Lady Gaga Analysis Essay Example
Lady Gaga Analysis Essay Example

Lady Gaga Analysis Essay Example

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  • Pages: 10 (2659 words)
  • Published: January 26, 2018
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Stefan Germantown to well control her superstar image as long as she keeps the audience's attention on that rather than gossip about her personal life. By creating a hyper-real version of her being Lady Gaga, the audience gets used to identifying Lady Gaga with outrageous fashion and brutal, fluid music. Since her debut on screen in the new century, she has been compared to a vast number of pop artists, in which the most common figure been taken into consideration was the so-called Queen of Pop music, Madonna, since Gaga has referred a lot to either Madonna's music or Image In her own works.

Nonetheless, Lady Gaga Is capable of playing with convention of gender, trying to embrace Images of as many sexual combinations as are possible on Earth.

That explains why there are the rumors of her being a man, a tran

...

svestite, even a hermaphrodite, while Madonna never wanted to represent herself in that way. Undeniably, the Madonna's era was overthrown as Lady Gaga has nowadays been named The new Queen of Pop, according to Herbert (2010). This essay concerns a semiotics analysis of how Lady Gaga adopts postmodernism as well as her willingness to empower genders through feminism in specific music videos.

The chosen texts "Telephone" is from the extended play "The Fame Monster" bearing the thought towards gender equality in a perspective of feminism and postmodernism. BODY "Telephone" music videos main Ideology Is the 'mass homicide' of the American media.

Using the concept of the prison and a number of references to consumerist products, Lady Gaga argues how the American culture is basically shaped and controlled by commercialism. As a saying

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of Gaga in the video: 'Once you kill a cow, you goat make a burger', when there is affair, the media makes products out of it, even better if it is the death of reputation.

On the other hand, the representation of women in the video is unconventional with sexual aggression and lesbian relationship. By concentrating on the lyrics only, the audience tends to go through the text at its literal meaning: she was harassed on the phone by a strange stalker, which exactly goes along with its pure pop nature. When It comes to the point that the audience realizes the symbolism contained In the music video, they are astounded by her Incredibility. The Irrelevance In constructing the lyrics and the music video can be explained by Leotard's postmodernist Idea about defying all the intransitives.

In the first place, the intellectual referencing brought about by used similar to that in the movie "Jackie Brown" of Titration. Judith (1997) affirms that Jackie starred in the movie as a female model of black women who have good nature but turning to crime due to circumstances. It closely links to the representation of Gaga in the video, adding that Brown does not need a male companionship although she is alone. In terms of feminism, the audience is struck by the context "Prison for ditches".

It is worth mentioning that "Telephone" is the sequel referring to "Paparazzi" video as "Telephone" features the imprisonment for her assassination of her boyfriend. Therefore, bitched could be defined as women that do not stay with conventions of gender, such as being feminine, suppressive, obedient, emotional, sexual and so on.

Women that are

too loud and active, transgress the gender norms or raise their voice to refuse oppression like Lady Gaga did in "Paparazzi" are considered 'bitched' and sentenced to imprisonment. What is more, when Lady Gaga is taken past the cells, other female inmates sneer, woo and call out to Gaga.

It indicates that women here have sexual desire for Gaga, thus they could be lesbians or at least sexually attracted to women. The fact that they are not attracted to men indicates that their being confined results from breaking the heterosexuality mandate of our culture, which Lady Gaga is a representative example as she killed her boyfriend and rose up from oppression.

The overview of the video is the representation of rebellious women gathering up in prison, which is the biggest fear of patriarchal society due to the fact that it may lead to revolution or resistant conspiracy.

Seeing women in a place like that, even if they are prisoners or prison guards, men cannot belittle them as they are dangerous and insubordinate. Back to the prisoner Lady Gaga, she is empowered by her identity fluidity. She appears in an enormous black and white striped dress, along with the acute shoulders which makes up her feminine but powerful look.

Lady Gaga is then stripped off the clothes and dresses in a black nailed dress afterward. Besides that, the cigarette glasses reinforce her masculinity as well as blurring the gender of women around her.

The lack of sight places her in a condition of feeling-based only, makes her kiss the inmate without recognizing that person is a man or woman, or even a transsexual. The next scene

comes up to describe Gaga as an ostentatious, flamboyant lady with her yellow-colored hair, accompanied with Bounce's flashy and colorful decorated car, which is more likely to be decoded as femininity. In general, the imagery of Lady Gaga is so diverse in terms of identity that the audience cannot pin her down.

