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Whatever your opinions about Lady Gaga, it is always nice to feel like you’re part of the conversation, and she does seem to be the subject these days. So, “Alejandro” video, you guys:
Hey Lady Gaga, 1995 called, they want this video back!
What a good joke. You guys probably forgot about the “[blank] called and they want their [blank] back” joke construct, but I just reminded you of how good it is. So funny and clever. Seriously, though (another good construct, the “seriously, though” tonal shift construct) this video is so ’90s! Speaking of constructs! It would almost be surprising how much this plays off of lukewarm tropes, if a music video still held the capacity to surprise. At this point, the visual language developed by music videos is so quickly reappropriated into feature films and Super Bowl advertising that they are, as a medium, about as surprising as a Snickers commercial. That pre-rolls before a YouTube clip of a baby farthing. That being said, how mad is Madonna right now? Because this is basically Lady Gaga just straight up MURDERING Madonna, right? In just one video, she has basically reduced Madonna to a memory, and then absorbed that memory into herself, and now she can move on. Right? Right, college?
Maybe I am reading too much into this. Maybe this is just a surprisingly redundant music video for a catchy pop song from an artist who tends to avoid blatant redundancy and has lived in the long dark shadow cast by Madonna’s desperate skeleton-face-and-also-arms legacy. Maybe this doesn’t say anything about pop culture’s need to consistently subsume and then excrete and then bury the past. Besides, who DOESN’T wear a machine gun bra these days?
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It’s like a gay man’s cold war nightmare…which will be a dream for her core demographic.
“New York’s hottest club is WESH.”
…Club promoter Tranny Oakley has gone all out. This place has everything: light, psychos….screaming babies and mozart wigs.
Yes.
Miss GaGuh certainly knows which side her bread is buttered on: The GAY SIDE.
(Duh Aficionado Magazine Special Insert)
This video is lots more fun if you turn the audio off and pretend its for a Scandinavian death metal band. Also if you turn the video off.
that’s 8mins of staring at a quiet blank screen I’ll never get back.
I was pretending it was a deleted scene from Inglourious Basterds.
The song is just a blatant rip-off of ABBA’s “Fernando” anyway. And -10 man points to myself for knowing that!
I always thought it was a blatant rip off of Ace of Base’s “Don’t Turn Around.”
Either way, Sweden wins.
Man, throw Notsewfast’s above comment in, and this post is getting real thick with Scandinavia references. I fully support this theme. Nokia! Hot cats! Victoria Silvstedt!
Lutefisk!
YES!!! Finally a half-assed excuse to post Some Hera! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TAtNjdQ9fM
BEAR FORCE ONE!
Doesn’t most American pop music just take it from the Swedes? I think so.
You must now go and watch sports and think about females in order to re-establish equilibrium
Does this mean in 20 years Lady Gaga will think she’s British? Ello elllo mate you ring I can’t hear a thing
In England they call Lady Gaga lorr…nope, not gonna go there.
I think you guys are missing the bigger symbolism. Rewatch it while think of Lady Gaga as the Atlantic Ocean, the muscular dudes in black with weird haircuts and helmets as BP oil.
It’s deep, yo.
Well, that theory makes a lot more sense than this one: http://vigilantcitizen.com/?p=2737
Capu knows the truth! I actually think I’m going to spend the rest of my day on that web site now.
Just recently I discovered that website and am strangely fascinated/scared.
“We have a question twitted for Lady GaGa fom Madonna…”
-Larry King’s corpse
*from (damnit!)
“told ya so”
- bryan fischer
What the hell? Chris Klein isn’t in that. Stupid lie at the beginning of that video.
“Hey Lady Gaga, 1995 called, they want this video back!”
Gabe, you misspelt “song”
OMG!!! Ace Of Base is back!
So, I didn’t watch the video yet, because I like my ears/eyes, but two comparisons to Ace of Base have me reconsidering.
Yes! I heard this in a cab the other day and I thought, “Ace of Base is sounding TIGHT.”
So some wig warehouse had a big sale on the “3 Stooges Moe” then?
The 90s are the new 80s.
I wish the whole video was in 3D and not just my projectile vomit.
Due to a pop-up advertisement on the side of the screen, the video was partly obscured for its duration. Good job RJ Berger, I did have a hard time watching the video. I’m gonna go ahead and not watch your show, assuming the entire plot revolves around you jumping in front of people’s computers so they can’t watch terrible videos.
Yeah, on this point: is that show about a geek with a big dick? Is that correct? And it’s not a movie, it’s an entire series? Of dick jokes?
I am seriously HATING vgum ads lately, except that pay Gabe’s salary, right?
In case any of you were wondering, Gaga has gone on record saying that this song is about how she hates falling in love with all her hott gay guy pals. Or something.
