On August 18th, 2008, Lady Gaga released her debut album entitled The Fame with hit singles “Just Dance” and “Poker Face.” Both singles were huge successes. Gaga's lead single, “Just Dance,” topped the charts in six countries: Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, Ireland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. “Poker Face” was an even greater success, reaching number one on the charts in almost twenty countries.
I can still remember the first time I heard “Poker Face” on the radio. Originally, I had thought nothing of it. It was a cliché song about alcoholism and nightlife, perfect for crowded dance floors and superficial rendezvouses. It was not the type of music that I considered worthy of intellectual thought – certainly not the kind of music I would ever write an academic paper about. Yet “Poker Face's” accompanying music video left an incredibly stimulating question in my mind.
The video opens with the image of a woman rising from what seems to be a luxuriously large swimming pool. She's wearing a black body suit, constructed with skin tight wet suit cloth and geometric shiny pieces on her shoulder. On her face is a mask made from pieces of mirror, and as she rises in an animalistic, sexual fashion, between two dogs, she throws this mask away. A slow pan out reveals Lady Gaga walking among transparent mannequins, posed perhaps as guests at a party. The video made me wonder: Could this be a commentary on the nature of identity?
The movie is unsettling. The mask of mirrors seems to imply an identity constructed with reflections of other people. It implies a fake identity that might be thrown away at any point to reveal the true identity underneath. But in Gaga’s case, what is underneath seems just as strange and outrageous after the mask is thrown away.
Later, a survey course in Gothic literature brought the question of a confused identity to the forefront of my mind. Gothic Literature, originating in 1764 with Horace Walpole's Castle of Otranto, feeds on the public's desires for horror and romance. I'm not sure if it was Gaga's own reference to her music being inspired by Gothic Cathedrals in an interview on FUSE TV, or if it was the title “Bad Romance” that evoked the initial correlation – not to mention Gaga's fashion team named “The Haus of Gaga.” Yet the more I delve into researching Gaga, the more the relationship holds. Today's popular music fills a similar role to that of Gothic Literature in the 17th century. It challenges social norms. It advances sexuality and capitalizes on society's social tensions. By analyzing Lady Gaga's work in its entirety (music videos, stage performances, and lyrics) we can gain a better understanding of fears repressed by the current generation.
Our society’s current state of confusion, regarding how we balance our public and private lives, is one of the themes that Lady Gaga capitalizes on. That initial question in my mind about the nature of identity, inspired by the “Poker Face” music video, was later reopened by Lady Gaga's performance at the 2009 Video Music Awards. Her performance, coupled with the music video and later interviews, assured me that there must be some rhyme or reason behind the jarring images incorporated in her stage performances and music videos. And while I suspect that the main reason is to keep my attention in the Gothic style, by making me feel uncomfortable, I duly expect that Gaga is using her latest album, The Fame Monster, to say something about the nature of identity, and specifically the celebrity's predicament of being split between a public and personal one.
In an interview with Newsweek's Ramen Setoodah, Gaga explained some of the thoughts behinds her 2009 VMA performance of “Paparazzi” (a song first released on her debut album The Fame and later re released on the The Fame Monster (2009)):
It's less of me singing the song, and more of an art installation. A performance-art piece. It's very well-designed and thought out, and we've been planning it for months and months. It is for me a very meaningful performance, [for] where I am in my career, as well as the experiences I've had, as well as the co-headlining tour I'm going on in the fall. […] I sort of have this philosophy about things: there's never a reason to do something unless it's going to be memorable, unless it's going to change things, unless it's going to inspire a movement. With the song and with the performance, I hope to say something very grave about fame and the price of it.
And a little later in the interview she added “. . . the performance is a representation of the most stoic and memorable martyrs of fame in history. It's intended to be an iconic image that represents people. I think after watching the performance and maybe studying it after you watch it on YouTube, you'll see the references and the symbols come through.”
Now that her performance at the VMAs has passed, Gaga's performance is on YouTube with a viewing count of 2,698,790 (as of 4/26/10; 2.16pm). Following her suggestion, I studied Gaga's wardrobe, lyrics, and performance. During her musical performance, she wore knee high, white leather boots, a cropped white top exposing her mid drift with one puffed sleeve, and her underwear. The outfit, in and of itself, is hardly reminiscent of any specific martyred celebrity. Maybe, one could argue that the pink in her hair was a reference to Pink, the singer, and that the outfit referenced a slew of Madonna-like singers, who have not been martyred literally, but figuratively by a life of fame. However, it seems more likely that Gaga was referring to the violent, self-imposed actions at the end of her performance, which involved gushing blood from her chest after playing the piano and hanging above the stage from a noose.
But what does Gaga mean when she calls these icons “stoic and memorable martyrs of fame?” A martyr is something who refuses to renounce a belief under persecution and eventual death. “Stoic” easily describes celebrities that encounter harassment on a regular basis as a biproduct of fame and keep coming back to their audiences with smiles on their faces. But “martyr” seems strong. A “martyr” needs a belief that he or she refuses to renounce under pressure of persecution. If we assume that Gaga intends to claim that Fame is a religion of sorts, then perhaps celebrities can be considered martyrs. The matter of whether celebrities actually do worship fame is controversial, but certainly fame comes with the cost of some suffering, and it seems that this is what Gaga is concerned with in her latest album The Fame Monster.
Gaga's work succeeds in saying something “very grave about fame and the price of it.” In her performances we see the Gothic tendency to capitalize on current social fears and anxieties. Gothic literature often plays up controversial social issues such as homosexuality, female dominance, and incest. These issues are still very much controversial and Gaga capitalizes on them in her work. Among the fears of the 21st century is the “the fame monster,” a fear of capitalism gone mad, encapsulating certain prominent individuals as icons within solely economic identities.
In the “Paparazzi” music video, the first image seen within the walls of a large mansion is stacks of one hundred dollar bills printed with Gaga's face. A wider shot of the bedroom shows Lady Gaga with her Lover. Around the bed, more of the printed money is stacked and scattered on the floor. Candies beside the bed, frosted with diamonds, are printed with her first initial “G.” When her Lover says “Come here” in Swedish, the video flashes to one of the hundred dollar bills with Gaga's face. Seconds later, a newspaper surrounded by one hundred dollar bills that do not completely show her face, mixed with conventionally printed fifties, surround “The Evening Star,” which features a picture of Gaga with the caption “Lady Gaga Reaches the Top Yet Again.” By introducing the mini movie with images of currency and the media in close proximity, the viewer is prompted to compare money with the public image. Additionally, the close succession of the lover's voiced desire and Gaga's face printed on currency, implies that Gaga is less of a person and more of a trading commodity. These two examples pale in comparison to the fact that it is Lady Gaga's face which is printed on the currency. By printing her own face on a hundred dollar bill, Lady Gaga implies that she should be compared to a commodity by virtue of her position, traded between the media and the public.
Gaga described the video as “the most amazing creative work that [she’s] put together so far” in an interview with The Canadian Press on May 26th, 2009. The movie is eight minutes, staring herself and Alexander Skarsgard (who also directed the mini movie) as her boyfriend. It takes place in a seaside mansion where Gaga and her boyfriend are making out on a king size bed with luxurious views. They move onto the balcony where the boyfriend makes out with her, holding her head as she begins to resist to make sure that the photographers below can get a good view of what is taking place. When Gaga resists even more, hitting him over the head with a champagne bottle, the boyfriend pushes her off the balcony. She lies on the ground in her own blood as the photographers continue to take pictures of her. Headlines proclaim that her career is over. Next she is shown getting out of a limousine with the aid of male dancers that place her in a wheelchair. This scene and the next several are interspersed with pictures of what seems to be the same female model posed as a corpse in various places around the mansion. After more dancing and strobe shots of Gaga wearing a Mohawk-like head dress, Gaga and her boyfriend (who is continuously wearing an eye patch) are shown reading magazines in a living room. Gaga is dressed in an outfit curiously reminiscent of Minnie Mouse. After setting down a magazine that says “The New It Girl” and “No More Gaga,” she discretely poisons her boyfriend by adding a white powder in her ring to his drink. As he falls dead, she calls 911 to report that she had just murdered her boyfriend. The police arrest Gaga as newspaper headlines flash across the screen, declaring that Gaga has once again risen to fame.
Interestingly, “Paparazzi” sets up a story that acts as metaphor for Gaga's power struggle with the media, specifically the Paparazzi. The story is one of betrayal. Lady Gaga is first shown in bed with her Lover. She asks him “Do you love me?” He answers “Of course I love you.” He asks her “Do you trust me?” She answers “Of course.” Seconds later he pushes her from the balcony and she is seriously injured to the extent that later she is pictured as a composite of human flesh and mechanics. The story can be interpreted as one of love and revenge, as Gaga sings about in “Bad Romance,” but it can also be interpreted as a metaphor for her relationship with the Paparazzi, or by extension the general public that determines her level of fame. Her boyfriend murders her as a an extension of the Paparazzi that markets her as an icon. She murders her boyfriend to create more fodder for the media. What is of most interest, as per this paper, is that Gaga takes control of her position in the movie by doing the outrageous (such as murdering her boyfriend and then calling 911 to admit it). Power is introduced as a matter of which party is willing to take control of the situation. By murdering her boyfriend, or by extension the media, Gaga positions herself as one who is no longer under the threat of abuse.
“Paparazzi's” lyrics also give insight into Gaga's perspective. She is a woman who is fully aware of her existence as an economic identity. Gaga specifically states in her chorus that she will “chase you down until you love me / Papa-paparazzi.” Her lyrics portray her relationship with the Paparazzi as one with a lover:
I'm your biggest fan
I'll follow you until you love me
Papa-paparazzi
Baby there's no other superstar
You know that I'll be your
Papa-paparazzi
Promise I'll be kind but I won't stop until that boy is mine
Baby you'll be famous
Chase you down until you love me
Papa-paparazzi
In another respect, one could also claim that Gaga is comparing the Paparazzi to a father figure in that she calls them repeatedly “Papa-paparazzi” with “Papa” at the forefront (This functions as an example of the Gothic incest trope, since calling the Paparazzi Papa while insinuating a romantic relationship with the Paparazzi blurs the distinction between familial and romantic love.). Yet, while drawing attention to the fact that the Paparazzi has fathered her public image, she at another point says “You know that I'll be your [Paparazzi].” Here, she blurs the distinction of which party is in control. Paparazzi is an Italian term that refers to usually independent photographers that specialize in candid pictures of musicians, politicians, and other celebrities. The Paparazzi are partially responsible for how the public views the lives of celebrities outside of their public lives. Often, we have heard cases of celebrities complaining about and avoiding the Paparazzi, which sets the Paparazzi as a controlling force. But here, Gaga says that she will “chase down” the Paparazzi until they love her, and also that she will be the Paparazzi's “Paparazzi.” It seems as though Gaga is saying she is fully aware of the “Paparazzi's” power, and in response she plans on taking that power into her own hands.
If the Paparazzi is in fact the means by which the general public determines the fame of certain celebrities and their worth as individuals, like trading cards or more literally as a form of currency, then celebrities have good reason to fear them. Gaga speaks to the matter of fame as a monster, one that has very real power over a person. The fear of fame is especially potent if we consider its ability to jeopardize a person's identity. In the eyes of the public, celebrities are less people and more icons. Split between the identity of a public icon and a personal identity, the loss of a more or less singular identity is terrifying.
The lyrics of “Dance in the Dark” have something to say about past celebrities that suffered at the hands of fame, whether it be depression terminating in suicide, or harassment that pressures the celebrity into a life of seclusion.
Marilyn
Judy
Sylvia
Tellem' how you feel girls!
Work your blonde (Jean) Benet Ramsey
We'll haunt like Liberace
Find your freedom in the music
Find your Jesus
Find your Kubrick
You will never fall apart
Diana, you're still in our hearts
Never let you fall apart
Together we'll dance in the dark
Baby loves to dance in the dark
'Cuz when he's lookin'
She falls apart
Baby loves to dance in the dark
Marilyn Monroe, Judy Garland, and Sylvia Plath (also referenced in “Speechless” in the line “But you choose 'Death and Company'” – “Death and Company” being the title of one of Plath's poems) are some of the most well-known celebrity suicides. (Jean) Benet Ramsey was of course America's little beauty queen, murdered in 1996 at age six. Her murder remains unsolved, and information regarding it was published in a book entitled The Cases that Haunt Us by John E. Douglas who was a former head of the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit. After ruling out her parents' involvement in the murder, it was asserted that Benet Ramsey was most-likely murdered by a sex offender familiar with her pageant history. Her case is disturbing in that it implies that those who exist in the public eye also exist in a state of very real danger. When Gaga sings “We'll haunt like Liberace,” she suggests that, together, celebrities can haunt their public even after death. Liberace sued the Daily Mirror for libel and won after the newspaper published a quote describing him as “...the summit of sex – the pinnacle of masculine, feminine, and neuter. Everything that he, she, and it can ever want... a deadly, winking, sniggering, snuggling, chromium-plated, scent-impregnated, luminous, quivering, giggling, fruit-flavoured, mincing, ice-covered heap of mother love.” Liberace is one example of a celebrity who fought the media and won, so it makes sense that Gaga would use his name to imply that celebrities can “haunt” with vehemence. This is another example of Gaga taking back control from the media (i.e. the Paparazzi). Stanly Kubrick, director of controversial films such as Lolita and A Clockwork Orange (1971), and instrumental in the production of 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and Star Wars, was publicly known as a reclusive genius and a lunatic, but kept his personal life “in the dark.” Jesus, also, might be considered as a person with an outrageously large public identity in comparison to his almost absent personal life. Both Jesus and Kubrick are examples of extremely powerful people that allowed their public lives to overwhelm their personal lives. It seems that Gaga encourages this when she writes “Find your freedom in the music / Find your Jesus / Find your Kubrick / You will never fall apart.” And of course, Princess Diana, who died in August 1997, is perhaps the most literal “[victim] of fame,” since she was killed in a car accident involving the Paparazzi. So when Gaga sings “Baby loves to dance in the dark / Cuz when he's lookin' she falls apart,” she is referring to celebrities such as all of the aforementioned who preferred to keep their personal lives “in the dark” for fear of being destroyed by a life of fame. And yet, Gaga optimistically sings “Find your freedom in the music / Find your Jesus / Find your Kubrick” to say that there is definite empowerment in fully embracing the life of a public icon. “We,” the celebrities, “will never fall apart,” in that they will continue to exist through their fame.
Gaga is consciously aware of her position as a person, stripped of her individual identity in the eyes of her audience, and caged in with a public identity. Yet it seems that she prefers to think of her public identity as a gift. Instead of being victimized by this public identity, which positions her as more of an icon and an economic commodity than a person, Gaga uses this knowledge to her advantage. She actively participates in the construction of her public identity by creating one that is built on the characteristics of the successful popular celebrity icons before her – “martyrs of fame” as she calls them. But she exaggerates the characteristics wildly out of proportion.
People want icons defined with success, sexual presence, wealth, and a tinge of the bad girl/ bad boy attitude. In “Paparazzi,” Gaga portrays herself as successful and wealthy. Her face is stamped on currency. She features herself with Dior on her fingers, newspapers declaring her fame, flashing cameras, and scenes of herself in an exorbitant mansion. In “Love Game,” she is covered in diamonds, often naked, grabbing at her vagina, at one point dancing with a man staring up into her vagina, at another on a car seemingly masturbating, or positioned naked between two men prepared for a threesome. In the video, she is sexually involved with men and women, revealing herself as controversially the most blatantly serial sexual icon to date. And she has repeatedly portrayed herself as someone who is willing to break any social boundary set before her in her musical performances.
Gothic literature provides another method for understanding this strategy in the form of doppelgangers. «Doppelganger» comes from the German language and refers to any double or look-alike of a person. Often in Gothic literature, if a person faces his or her doppelganger he or she dies. If we consider the life of the celebrity as being split between two identities – a public and a personal identity – then the two opperate as doppelgangers. Both cannot continue to exist undisturbed by the other because they are analogous. In fact, one always threatens to efface the other. Gaga seems to have no problem allowing her public identity to efface her personal identity. In fact, she embraces it. Gaga says through her work, “If you want a popular celebrity icon, I'll give you a popular celebrity icon, and I'll make you uncomfortable with it, but you'll keep coming back.” And people will continue to keep coming back to Gaga the entertainer because she's using the same Gothic wiles that have worked for centuries.
When Gaga sings lines such as “Half psychotic, sick hypnotic got my blue print electronic. / Half psychotic, sick hypnotic got my blueprint it's symphonic. / Half psychotic, sick hypnotic got my blue print electronic” in “Just Dance,” we can assume that these lines act as a declaration of how Gaga sees herself through the eyes of her fans. Her “electronic blueprint” is the announcement of herself as a person who will stop at nothing for fame and intends to get it by “half psychotic, sick hypnotic” means.
