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Monday, March 15, 2010
Video Gaga Goes Gaygay
Posted by Gina Young on Mon, Mar 15, 2010 at 4:25 PM
Wow, prison is awesome. Everyone is raging hot, there's no dress code and all it takes to get out of maximum security is Beyonce posting bail.
So begins Telephone, the new "movie" from Lady Gaga and Beyonce. (I mean, they're calling it a movie, but at 9:32 minutes long it's an extended music video or, given that it will be continued, "webisode" might be the more accurate internet parlance.)
I don't fuck with the Facebook, but Judical sent me a link to this video, saying,
...all the homos keep posting it on fb with "OMG" or "HOLY SHIT"... also, "THIS CHANGED MY LIFE" ...tell me what you think.
You know what I think? First off, I think it's really fucking annoying that every Lady Gaga video has built-in commercials for everything from Campari to PlentyOfFish.com. PlentyOfFish.com? I generally don't have a problem with musicians licensing their music to commercials, but really? Product placement in music videos? Maybe this is a "movie" after all.
It's official though: Gaga is the true descendant, true heir to the throne of Madonna. Sorry Britney, Christina and everyone else who fell by the wayside; none of you mastered the Madonnian art of pop subterfuge. The trick is, write lyrics so comparatively tame that the cover band at your cousin's wedding can carry them off with a smarmy smile, then pair them with often completely unrelated imagery that is so freaking scandalous it sends all previous generations into paroxysms. (Unless they've ever watched porn, in which case, meh.)
The lyrics of Telephone are about, like, telling a guy not to call you while you're out at the club. That's all. The video, on the other hand, seems to be about mass murder, prison sex, and the joys of police tape bondage. (One of which, apparently, is deep vein thrombosis.) Gaga gives an excellent if epileptic performance, appearing primarily in Winehouse-face and at 1:10 finally laying her most persistent rumor to rest. (Kelly O, do you love it?)
By the end of the song we've got Beyonce and Gaga dancing in a diner full of people they've poisoned. They're wearing American flag stripper gear and Gaga has blood-evoking red gloves on her fingers. Hmm... there's a message in there somewhere, but what? America has blood on its hands from what we've done to Iraq? School shootings like Columbine are symptomatic of the imminent American social collapse? Gaga and co-writer/director Jonas Akerlund are making a statement or three... but they fail to compel so I'm just gonna watch the first four minutes over and over again.
The video starts off so strong. Even in 2010, there is still something thrilling about seeing depictions of butch women in mass media. (Assuming that it is a butch woman kissing and feeling up cigarette-faced Gaga, in one of her many unbelievably awesome costume choices.) But, like, is Lady Gaga going to come out? Is this kiss an expression of actual desire or are queer women still just a prop to help straight women get ahead with men?
I'm wondering if we ever get an actual lesbian pop star, or just an endless string of t.A.T.u.s and Katy Perrys, Madonna kissing Britneys, spuriousness breeding invisibility. Maybe actual lesbians are just too subversive for the pop world altogether, the same way that queers, as opposed to gays, seem somewhat marketing-resistant.
Regardless, the butch on Gaga kiss is the high point for me, natch. The video devolves from there into a dizzying muddle of mental channel surfing, plagiarizing everything from Thelma & Louise and Kill Bill to video games and sexploitation films of the 60s and 70s.
I like Lady Gaga, though, and here's why: it started for me with that moment in the Lovegame video, on the subway. She thrusts her hand out at the camera at the beginning of the second verse and you actually think, for a second there, that she might rip your testicles off / intestines out / you don't even know. And that's what makes her exciting; there's something unhinged about her. The American public sure does love a sexy psycho. We like being scared. We like being in the hands of a top so confident that we know all we have to do is sit back and enjoy the ride, because with every move she makes, she'll be upping the visual ante. In that respect, Gaga has me completely sold.
Too bad the song isn't particularly good.
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The video did make me proud as a lesbian to see such acts in the mainstream. I personally enjoyed the woman symbol fade out. I kind of don't feel like they are using lesbianism to get ahead for some reason. Usually I am skeptical about that sort of thing but for whatever reason, I feel like it might actually be part of the revolution. Or at least make it more of a common theme to middle america gay haters.
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CURSES!
I totally agree that the subject matter is WAY TOO TAME for that video! WTF? It had no relevance! Are you so mad someone is texting you at the club that you need to kill an entire restaurant's customers?
As a DJ, in my mind I see people walking off the floor before that song is halfway through.