All in all, I was pretty disappointed with this video. “Telephone” was so great, you guys. Caution tape! Sandwiches! It was like Underwear City, population: 0 pants! But “Alejandro” is just like, “bowl cuts, vague religious imagery, Rite of Spring?” Whatevs.
I agree. It’s not nearly as good as the Bad Romance video either (which I like better than Telephone.) She seemed sleepy during this.
One shocking things? She wears pants! Maybe they’re her kryptonite & that’s why the vid isn’t as good as it should be.
(Also how great is it that “kryptonite” is correctly spelled checked by my computer? So great!)
One shocking thing* not things. Is it possible to have an edit button to compensate for my bad spelling?
Hey Lady Gaga, Tank Girl called. She wants her bra back.
I really didn’t like Telephone. Muchhhhhh too porny.
For a second I thought you said “Much too phony.” Which would have been hilarious. Good job on kind of telling that joke!
I thought she said, “much too pony” and to that I say I WISH!!
also she looks terrible in this. just sad and unhealthy. like, stop dancing and put your IV back in.
I never watched the entire “Telephone” video so “Caution tape! Sandwiches!” makes it seem like you have Tourette’s.
I never watched it either, and of all things the ‘sandwiches’ tag now has me intrigued.
Well, suffice to say that she does wear caution tape and she does make a sandwich over the course of the video. (What?)
But maybe you’re onto something; maybe the music video is to entertainment what Tourette’s syndrome is to vocal communication. Maybe that’s something we can discuss at our college with our other college students.
and just like in real life, listening to a woman whine about not being able to get with a gay guy is boring and pointless.
Got your sauce right here!
“The video is about the “purity of my friendships with my gay friends”, Gaga had explained, earlier. “And how I’ve been unable to find that with a straight man in my life. It’s a celebration and an admiration of gay love – it confesses my envy of the courage and bravery they require to be together. In the video I’m pining for the love of my gay friends – but they just don’t want me.”
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/music/article7129672.ece
Also, check out the director’s website for some of his other stuff – http://www.stevenkleinstudio.com/www/index.html – it’s basically ALL videos of Madonna. This video makes perfect sense.
I just re-designed Steven Klein’s website without all that horrible Flash and background music/noise.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Klein
I love YouTube clips of baby farthings! Baby sixpences too. Any miniature British money, really.
I love my new Friendster, baby sixpence none the richer.
How come a transvestite donkey witch is standing beside you and why is it wearing a dress?
oh yeah? well, the jerkstore called, and they’re running out of you!!
right, guys?
You can just go ahead and take that 2.7 billion from me. — Seinfeld
I don’t think this song ripped off the 90′s so much as it ripped off Madonna with great vengeance. Like a Prayer? Check! Vogue? Check! Human Nature? Check, and check. I personally was hoping for Lady Gaga in a floral babydoll dress and combat boots. Perhaps, dare I say, including biker shorts.
Express Yourself as directed by H.R. Giger, I say.
On another note, this shit is insane. I didn’t know it was socially acceptable, let alone commercially sensible to make a music video in which you play the part of A NAZI BEING GANGBANGED BY OTHER NAZIS.
No wonder these conspiracy nuts think Lady Gaga’s some kind of Illuminati Satanist drone.
I KNOW RIGHT.
Gaga, I love you girl, I know you like to be “shocking” and “edgy”, but can we please do away with ALL THIS GROSS NAZI-FETISHISM.
Alright, I know the Nazi regime was very anti-homosexual and very leather and I can see why twisting it would be sexy, especially because of its potential in BDSM, but you know what? Millions of real, actual, people WERE MURDERED by these people. So using that imagery in your pop music video is actually really insulting and gross and wrong and bad.
That’s the thing about Gaga. It’s all about aesthetics and images and symbols. Which is totally fine when you’re a pop star. But when you start to take symbolism from a GENOCIDAL REGIME THAT COMMITTED CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY, you need to take a step back.
Wow, the more I think about this the angrier I’m getting. The video is beautiful, but I just hate this “sexifying” of Nazism. There is nothing positive about Nazism, and any aesthetic enjoyment you get out of the outfits and leather does not justify its casual use in a music video.
I mean, this is just a music video, right? And I guess I would accept it more easily if I wasn’t Jewish and if my grandparents’ family weren’t rounded up and murdered in a ditch in Poland.
Wow, am I crying because of a stupid music video? Yes. Yes I am.
I am so angry right now.
“Mission accomplished.” — Lady Gaga
Precisely.
Of course you realize that this is entirely the point. She’s not the first and won’t be the last to invoke Nazi imagery because it prompts a reaction – any reaction. It’s not much different from Tea Partiers putting a Hitler mustache on Obama. Got your attention!
