None could name any other major pop star, or pop culture personality right now, who they could say the same about – any other artist who could stand accused on the grounds that they were just too impossibly inventive
Camille Paglia has already been to work on some of these questions in a piece in the Sunday Times last weekend...And what seemed to irk her most was what she considers Gaga's fundamental lack of sex appeal. "Gaga isn't sexy at all," she wrote. "She's like a gangly marionette or plasticised android. How could a figure so calculated and artificial, so clinical and strangely antiseptic, so stripped of genuine eroticism have become the icon of her generation? Can it be that Gaga represents the exhausted end of the sexual revolution? . . . Marlene and Madonna gave the impression, true or false, of being pansexual. Gaga, for all her writhing and posturing, is asexual."
What was interesting about Paglia's article was its implication that, in order to be a star – and particularly a female star – you have to be sexually appealing. All of which apparently ignored the fact that, for her fans, one of Gaga's key attractions is precisely her dismissal of traditional, feminine sex appeal, of the need to be charming, of the values and aesthetic of other female singers: the ripe, pert bodies, the pretty, familiar costumes.
She has often been compared with a drag queen and, in many ways, this seems apt. Part of the brilliance and beauty of drag, of course, is that it can potentially expose sex roles – most often femininity – as a performance. A drag queen in enormous false eyelashes, teetering heels, a tight dress, heavy makeup, a voluminous wig, talon-like nails, is mimicking a woman, while underlining that what's expected of women is in no way natural. With her increasingly bizarre getups, Gaga does the same."
This article is rather enormous, but presents some pretty interesting ideas about what Lady Gaga's various wacky wardrobes represent (if you have rhotacism, that sentence was awesome). I always saw her as a feminist (hell, i saw her as an everything-right-there-is-to-stand-for-ist) but this is a cool breakdown of the many ways in which she is. It also points out several ways what most people would dismiss as 'fashion' or 'wardrobe malfunctions' actually make a strong but subtle point. Sometimes people don't look past the shock value of a clothing style or an action to see what it really means; after all, to cause shock at all, something must violently break social norms. By figuring out what shocks us, we can trace our way back to what we consider 'normal'. Sometimes, those things need challenging (for example, what does it mean about our society if the mere image of a woman on a toilet shocks and offends us? Once again i've found my way back to bathrooms. read the article to know what i'm talking about)
I really like this article. I think it's particularly interesting, especially when one considers Gaga's recent political activism-- holding rallies in Maine and urging Senators to vote to repeal the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy.
ReplyDeleteWhen Gaga first arrived on the scene, she was something of an enigma. However, I find it odd that one would consider her asexual. In some ways, she is blatantly sexual, especially in some of her earlier music videos. What's interesting to me, though, is the drastic turn her videos take-- scenes in movies like "Telephone" (which I still think is probably the most interesting, out-there music video I've seen) or "Paparazzi" do indeed portray her as very sexualized.... but when she's portrayed that way, it's almost always accompanied by a negative stereotype and or a negative message. Her use of bindings in both videos could, I think, be taken as a very interesting comment on the nature of traditional femininity in pop culture.
I like Gaga's message-- you don't have to conform to society's sexualized ideals to be a star, and you don't have to be overly sexualized or feminine to be a successful woman.
I LOVE THIS I LOVE THIS I LOVE THIS
ReplyDeleteI think people could, like, theorize about Lady Gaga's kind of sexuality. there could be books about her combination of simultaneously revolting body contortions and raw sexuality.
She pulls the two together in something that is asexual and bisexual and pansexual and degrading and empowering and passionate and ugly and RAW because it is just so gnarly.
In "Bad Romance", her video is set in a Russian sex bid where "Gaga appears to be in a situation where she's being auctioned off as a sex-slash-murder toy"*
But she crawls on the floor like a wild animal, contorts her body, and by the end is covered in ash. bottom line: she doesn't look "hot".
But in that video (aside from the premise), she drops her clothes in one scene and all you can feel is PURE SEX.
In another video she portrays actual sex acts. I mean, we're talking acrobatic, wild sex. but again, she isn't outwardly "hot" during them
-----> I would argue, that she doesn't derive her sexuality from her outward appearance. her curves or cleavage or hair don't ever contribute to her super sexified videos. Rather, she possesses this pure sexuality at her core that she conveys through her videos.
It's like the sex she portrays is genderless. she embodies something brilliant that is neither the male sex role or the female sex role or a combination of both. i think that instead of conveying a perspective on sexshe embodies sex itself. which is something that I have never seen done before in any kind of media/literature/life/and on
*http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/ask_the_answer_bitch/b154127_what_does_lady_gagas_bizarre_bad.html