dislike Andy Warhol. Their existence is not for me to like or dislike. To me, they are helpful references as material and data of the world; One can always 'see' the crowd and a collective consciousness in pop icons.
thanks sherlock for translating my thread
中文原文 the original thread in chinese
re: gaga born-this-way-shoulder haha
1 comment:
一份心機同心意///
讚好sherlock :)))
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