I get that, and I understand it. But that doesn’t make it right [not directed at you, Lew Zealand. I know that's now what you're saying.]
I would just like Gaga to have a conversation with a survivor, like my Zaydie and explain to him why she thought it was okay to appropriate the aesthetics of the people that killed his family.
The thing is, it’s not just Gaga. This video is part of a tradition in show business and pop that glorifies and eroticizes [and in a way excuses] Nazism. And that is even more disturbing to me.
I understand the sensitivity, all the more so the more closely you’ve been personally affected by the Holocaust, but I don’t see how using this imagery specifically to provoke a reaction excuses Nazism. Unless you’re referring to excusing contemporary fetishism of the Nazi aesthetic as opposed to excusing the atrocities the actual Nazis committed. I guess I don’t see the fetishism of the aesthetic as a statement at all about the morality of Nazism.
(this is a reply to you, NC, but I guess the replies are only allowed to go so deep? there’s no reply button on your comment).
By excusing Nazism, I mean that its use of Nazi uniforms and glorifying it as sexy says that it’s okay, it’s just a cool outfit. But the aesthetics can’t be divorced from the context of genocide, and by making Nazi symbolism acceptable, you start to make the idea of Nazism in general acceptable. And the reality is that nothing about Nazism is acceptable. And to appropriate the aesthetics of Nazism and pretend that it has nothing to do with genocide is reprehensible because it DOES have intrinsic ties to something horrific, and to enjoy sexual symbolism at the cost of numbing one’s audience to one of the worst crimes ever committed is disgusting.
Even if it isn’t a statement on the morality of Nazism, using the aesthetic desensitizes us to it; removes the symbols and imagry from the horrific truth behind them. It isn’t that Nazism is excused, but we get used to it and it loses its meaning, Nazis become nothing more than Darth Vader or something out of an action film.
I get it, but it’s the exhiliration of breaking the taboo that makes it provocative, and to many, sexy. Since Nazis committed once of the biggest atrocities in modern history, they become the biggest taboo. The fact that they also happened to also have an aesthetic that lends itself nicely to erotic appropriation just makes it an easy way of creating a taboo sexual image. It’s actually been overdone, and is rather lazy at this point if you ask me. Marilyn Manson has basically covered this ground, and he wasn’t the first either. Anyway, I understand what you’re saying and your opinion that it’s disgusting, but the fact that it prompts that reaction is precisely what gives it it’s power. It doesn’t do anything for me, and I’m not sure why I’ve adopted an apologist argument for it here, but there you go…
Lew, I don’t think you get what I’m saying.
I know that Nazi uniforms are popular within BDSM communities because they’re “edgy” and taboo and involve the aspects of discipline and subjugation and leather that BDSM is all about.
What I’m saying is that, while I understand why one who finds BDSM sexy would also find these aspects of Nazism sexy, it’s morally reprehensible to use such symbolism in a music video [or at a party, or at an orgy, or at pretty much anything] BECAUSE it is so tied to the murder and torture of millions of human beings.
Actually, I guess the reason I’ve chosen to argue this point is that I like provocative art but don’t like Nazi’s or endorse Nazism. I think it’s possible to enjoy provocative art without condoning the taboo that’s being used to provoke. Enjoying Lolita as a work of art does not mean one condones pedophilia, for instance. Not putting Gaga in Nabokov’s league, but you see the point.
I do disagree with you there NC. Like it or dislike it, it’s art. I don’t find it morally reprehensible to appropriate any imagery for the sake of art.
The thing is, Lew Zealand, your argument doesn’t really apply anymore, as you briefly admitted yourself. It’s no longer culturally offensive or aggressive or transgressive, it’s only offensive and upsetting on an individual level. At this point, this type of use of Nazi imagery (and actually, in this context it’s not just Nazi imagery, but exploitive also of Latin American military dictatorships, which haven’t been exploited fully yet…) manages to be individually offensive, a continuation of our desentization to violence, and, maybe most damning of all, outright boring. When your (Gaga’s obviously, not yours, even if you defend it) visual aesthetic, or whatever you want to call it, doesn’t actually transgress anything, offends mostly only those with individual connections to whatever you are claiming to transgress, and is a sad, tired, repetition of older transgressions, you really should just fuck off.
That just make it bad art, ptsmith_vt, it doesn’t make it morally reprehensible. And good or bad, it is art. The existence of this conversation validates it as such. You are still entirely free to your opinions of it and have the choice to observe it or not.
I guess I’m just wondering, Lew, why you think it’s okay to use something horrible [like Nazism] in art when it serves to desensitize people to its inherent evil for the purpose of shallow titillation.
