I must admit that I am not really apart of the MTV culture. I realize that there is no way that I can say that without sounding like I’m trying to purposely distance myself from those “assholes” who are apart of the MTV culture, and ironically in doing so I end up looking like an asshole myself. But I promise you that that is not my intention. So, I will say that I’m not completely oblivious to MTV, I know about Spencer and Heidi, I know that ‘Lil Wayne is huge, I know that Eminem made a comeback and I saw his music video for which he won a VMA, I’ve seen a couple of episodes of Alexa Chung etc. etc. However, one person I did not fully know about was Lady Gaga. I had heard her name mentioned by a few friends and also heard her mentioned here and there but I wasn’t completely aware of who she was or what she even looked like. This all changed one week ago when I watched a re-run of the VMA’s and was introduced to her.
I can’t say that I am apart of her fandom, but ladies and gentlemen I liked what I saw.
She was a refreshing sight for the eyes that have grown tired of viewing the same old glamour-filled and unoriginal dross that is usually on the VMA’s. So what was it about her that I liked? Three things: 1) her sets of attire 2) her performance 3) her acceptance speech.
Nearly every celebrity that is qualified to be at or presented with a VMA lives a life of glamour. Whether they have chosen this distinction or it has been forcefully cast upon them is irrelevant, the fact remains that they live a life of glamour. What is glamour? Glamour is the act of watching yourself being envied. Glamour is most notably and prominently present on any red carpet. The celebrity walks onto the red carpet, stops, and poses for the countless number of photographers snapping shots. The celebrity is essentially watching him or herself being envied. What is envious about these celebrities? Their looks. Glamour is based completely on the exterior. Therefore the celebrity must be as aesthetically appealing as possible in order to be envied and glamorous. Female celebrities far outnumber male celebrities when it comes to this factor. What is aesthetically appealing about a female celebrity? A “hot” dress, a beautiful face, and lots and lots of skin. This is an example of a female celebrity who is glamorous. She is scantily clad in an outfit that displays her cleavage, her face is unshielded for everyone to clearly see, and she is showing as much skin as possible without turning the VMA’s into the AVN Awards. This is precisely why I like Lady Gaga. In an era and culture dominated by narcissism she dressed in this, and this, and this. None of those dresses are traditionally beautiful, none of them reveal any skin that’s worthy of arousal, and all of them cover her face in some way, the last one covers her face completely. In the facially obsessed medium of television the face is the most sacred part of the body. Everyone has their face clean, clear, and ready to present it to the world. If a gnat flies in the camera shot and blocks out a pixel of the face then it is a tragedy to the nth degree, and yet Lady Gaga made a conscious effort to cover her face. Just notice the contrast in glamour between Lady Gaga and Pink. Even the facial expressions are different. Pink knows she is being watched and that a reproduction of her image is being made and her smile from ear to ear tells us that she loves it because people envy her. But Lady Gaga has a blank stare, a stoic expression that doesn’t really tell us anything.
Performances are just as glamorous as the performer. Especially female performances are usually chalk full of sexuality and while Lady Gaga’s had its share of sexuality it also had a very dark element that is very rare at a VMA show. During her performance she proceeded to cover herself in blood. Many stunts have been tried and pulled during a performance such as: Britney Spears dancing with a snake or Madonna kissing Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera but both of those were for sexual purposes and they both were in tune with glamour. This, however, was so dark and ominous, she got blood all over her dress and her face, then had bloodshot eyes and was raised up above the audience and her dancers. She was performing on American television where literally millions of people are watching and she didn’t care how she looked. All she cared about was the quality and content of her performance. It was very original and completely against the tide.
Lada Gaga closed out her acceptance speech by saying, “This is for God and the gays.” I, like many others, don’t like it when certain uninformed celebrities take up a useless cause and spew volumes of nonsensical rhetoric pertaining to that topic. However, I don’t think this falls under that category. If she had just said, “This is for the gays” it would have been a dumb thing to say. If she had just said, “This is for God” it would have been an even dumber thing to say. However, two forces –God and the gays- that people generally cite as being opposed were being brought together, which made it smart thing to say. A notion exists which dictates that if you’re with God then you’re against gay people, and her comment was meant to put a hold on that and look at it from a different perspective. All she said was, “This is for God and the gays” but saying something and meaning something sometimes don’t exist on the same levels of depth. Her sentence was shallow, but the statement was much deeper. Why must it be that God and gay people are mutually exclusive? Why must it be that God must hate gay people? Why can’t it be that God can accept and love gay people as He does with all of His children? I think all of those questions fit within that one simple sentence. I thought it was a simple sentence but a profound statement.
To conclude, I want to say this, I don’t know if Lady Gaga was aware of what she was really doing when she wore all those outfits, covered herself in blood, and made the statement during her speech, I can only hope that she did. However, I do know that that is how I interpreted it and I really liked it. Do I like her music? No. Am I a fan? No. But I think when someone like this comes along in a long line of carbon copies, we should take notice.
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