It closely associates to "Gender Trouble" theory of Judith Butler, who claims that there are numerous exaggerated, disruptive "tongue-in-cheek" representations of masculinity and femininity which concentrate on the idea that gender is socially constructed.

Furthermore, the scene containing Saga's naked body behind the bars, showing her vulva is a statement that the public can make comments freely about the celebrity's gender identity. As the butch wardens are leaving, one of them gossip: "l told you she didn't have a dick", which once again helps to stir the publics opinion about Lady Saga's gender.

As for postmodernism, Saga's dance in the cell is an intellectual reference to Chicago music video "Cell Block Tango". When Gaga is rescued from the cooler, she adopts the intellectuality in some Michael Jackson- inspired moves.

Michael Jackson was constantly questioned of being a transgender him as inspiration, and in turn she might abide by the same gender identity with his. Besides that, according to Meghan (2010), the moves can be considered as a goodbye to the King of Pop's legacy, where he always tried to express himself out of the stereotypes that he claimed the society created to put him in.

Lady Gaga, however, never dodges those but rather creates her own identity among them. During that scene, online dating website "Plenty of Fish" is established showing pictures of

a number of men. It reverses the Male Gaze as well as stating that men are rampant eke fish in the ocean, objectifying men for the Female Gaze.

The song played on the radio in the yard is "Paper Gangs" by Lady Gaga about woman power: "Don't want no paper gangs/ Won't sign away my life to someone/ Who's got the flavor but don't have no follow through. The song choice is a self-reference of postmodernist idea, whose purpose is to empowered role of women as the feminist theorist Angela Microbes argued: there could be positive aspects to media as they could empower women. There comes the next scene when Gaga binds her with the tape written "Crime Scene". The meaning is ambivalent.

As Jukebox Heroines (2010) states, the women' bodies are literally "crime scene" in our culture as they are physically and sexually abused. She raises her voice through the self-reference of postmodernist idea to blame the cruelty of patriarchal society over women.

On the other hand, she adopts the "crime scene" tape on her body as a way to claim her crime of sexual transgression, defying heterosexuality. Besides that, once again Gaga empowers women through her taping cloth, which is regarded as odd and unusual, thus confronts the stereotype of femininity perceived by the public. Moreover, the presentation of women in the video disagrees with the "Male Gaze". "Male Gaze" attributed to feminist Laura Mulled, believes that when consuming the text, the audience unconsciously sees and decodes the characters through a heterosexual male's perspective.

Lady Gaga refuses to the male gaze in "Telephone", by produces a female-dominated society, in which women wield the

power as authorized prison guards and defiant prisoners. In relation to Laura Mullet's theory "Pleasure in viewing comes from voyeurism", the music video employs plenty of scenes where women dress in revealing costumes, deprive sexual pleasure from each other. At the point of 3:18, a crew of female criminals makes a group dance with scanty, transparent clothes but in the way of empowering themselves as disobedient creatures.

What is worth mentioning is the outfit pays homage to the Crust Punk scene of the asses.

Another instance is the dance break in American flag costumes after Gaga and Beyond' serial murder, hence, they adopt sexy clothes in order to celebrate their triumph. The reference to American flag costume and Bounce's nails is to blame a rotten form of American society where the media is corrupted, trampling on people's self-esteem and gradually having power, even deciding people's life. In conclusion, bodies showed in the video are among the matriarchy, of women offering sexual activities to others.

In other words, according to Gammon and Marshiest' work of "The Female Gaze" that there have been some media representation for not only men but also women, women imagery in "Telephone" are constructed by a more "Female Gaze" rather than suppressing the "Male Gaze". Other than that, women are the main autonomous characters controlling their lives of women. Afterward, Beyond appears as Gaga addresses her as "Honey B", a clear intellectual reference to "Honey Bun", one of the two robbers in a famous diner scene in the movie "Pulp Fiction" by Titration.

It implies the murder spree in the diner later of Gaga and Beyond. To sum up, Lady Gaga has

utilized a wide range of elements regarding women' behaviors to subvert the male gaze and challenge the objectification of women. In the common room, standing beside Gaga is a young version of her, spotted by Allan (2010). The aim of this self-reference is nostalgia of her time in The Fame's legacy, also indicates the audience being innocent the earl time, since we see the young lady longingly looking at Lady Gaga, who is promoting lent of brands on her body.

To illustrate the video's ideology, a number of consumerist products are presented in the video.

