When Lady Gaga appeared on the scene, I immediately dismissed her as just another attention seeker who had decided to become a "singer" in order to wear tiny clothing on television
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Liked this so much I came here to commentchristastropheOctober 27 2010, 20:24:21 UTC
Aaahhhhh good old LJ. Feel like I can breathe and stretch my legs a little.
This is so right on. I wouldn't care if she was just some forward-thinking pop star like Beyonce or Kanye West, but she's made her whole schtick about how she's this super high-minded daring artiste. Not daring enough to where it fucks up her sales and mass appeal or anything, mind you. But daring in a "I hope nobody saw when they did a meat dress on Top Model" kind of way.
You know who's actually artistic and daring: Bjork. She ACTUALLY does the things that Lady Gaga pretends to do, and her album sales reflect that. I doubt Lady Gaga would ever do a single truly outrageous thing that isn't calculated to make her more rich and popular. Which, awesome cool you go girl, but don't pretend you're anything more than some random pop singer with a few weird outfits.
Re: Liked this so much I came here to commentsupergooberNovember 19 2010, 16:10:40 UTC
WORD on Bjork. When she wears an outfit, everybody points and laughs, and she lands on the worst-dressed list, and it's usually something that was designed by some weird friend of hers, not by Alexander McQueen.
After I posted this, someone quoted Lady Gaga saying something about her meat outfit and pointed out that it didn't actually say a damn thing. They posited that her real artistic accomplishment is saying just enough that people pay attention but then saying little enough that people can project whatever they want onto what she's doing. Which is kind of what pop art is all about, which brings me back to respect and admiration for La Gaga. I'd just rather see something a little less shallow.
I would like to point out that unlike Christina/Britney/Madonna/et al, when Lady Gaga had a video with lesbians in it, they were actual gay women, not just straight models making out with each other. A lot of the outlandishness / artificiality of the video's designs and fashions is part of a queer aesthetic that might not be as obvious to someone who's not looking for it. I can appreciate a pop star who doesn't just tolerate her gay following, but actively embraces and supports it (with regards to her speaking about DADT), and not just the gay men either.
Whatevs. I get what you're going for here, but it's not like the shit Janet Jackson was doing 15 years ago was dreamt up by a bunch of straight guys who had a bunch of money riding on the Raiders game. The forerunners of pop style have always come from the queer community, and been appreciated as such, and I hardly credit Lady Gaga for paying for the right set/costume/image designers to come up with something to make her appear outrageous to the mass public
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I would argue that Madonna did a much better job of embracing/co-opting queer culture, and at a time when it was much more controversial to do so.
However, I can certainly see why watching actual lesbians kiss on camera would appeal to the lesbian community more than a Madonna/Britney/Xtina publicity stunt because it's actually targeting them, not straight guys.
Disagree. Co-opting gay culture for controversy value and selling records to gay men isn't the same thing as embracing the entire community. As an Actual Gay Lady, it puts my back up when "queer culture" is equated with the gay male club scene. There's rather more to it than that
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Comments 7
This is so right on. I wouldn't care if she was just some forward-thinking pop star like Beyonce or Kanye West, but she's made her whole schtick about how she's this super high-minded daring artiste. Not daring enough to where it fucks up her sales and mass appeal or anything, mind you. But daring in a "I hope nobody saw when they did a meat dress on Top Model" kind of way.
You know who's actually artistic and daring: Bjork. She ACTUALLY does the things that Lady Gaga pretends to do, and her album sales reflect that. I doubt Lady Gaga would ever do a single truly outrageous thing that isn't calculated to make her more rich and popular. Which, awesome cool you go girl, but don't pretend you're anything more than some random pop singer with a few weird outfits.
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After I posted this, someone quoted Lady Gaga saying something about her meat outfit and pointed out that it didn't actually say a damn thing. They posited that her real artistic accomplishment is saying just enough that people pay attention but then saying little enough that people can project whatever they want onto what she's doing. Which is kind of what pop art is all about, which brings me back to respect and admiration for La Gaga. I'd just rather see something a little less shallow.
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However, I can certainly see why watching actual lesbians kiss on camera would appeal to the lesbian community more than a Madonna/Britney/Xtina publicity stunt because it's actually targeting them, not straight guys.
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