In analyzing Gaga's lyrics, music, and visual performances as a contemporary Gothic medium, which exploits social boundaries as a means of drawing an audience, we can gain a better understanding of the “half psychotic, sick hypnotic” means she employs. She has proven herself an expert in constructing art which “excite[s] the ideas of pain and danger,” a phenomenon that Edmund Burke describes as “the sublime” in A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful. Burke describes “the sublime” as “whatever is in any sort terrible, or is conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terror” (58). The emotions of pain and terror form the backbone of the Gothic genre. And according to Burke, “the sublime” is the event of those emotions.
Edmond Burke claims that “The first and the simplest emotion discovered in the human mind, is Curiosity” (41). Curiosity initially seduces an audience because of a certain “novelty” associated with the stimulus. As children, curiosity drives us to excitement over simple, mundane occurrences in the outside world. As adults, our imaginations are less easily excited and wander toward more terrific stimuli. Gaga offers an experience that is different from the mundane. She offers disturbing images fraught with ideas of pain and death. Burke explains
the passion caused by the great and sublime in nature... operates most powerfully [in astonishment]. Astonishment is that state of the soul, in which all its motions are suspended, with some degree of horror. In this case the mind is so entirely filled with its object, that it cannot entertain any other, nor by consequence reason on that object which employs it. . . Astonishment, as I have said, is the effect of the sublime in its highest degree; the inferior effects are admiration, reverence, and respect. (42)
Astonishment is explained as a state of suspension, where the body is forced into a temporary paralysis by the event of a larger, overwhelming, or incomprehensible force. Gaga manages to create a stimulus that is incomprehensible. The more we attempt to comprehend her music videos and other musical performances, the more we find ourselves disturbed, and this disturbance is manifested in the temporary paralysis of “astonishment.” The idea of returning to Gaga's work seems sadistic in light of this explanation, but when we return to the idea of curiosity, it is not hard to fathom why an audience would find Gaga so appealing. Pain is also a pleasure, according to Burke, in that it constitutes a stimulus worthy of curiosity, and curiosity tends to be the driving force behind many motivations.
Gaga's performances, both live and in her music videos, “excite the ideas of pain and danger.” Traditionally, the sublime is used to describe architecture and atmosphere in Gothic literature. The castle in The Castle of Otranto is one such example. Complete with ominous cathedral ceilings, huge armor that materializes out of thin air and makes pulp of royalty, and passages running underneath, the castle forms a stimulus that forces the reader into a state of terrified suspension. “Paparazzi” accomplishes a similar effect. As mentioned previously, the movie regularly features images of murdered women, all of whom appear to be the same woman. At 3:07 the woman’s corpse is dressed similarly to a Playboy bunny and is laying in a bathtub. At 3:47 the woman is wearing a mask of diamonds and seems to be laying on a funeral pier. At 3:49 it is in a white business suit and hat with chrome plated devil horns, sitting on the steps of the mansion. At 3:57 it is wearing what might be a driver's uniform and bleeding over the arm of a chair onto the floor. At 4:01 it is in a leopard print dress and laying in front of the mansion and beside a pool. At 4:09 the corpse is wearing a maid's costume and has some kind of liquid leaking from its mouth onto the floor. At 4:14 it is next to a shovel on the lawn, wearing leather and transparent plastic. At 4:19 it is hanging from a noose attached to the ceiling, dressed in funeral garb. At 4:27 the image of the corpse in the garden is repeated. At 5:01 it is lying in the bed featured at the start of the video, wearing lingerie. And lastly, the corpse is covered by piles of leaves at 5:11. Each time the corpse is shown, the video alternates between close ups of the woman's eyes and shots of the woman's body, usually positioned sexually.