We can spot that the camera focuses lingers on some brands longer than usual, such as Saga's Virgin mobile, LEG phone, Coca Cola cans rolled in her hair, Channel glasses, People CATV cameras, Miss Officer's Doctor Dire laptop, Polaroid camera that she uses to take pictures of Beyond Wonder Bread used to cook in the kitchen. Besides that, the scene"Plenty of Fish" dating website mocks consumers' relying on online products to make decisions, including their love life.

These product placements go with Feeder Jameson idea as they show a "hopelessly commercial culture". Particularly, according to Chris (2010), the idea of Polaroid quickly producing photos indicates a consumerist culture where products instantly and easily come out without being controlled. In addition, Bounce's feeding Gaga a piece of toast then throwing away the half-eaten package shows the way the consumers affording products to satisfy the craving, then willing to discard them.

Subsequently, the women chatting in the car is an intellectual reference to the scene in the movie "Death Proof" of Titration. Referred by Robert (2010), the odd and idiomatic style of

conversation of Titration is asserted to be utilized to portray the ladies' mimicry of the commercial society. As mentioned before, Saga's saying "Once you kill a cow, you goat make a burger" blames the media for trying to make as many products as possible out of people's misery. Later, the phrase "Trust is like a mirror.

You can fix it if it's broken, but you can still see the crack on that motherliness's reflection" refers to a permanent consequence for the consumers brought by mind-controlling.

It also points out the unreliable nature of he media. As far as gender convention is concerned, women in "Telephone" transgress those conservative rules to kill people, concoct and use poison, which is just common for men as they appear in movies to be violent, battle with others and use toxin. However, the situation is totally opposite here thanks to Lady Saga's use o poison in the video.

In fact, the representation of poison mixing empowers women a women are traditionally known to have knowledge of herb, poison and beauty tools, especially when the context is set in the kitchen. It is commonly believed that cooking s original and ascribed to women; however, ultimately in "Telephone", products of cooking kills men thus empowers women's existent value.

Moving to the diner scene, there are customers of different ages, races, colors, sizes and sexual orientations, which makes the diner a melting pot, representing a diverse America.

Gaga plays as chef in a telephone hat, which is still a symbol of media controlling people's mind. She uses the phone to ring Beyond, and then the scene dissolves to Beyond sitting cinderblock is a

metaphor of consumers living prison, although it is unseen and has come a common sense since it is disguised as home. Bounce's shoulder style in her costume pays homage to Michael Jackson, since he employed that style before. Lady Gaga then appears in the kitchen with subtitles of recipe "Cook n' Kill", which are in a comic book style, plus some scenes with Japanese subtitles indicate the mind-controlling of Japanese comic books.

In the serving scene, Gaga wears another telephone made by her blonde hair to emphasize the mind-controlling again. Another self-reference is Gaga making a gun pointing towards the screen - the customers, notifying them a threat of murdering. Based on Vigilant Citizen (2010), the self-reference to Saga's early work "Paparazzi" through the Mackey Mouse glasses both Gaga and Beyond wear when they do the killing hints that they are programmed to kill when they put on that glasses.

Thus, the glasses are an intellectual reference links to the mind-controlling of Disney Company as it is claimed to create a lot of hyper-real works, which helps brainwash people the idea of a real world. As the video goes along, the death of the male character is attributed to consumerism of poison from Bounce's tea and Saga's drink. Then we can tell from Bounce's note "l knew you'd take all my honey" that she is referring to him taking everything from her, including her dignity and humanity, to put down and consume her like consuming the products.

Nonetheless, his death as the ultimate result warns men of how deadly it is to consume and exploit women. Going into details about the dance break in American

flag costumes, Lady Gaga and Beyond use the intellectual reference to Wonder Woman - an early asses comic heroine regarded as the model of feminist movement. Wonder Women's mission was to bring the ideas of love, ace, and sexual equality by a world torn by the hatred of men, and that's the way Lady Gaga and Beyond represents them after committing a mass homicide.

With respect to the car 'Puss Wagon' in the escaping scene, standing beside it is Lady Gaga dressing in a cheetah-print suit and a driver hat.

The Puss Wagon indicates her living in a kitty world where women are empowered as Gaga is driving her life on her own. The Puss Wagon originally belongs to a man raping a lady and being killed later in the movie "Kill Bill" by Titration. It basically signifies the disdain of men over omen, lowering women to the level of sexual uses and nothing more.

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