As a feminist lesbian, that video did make me proud. I personally enjoyed the womyn symbol outro. For whatever reason, I don't think they are using lesbianism to get ahead. I actually feel like it might be part of the revolution. Or at least make lesbians more of a household theme than misogynist men being AWESOME in the homes of gay haters across america.
Going gay in prison isn't exactly liberating stuff, is it? It seems rather cliche to have a jail full of horny bull dykes.
Still, if this is what it takes to get the next generation to start dressing the way I'd always envisioned people in the future would dress, then I'm for it. Get freaky kids! Put aluminum cans in your hair!
It also bears heavily in this discussion that they are of a different generation; both of them only came out AFTER major mainstream success and I can't think of a single song by either of them that has openly queer lyrics. (Although there may well be one, my taste has always run more The Need/The Blow anyway. If I'm wrong, please let me know.)
the next madonna?
madonna at least made attempts to address social issues (teen pregnancy, virginity, race, religion). lady gaga's music is so vapid and void of ideas she's more like the new cher than anything else.
1. She recognizes Postmodernism is dead and is open and honest about this when she refers to her music as "soulless electronic pop" and says things like "we've already killed everything."
2. Whichever response she elicits, her persona is infectious and this is because she is the most accurate reflection we have of capitalism's transformative effects on the human psyche.
3. The manipulation of capital is her true art; her music is just a pretense for her celebrity.
For these reasons she's the best representative of our vapid, brand-obsessed, nihilistic generation. And she's not trying to be anything other than the above.
The American public is not ready to digest representations of Queer people. Gay and Lesbian are the only edible options at this point, and I think Lady Gaga is trying to transcend those binaries. She evidently understands that sexuality is fluid, and expresses that belief in many situations. I also loved seeing depictions of butch women in this video, however minimal and cliched they may be.
Because cliches represent the overly familiar and commonplace, we tend to dislike them, but we must remember that cliches serve a function. While we can inflate our psuedo-intellectual egos by pointing them out, we can't argue with the fact that they exist because they help explain cultural values and meanings.
Lady Gaga continues to fascinate. May the discussion endure.
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:) Kisses!
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2) Unfortunately, the only way to get a video of this magnitude done is by having sponsors, so that's why there are so many blatant advertisements. Also, she had a standing contract with Virgin from before this was made. And not all of the things that were advertised in this video were actually companies that made money off of it. Perhaps Lady Gaga was trying to make a point of how over-saturated with products and consumption we are as a society every single day.
3) Everything about Lady Gaga is outrageous, and that is how she wants to be seen. She is a product, but she is also subversive. She holds a mirror up to us and shows us the kind of monsters we've become (for example, the scene in the diner where there are dozens of dead bodies everywhere... Most people didn't bat an eyelash at the massacre, yet most people had a visceral reaction at the sight of a dead dog. How can we feel nothing for other humans, but feel sick to our stomachs at the sight of a poisoned animal?).
Lady Gaga's music/videos may seem simple and mindless on the surface, but there is no mistaking the fact that she is an incredibly intelligent woman, and to take her for face value is doing her a huge disservice. She does not spoon feed us, instead she gives her audience a chance to figure things out on their own and come to their own conclusions.
Incidentally, I read Cosmo for the first time in years because Gaga's on the cover this month, and I have to admit, it made me like her even more.
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she's kind of exciting. the queerness feels good- it's there and it's sexy and it feels like it fits. i mean... mostly that's because she's such a DRAG QUEEN. i heard that she was trans awhile ago but now i'm realizing that was just a rumour(?). either way, her gender presentation reads as queer to me. she's like an action figure-- she's got power, and attitude, and she's female and she's aggressive. plus she's over the top fabulous, she's into the art of artifice, and i love me some glamour. i'm not saying that there's not a lot to critique here, but... i enjoy her.
as for the mini-movie, the song does seem a little... small in comparison. the only tie in i see is that both have themes of independence.
the film is gorgeous, lots of eye candy, and gaga is absolutely magnetic. you put her in a group of dancers (the scene in the cell block row) and you still don't take your eyes off her.
the butch she kisses is so masculine presenting that the only reason i feel comfortable calling her "she" is that they're in a women's prison (which still doesn't really answer that)(also, hello hot). which is exciting and also makes it feel less exploitive, because it feels more realistic. i'm thinking her glasses are an artful status symbol- cigarettes are currency in prison, right?
as for the mass murder, it's got to be symbolic of something... it's a diner, the people look a little lack-luster. maybe they're killing middle america. maybe they're just killing normalcy.
also.... gina i did the exact same thing-- i haven't picked up cosmo since ? and today in the drugstore i stood there and read the gaga article. i liked it.
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