When Burke writes about the sublime, he considers how images create the sensation. He states that intermittent repetition is a source of the sublime. As described by Burke, an image leaves an impression on the eye, which is relaxed by the event of a different image, but the image in recurrence reawakens the former impression and increases it so that the organ is jarred by the recurrence. Strobe lighting of Gaga at the end of the movie, the repetition of the one hundred dollar bill with Gaga's face, and the continual flashing of the corpse of the same woman in different clothing and different positions throughout the movie, creates this effect. Each time the corpse shows up, it gets creepier, especially since the corpse flashes onto the screen every 2 to 40 seconds. As an audience, we are attracted to Gaga’s work because she creates experiences that help us escape monotony through the sublime. But her work also inspires us to question society’s norms, embrace sexuality, and face our own personal anxieties.
Additionally, Sigmund Freud's essay “The Uncanny” provides a means for analyzing Gaga's audience's responses and consequently the way in which she uses those responses to further her career. Edmund Burke suggests that “the sublime” is produced by personal trauma. Freud suggests that “the uncanny” is a producer of this personal trauma, and “the uncanny” runs rampant in Gaga's work.
Freud also describes the feeling associate with intermittent repetition, as discussed earlier by Burke, in “The Uncanny.” For Freud, a repeated image recreates the feeling of “the uncanny” because the repeated image faces the viewer with an object that is simultaneously familiar but novel: “If we take another class of things, it is easy to see that there, too, it is only this factor of involuntary repetition which surrounds what would otherwise be innocent enough with an uncanny atmosphere, and forces upon us the idea of something fateful and inescapable when otherwise we should have spoken only of 'chance'” (18).
“The uncanny,” as defined by Freud, “is that class of the frightening which leads back to what is known of old and long familiar” (1). While Burke defines the sublime as a stimulus so terrifying as to create the sense of a novel experience, Freud states that the stimulus which produces “the uncanny” is a combination of the “familiar” added to the “novel” (2). An example of “the uncanny,” used by Freud, is the animated doll from Hoffman's Nachtstucken in the story of “The Sandman,” wherein the doll named Olympia wakes nightly to throw sand in its child's eyes. Freud explains through this example that “the uncanny” in this case is a feeling arising from the intellectual uncertainty of whether something “familiar” (i.e. the doll) agrees with our notion of that “familiarity.” An animated doll possessing sentience does not agree with our original notion of what a doll is, and thus the recognition of no longer being familiar with what was once familiar produces “the uncanny.”
In the “Paparazzi” music video, Gaga uses a typically harmless piece of furniture to produce this effect. The example is easily passed over, since it sits to the side in the scenes where it is featured. At 0:59 a plush chair resembling a coffin is set to the far right of the scene. It does not draw any attention to itself because of the two figures making out on the right. The chair foreshadows the abuse about to take place. It appears again at the end of the movie (5:36) in the same room while Gaga poisons her boyfriend. The chair is an example of “the uncanny” in that it creates a novel experience out of what is simultaneously familiar and unfamiliar. A chair is not a terrifying image, but a chair shaped like a coffin places the viewer in a state of intellectual uncertainty, or even “astonishment.”
“Bad Romance» offers another example of “the uncanny.” At the start of the movie, the sun rises over a series of white caskets printed with “Monster” and a cross in red. Text over the movie at 5:08 says “Bath Haus of Gaga.” As the caskets open, white faceless dancers emerge and proceed to dance in front of the caskets. The combined sterility of the medical sign with the grotesque idea of decomposition (implied by the casket), challenges our “familiar” concept of death. The rising faceless forms of the dancers makes us question our initial notions of caskets as objects that hold past identities. In this example, the faceless dancer makes us question identity post-mortem. Does an identity die with death or does it outlive it? The faceless dancers are already strange, but combined with our juxtaposed ideas of medical attention, death, and identity, that strangeness arouses dread and horror. It produces the effect of “the uncanny.”
In reference to our earlier discussion of Gaga's decision to embrace her public identity, “Bad Romance” ends with Gaga murdering the man she sleeps with. She is shown burning the man laying in his bed and later lying next to the man's charred remains with pyrotechnics erupting from the bra-like contraption she is wearing. Furthermore, by using the word “monster” on the caskets, Gaga encourages us to think of her as a “monster.” The word connotes a being that is often morally objectionable, contrary to social norms, and physically or psychologically hideous. The movie in its entirety functions as another example of Gaga's declaration that she has fully embraced the power afforded to her by a life of fame.
