Cause you're a criminal as long as you're mine

[bookshop]

STOP


STOP




this started out as a collection of quotes, and grew spontaneously, like my love for the Lady herself

One of the main ways she transgresses the normal bounds of the pop icon is by hyperbolizing and making monstrous the extreme sexuality of that role. She adopts the cone-shaped bras that Madonna used to accentuate her feminine sexuality and power, but has them shoot sparks and flames. She makes horrific the figure of the pop starlet by wearing outfits that distort, exaggerate, and sharpen those sexualized contours of the female body. She wears an ecto-skeleton outfit while caged in her “Bad Romance” video, highlighting the various prisons, both bodily and cultural, that trap the female figure. Her “Paparazzi” centerpiece is a riveting dance number in which the crippled Gaga transcends & incorporates her handicaps by making elegantly jerky movement of broken limbs, a wheelchair, and crutches. Her performance continually transgresses and functions by transgressing, which allows Lady Gaga to be both whimsical and serious, sexy and monstrous, and meaningless and meaningful at the same time.

- Source: Lady Gaga as mythological Trickster

dj: any female who doesn't have an inclination of being bi or curious or whatever, they see you and they go, i would make out with her. why is that?

gaga: well, that's nice. that's because i'm on a quest to flip all of you.

- Source: Yeats <3

Gone are the days when if you're against the war you go and protest on the street. Protesting doesn't stop wars anymore. Going to your gay pride rally is nice -- it makes you feel good, but unfortunately we don't live in that era anymore. The only way you can create social change is to insert yourself into the machine.
Right. And cast yourself as a monkey wrench.
Exactly.

- Source: Heather Cassils: Lady Gaga's Prison Yard Girlfriend

Isn't it interesting that the two artists she embodies or echoes in this prison segment are both the former King and current Queen of pop?! .... Michael Jackson and Madonna are always trying to express themselves or confess themselves out of the various prisons society has put them in (gender, racial, psychological, etc.), or perceive themselves as being caught in a prison of sorts, whereas Gaga is not a figure trying to escape a prison. She creates her identity and performance, rather than releasing it. And she's not making any fucking excuses for it.

Harq: Also, a black woman set whitey free.

- Source: Lady Gaga's "Telephone" - Part 1

By occupying a traditionally masculine space (which is complemented by her continual adoption of stereotypical masculine characteristics such as violence, anger, independence) she performs the masculine. However, she still emphasizes her feminine form through her costumes. To the point of exaggeration most of the time. The grotesque image that she constructs removes the possibility of her becoming an object of the male gaze, and the combination of both femininity masculinity highlights the performative nature of gender in general.

- Source: Part 2

Taylor, look at Lady Gaga in that bathtub and tell me that you’re the one in the bleachers

- Source: Why Taylor Swift Offends Little Monsters, Feminists, and Weirdos*

* i actually love & will defend taylor swift to the end ok but i think this article has v. important points to make about lady gaga & the contrasts between their versions of performance art. See also, ESSENTIALS.



- Credit

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Doesn’t that make you think of a political ad? “I’m Lady Gaga, and I approve of this incredible display of gayness.” She’d then touch the director on each shoulder with her Disco Stick, and he would henceforth be known as Sir Sergio Ceron of the Haus of Gaga.

- Source: Lady Gaga Makes Gayest Video in the History of Music Videos



A friend was talking to me, and she was like, “I can’t figure out why that video makes me so happy.”



And I was like, “because it sets you up to see Gaga’s sexuality as a way that she can be oppressed or hurt, and then it tells you to see her sexuality as a way for her to be powerful and victorious, and the transition from one way of seeing to the other is really great.”



And she was like “yes, probably, but also I think I like the outfits and dancing!”



But, let’s be honest: We can poke fun at Gaga, and her self-seriousness, and we can disagree with her feminist statements or her statements about sexuality, or say that they don’t quite work, but we can’t say she’s not making statements. She is.









And they tend to be, as statements by pop stars go, more interesting and smart and provocative than those of her peers.









we could regard “Telephone” as the logical next step from the “Bad Romance” video, I suppose: there’s a mean boy, and a girl getting her revenge on him, and also some really ridonkulous revenge dancing, but this time, instead of one girl getting revenge all by herself, there are just so many women interacting with each other in so many ways- fighting, yes, and hurting each other, but also kissing and talking and making friends and touching each others’ crotches in a helpful manner and providing support. This video presents community between women as this very powerful, dangerous, thrilling space. And sex is included in that, as one of the ways women connect with each other; the connection is invariably eroticized, pretty strongly. Female space is also presented as something you can escape into and find strength from, specifically strength to resist dudes who treat you crapfully, and that strength to resist dudes (who you might also have sex with, it is implied) is tied to the eroticization of women, throughout.



It’s all a little like that Adrienne Rich essay, which I do have some small problems with on the levels of essentialism and reliance on some not-so-great sources, but which is nevertheless really good.



My point is, when was the last time you thought to describe a pop star’s music video with, “this reminds me of that Adrienne Rich essay?” Yeah.



Stop trying to deny Gaga.



- Source:
Nothing That Happened This Week Was Ever Going To Be As Important As The “Telephone” Video*


* a second opinion**
** Strange silence: voices from women's prisons.

________

ESSENTIALS:
- Taylor/Lady GaGa, Imma let you finish. ****HELLO THIS IS AMAZING.
- Gaga/Beyonce, Kinda Busy.
eta: - gaga_beyonce!
- The Doggie Gaga Project
- fuckyeahladygaga
- thehausofgaga
- music video screencaps
- Je veux ton cookie.

IN SHORT: