Thursday 11 March 2010

Lady Gaga Stream of Consciousness!

So I obviously watched the Telephone video immediately after it came out and I want to say that she is a genius but I am so confused and I'm a little too scared to watch it again. So, breathless and panicked thoughts in stream of consciousness format.

I would not have set this like it was Chicago. Plus Beetlejuice. Plus that rejected web-only spin-off of the L Word. I love that the women in prison closely resemble some of my closest friends. I would get smoldering tobacco glasses but I think they'd violate my boyfriend's no smoking rule. I'm realizing that all of Lady Gaga's videos involve violence against women and sexual exploitation, but I guess that most contemporary music videos involve some form of sexual exploitation in ways that are less thematically relevant and eventually avenged and now I'm having a lot of very complex feelings about the culture I live in. Is my computer broken or is this blinking dance supposed to happen? The lyrics make no sense for this video. Now she's naked and I am so overwhelmed. I am positive they do not let you Bedazzle prison clothes. STOMP DANCE. This is sexy and exploitative all at the same time and I am having so many complicated queer feminist male feelings right now. What is she eating? It kind of seems like a churro? It's Bonnie and Clyde! Is it Dreamgirls? (Everyone who nominated Jennifer Hudson and gave Beyonce the shaft is now certain that they made the right decision.) I love how they are inventing cryptic aphorisms like they are real. Nobody says that line about the cow and deep down I know that this will go viral as a phrase and that makes me so depressed. Ditto for the mirror. KUK? What radio station has four letters, Jesus, try a little harder. And now it is a Polaroid commercial. What is happening? These lyrics do not even make sense in the video - you are in the same car together. And now there are subtitles? And poison with a combination of The Sims icons and Batman sound effects? And, of course, a dance number in a kitchen and Beyonce dressed like a bandleader in a shitty motel room. This sandwich dance is terrible. Who follows up a zombie bathhouse with a poison sandwich dance? Also, who puts honey on pancakes? And how did this turn into a snuff film about Middle America? Is this some sort of commentary on the Tea Party? Is the telephone supposed to be a metaphor? (Okay, Jai Rodriguez is on television. If Jai Rodriguez is employed, this is clearly fictional and that makes me feel better.) I almost missed the puma. And now they're dressed like two distant relatives who have escaped from Grey Gardens. Is it Thelma and Louise? Charlie's Angels? I am so upset right now.

3 comments:

Maria said...

Ahhhh I LOVE IT!!! This could be biased because I love all of her videos so passionately but look, yes, in the beginning I was like what? You're appropriating the hard male prison setting of so many movies fame and merging it with Chicago-style male fantasy of chicks behind bars in bikinis punching each other? But then the lyrics started and I was like oh yes, I see, this is playing on ideas of female imprisonment by social conventions that make possessiveness the norm, and even same as caring, and in which women may be owned/controlled by their partners (to the point that they're always keeping tabs on them and, ya know, calling them over and over in da club). Then we get Thelma and Louise / Dixie Chicks "Goodbye Earl" - style sisterhood; ramping up the irony of Tarantino's Pussy Wagon circa Kill Bill, which is (like the Dixie Chicks' video) much about sweeping through middle America on your glamorized killing spree. This lashing out is sprinkled with crazy fashion and the fragmentation of hypersexualized female bodies, just like the overwhelming majority of music videos. (Have a skim through this:
http://www.mediaed.org/cgi-bin/commerce.cgi?preadd=action&key=223&template=PDGCommTemplates/HTN/Item_Preview.html )

What I love about Gaga's videos is that they speak back to and comment on pop culture through pop culture; the layering of influences and the conflicting ways that they read is what makes Telephone so hot (I think the absurd product placement is also intentional, though I have no doubt they happily took the money). Like you said, it looks like she's really interested in the simultaneous sexualization and violence against women throughout her videos, and the Fame is clearly about...fame...in pop culture.

Ok those are my morning thoughts, upon one viewing, and hooRAY for you having a blog on which to discuss this!

Maria said...

p.s. also really exciting is that she's clearly moving towards films...the innovative merging of media forms is giving me joyous wriggles! And using Beyonce (Dreamgirls) and a Chicago setting totally contribute to this, as two of the biggest box-office musicals in the past 10 years, complete with pop and movie stars...

abby.sugar said...

Okay, I know that Beyonce is featured singing in the song...but since I completely agree that the lyrics make no sense whatsoever with the video, I am also wondering - why the hell is Beyonce there at all??!! haha. Yea, I don't even know what to do with this...except maybe say that some of those prison ladies were HOTT!!! haha. x