ONTD Original: Did Lady Gaga Copy Geri Halliwell?
ONTD Original:
Did Lady Gaga Copy Geri Halliwell?
Maybe the title of this is clickbaity because I truly want to make a "Parallels between Geri and Gaga" post a la my Hurts & Lana Del Rey post. I can't help but notice the fact that with some of these Gaga #moments, Geri Halliwell aka Geri Horner aka Ginger Spice of the best-selling girl group the Spice Girls did already years ago (and liddos like to act brand new). Queen of Pop Madonna can be the true person attributed for these women to thrive, so no this is not necessarily an exposé.
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OP's note: Definitely not comparing their musical and performance abilities, just so yall know.
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But here's a #herstory lesson of the personal and creative parallels between these pop cultural icons.
Open Wide
At the 2000 Brit Awards, Geri did the grand entrance of appearing out of a pair of female legs for the flirty sex anthem "Bag It Up". Gaga had a similar performance style appearing out of a turkey inflatable body for the "Born This Way" number on the BTWB in 2013. What other pop stars have symbolically been rebirthed like this? Geri, an innovator.
Click to viewGeri (1999) & Five Foot Two (2016)
I mean who loves a good documentary after a tumultuous pop phenomenon career? Each doc was filled with epiphanies by its subjects dealing with relationships and fame, topped with a moment where they were recorded in their bikini for a more #open talk.
Geri was opening up about dealing with the loss of her father (that happened several years prior) after not deeply processing it. Gaga was beginning her #maudlin campaign about her father's sister Joanne, whom she mourns vicariously through her father's pain while her grandmother was lowkey cringing at ha.
Idol to the Rescue
Going off with the Geri doc, she was at a rough point when she left the Spice Girls and became insecure about her abilities as an informally trained artist. Who better to run to than your idol growing up? Halliwell was very open about being a Wham/George Michael fan girl, even writing herself a love letter to him as a tween. The two finally met one day and became friends, where Michael offered her a place to stay after her departure in 1999. Since his death, Geri expressed how he was like an 'angel' to her in times of need.
Geri on George Michael: "I’d been part of a band and he literally picked up the phone and said come and live with me. He actually said, ‘come and live with me for the weekend’ and I stayed for about three months and then followed him everywhere... I was so broken and so sad and he scooped me up."
Gaga witnessed the same helping hand when she was going through ARTPOP turmoil where she admitted it was a time she was close to quitting music.
In her 2015 Billboard interview where she was quite on her pretentious musician high horse, she admitted how much Tony Bennett and Elton John were there for her: "Tony has taught me a lot of things, Elton has taught me a lot of things... I'm very lucky when a lot of people turned their back on me and some of the modern universe turned their back on me, it was the classics that were there. They were there for me in friendship, professionally... 'we've been here before and we are here to tell you not to fuck this up'."
Lady Liberty 🗽
Both artists have also been very forward with integrating political imagery into their fashion, including their interpretations of the Statue of Liberty in tour costuming.
Geri on the set of the "Spice Up Your Life" video shoot and Lady Gaga featured in V Magazine.
Geri in Girl Power! Live in Istanbul and Lady Gaga on her Born This Way Ball Tour.
Marilyn Moment 💋
It's another common thread that Marilyn Monroe were big inspirations to these women (and at this rate, who isn't). Both had a flirtatious encounter with a political leader when Geri planted a big one on Prince Charles' cheek during the Spice Girl's visit with the royals. She also attempted a more obvious Marilyn moment singing 'Happy Birthday' to him for his 50th.
Gaga was invited to perform for a Bill Clinton special in 2011 and made a cheeky move by dubbing "Bad Romance" with "Bill Romance". She said right on stage that she was having a Marilyn moment, and made a risque outro to her performance by playing "Government Hooker" which seemed to went pass the minds of regular people, but Gaga fans were in on the joke (He Stefani Lewinsky'd all on mah gowwwn).
"I Am Every Label"
When people try to put you in a box, you find ways to get out of them. Geri dealt with this theme in her debut "Look At Me" from the album Schizophonic when she depicted characters on how women are perceived to be.
During the ARTPOP era where she felt the same thing, Gaga stated: "The statement is that I’m not one icon. I’m every icon. I’m an icon that is made out of all the colors on the palette at every time. I have no restrictions. No restrictions."
They also embodied these figures to show they are not one dimensional acts.
"I play these four characters - what women are. I play a virgin, a vamp, a nun, and I think women have to take on so many roles in life. I think we're all of them and none of them."
Schizophonic & ARTPOP
We love album titles that coin unoriginal portmanteaus as concepts! While Schizophonic is a little more digestable to understand, ARTPOP is a loose concept of 'putting art back on the soup can' or something like that.
Geri spoke to Rosie about the lead single: "The way we get obsessed with ourselves is bullcrap. We should take each other not on face value but on who you are as a human being. It's talking about labels 'you're beautiful' 'you're fat' 'you're thing' 'you're gorgeous' 'you're gay' 'you're black'. I just find that you ought to see pass that as human beings."
This almost sound like lyrics to a particular song... Hmmmmm.
"Mi Chico Latino" & "Alejandro"
A Latin-pop tinged song where the music video features a homoerotic dance orgy number by a group of men in their boxer briefs? Geri BEEN doing that already. Get a little #herstory lesson here little monsters!
Anywho, people have accredited Madonna's "La Isla Bonita" to inspiring these pop moments.
You can watch this video on www.livejournal.com
So, what's the tea? Geri has been pro-gay and girl power before the turn of the millennium when it was cool.
And we'll have our sixth
Spice Girl in this b****
It's a conspiracy yeah.gif
Sources: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XciZowQi74
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iO3kTdkzsR0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KszFVyBjGOs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxI1iOi0t-c
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUrLSRxuDoU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EV5Yg4IQkyk
https://vimeo.com/126458478
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niqrrmev4mA