“The Uncanny” prompts us to face intellectual uncertainty. What is familiar may not always remain so. By pairing the familiar in ways that present an unfamiliar stimulus to the viewer, Gaga challenges us to view reality as dialectic. By dialectic, I mean to say that Gaga encourages us to view reality as a space where old concepts are continually available for revision and transformation. Gothic literature presents a space where the familiar can be made strange. By making the familiar strange, it excites conversation on topics not often open for review. In the 18th century, Gothic literature prompted the public to consider the role of women in England and the early American colonies. Gaga makes familiar issues like fame, death, and identity strange, so that they are open for discussion. Gaga reminds us of our ability to take what is familiar, make it unfamiliar and then create a new familiar out of that new unfamiliar. Through her work, she creates a space for change and liberation.
Gaga has repeatedly stated that she is not trying to be outrageous as much as she is trying to make a statement and initiate change:
I guess I've always lived, since I've been in New York writing this music, a sort of artcentric, glamorous life. . . It's important for me to always be that for my fans and the idea of showbiz, Michael Jackson showbiz, and the sentiments of music and performance today with the media and the way it is, you see absolutely legendary people taking out their trash. It's something that we as a society don't really want to see but we keep buying into it and I think it's actually destroying show business. . . If anything there is absolutely no reason I would give up my wigs and hats for anything. (Interview on the BBC with Jonathan Ross March 5th, 2010)
Liberation is key for Gaga, whether it comes through using her music to promote her own liberation from the less glamorous effects of fame, or whether it is liberating her fans from their internal anxieties. In November 2009 during an interview with Alexa Chung, Gaga told fans that when she wrote “I want your psycho, your vertigo schtick / want you in my rear window / Baby you're sick,” she was actually listing Alfred Hitchcock films (Psycho (1960), Vertigo (1958), and Rear Window (1954)). She went on to explain that the movie is really about liberating her fans from those things that might tend to “monstrasize” individuals in society. According to Gaga, what she really means when she sings those lines is “I want the deepest, darkest, sickest parts of [my fans] that [they're] afraid to share with anyone because I love [them] that much.” Gaga embraces those parts of the human psychology that are sublime in that they are terrifying. In the same interview, she told Alexa Chung that the beginning of the “Bad Romance” video, where those faceless dancers emerge from caskets, is about her fans.
[It] was sort of a play on my fans . . . the 'little monsters.' So we hatch out of our little monster eggs and we start to come out into the world and we start to grow and change and evolve so that the thing about the [movie] is evolution. And I chose that because I feel that I've evolved [as] a woman and as an artist but also because it's never been done before. . . I like to say that my art is about Liberation. I like to liberate my fans.
She seems sincere when she speaks about her fans. In several interviews, she mentions that she reinvests almost all of her earnings back into her musical career. She does not have a house. All of her costumes, props, and accessories stay on the road with her. Her life is about her musical career and giving back to the fans who support her.
For Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, “Lady Gaga” is no longer just a stage name. When asked if she changes into sweats at home, she answered that while she may go home and wash her face at the end of the day, every morning when she wakes up, she is Lady Gaga. She has embraced her public image to the extent that all we know of Lady Gaga, aside from a few biographical details, is Lady Gaga. When she is at an interview, she is Lady Gaga. When she goes out for a drink and pizza, she is Lady Gaga. As of April 16, 2010, her music videos have, in total, set the record for YouTube with over one billion views. TIME Magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people. By fully assuming her public identity, Gaga positions herself as one of the newest influential people in popular culture, and as one who has obviously succeeded in harnessing “the fame monster” by embodying the modern gothic sublime.
Works Cited
Burke, Edmund. A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and
Beautiful.
Freud, Sigmund. “The Uncanny.”
Lady Gaga. “Bad Romance.” The Fame Monster. Interscope Records, 2009. Music Video. Dir.
Francis Lawrence. YouTube. < http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrO4YZeyl0I>
Lady Gaga. The Fame Monster. Interscope Records, 2009.
Lady Gaga. “Paparazzi.” The Fame. Interscope Records, 2009. Music Video. Dir. Jonas
Akerlund. YouTube. < http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8jONjwKq-w>
“Lady Gaga: The Future of Pop?” The Sunday Times, December 14, 2008
“Series 18, Episode 08.” Friday Night with Jonathan Ross. Suzi Alpin, 2010. Television
Program. Dir. Mick Thomas. BBC. 5 March 2010.
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