Lew, why are you excusing bad art so easily? It’s not provocative art, it’s not doing anything, at all, besides attempting to transgress and failing. When someone, in their pursuit of art, takes risks towards offense, towards moral grayness, and their art fails, and fails badly, they have to accept the consequences of that. I’m actually quite willing to make the argument that bad art, bad art in this manner, is actually morally reprehensible. Yelling, Art!, isn’t an excuse from all morals, that’s a poor conception or art and art’s pursuits.
I think there is a vast difference between creating a work of art about something horrible, such as Nazism or pedophilia, and using images of those things just to shock. Lolita is great art that deals with pedophilia; Austerlitz is great art that deals with Nazis. That is much different than putting on a Nazi uniform and dancing, hoping someone will be outraged. The problem is that things that shock us stop shocking us over time. People on television used to not be able to be shown sharing a bed, even if married. We, as a culture, get used to things. Some things we should not get used to. If we use Nazi imagry lightly, it will lose its power to shock by losing its real meaning.
No one here is saying art can’t do what art needs to do to be great. No one here is suggesting that this video is really saying that Nazis are okay. But the problem is that while people are free to make bad art, in certain ways that can have a profound negative effect on our culture. I am one who believes that art is powerful and has an effect that is real, but it works both ways. Art can harm. I’m not even necessarily saying that this video is the terrible thing that is going to ruin life, just that it is possible. Yes, people are always going to try to be provocative. Fine. But just shocking and just outraging are not enough. It doesn’t even really qualify as art to me if there isn’t something intelligent and moral behind it.
(Also, let me say, though I may disagree with some of you, I am enjoying this discussion and the fact that everyone is being very thoughtful and nice. So, I hope no one takes personal offense to anything I am saying, or my bad spelling.)
Mans,
I could continue thoughtfully responding to things, because even as I agree with you, there are other things to say, to add, but all I really want to say is this.
Austerlitz=Forever yes. Sebald=all of the upvotes. Read the rest if you haven’t already, and if you enjoyed Austerlitz for its style as well as content, check out Thomas Bernhard if you haven’t.
And yeah, as for the way the dialoug here is going, I love it. I think Videogum is the only place on the Internet I’ve gotten frustrated during this type of discussion in the way that I get frustrated with real life friends, or how I used to in classes. No shifting goal posts! No straw men! No straw men playing goalie in a goal with shifting posts!
Thanks Mans – no personal offense taken here – I hope that’s the case with everyone on this thread. I’m not trying to champion Lady Gaga, Nazism as fetish, or any other specific artisistic expression here. I haven’t actually even seen this video as it’s blocked by the firewall I’m currently on (for ad filtering, not for artistic content).
But to the point, defending or excusing what we’re all agreeing for the sake of argument is “bad’ art is entirely the point. Art is “good” or “bad” and “succeeds” or “fails” based on the intentions of the artist and the perceptions of the observer. It’s entirely subjective. You’ve just cited an example of what you consider “good nazi art”. You can’t say this subject is off limits unless you do it well, because that statement assumes that a) good and bad are objective and that b) the artist is entirely aware and in control of the effect of a finished piece of art before they create it. Neither of these assumptions is valid. The responsibility for the interpretation of a piece of art is on the audience, not on the artist.
Question to the group – do you feel that Sarah Silverman’s jokes about Nazis and the Holocaust have the same densitizing effect?
Lew, I wish you would answer my question.
Also, I think the question of whether the art is “good” or “bad” is really beside the point. Even if it was beautiful [I think this video is] and meaningful [I don't think this video is], the fact that it is USING the horrible suffering of real live people for whatever purpose beyond education and commentary is reprehensible, because it cheapens that suffering by making it about sex or about beauty or about art. And the Holocaust is about none of those things, and to put it in that context is to mitigate that suffering and make it seem less than what it is.
If the question you want me to answer is “…why you think it’s okay to use something horrible [like Nazism] in art…” I think I’ve already answered it. I think it’s okay to use anything you want to in art, barring actually directly harming someone (snuff films, child pornography, etc.). Using Nazi imagery is not the same thing as being a Nazi. I disagree with the assertions made in this thread that because a piece of art is bad, or cheap, or disgusting, or whatever other subjective conclusions we draw about it, that the artist is “morally reprehensible”. See: Lenny Bruce, George Carlin, Sex Pistols, GG Allin, People vs. Larry Flynt, all horror films, etc.
Regarding Gaga and this video in particular (again, I haven’t seen it) you presume that the objective is cheap titillation. I’d suggest that Lady Gaga’s artistic objective may be broader than you’ve given her credit for.
Then again, maybe not.
PT: I’ve read three of Sebald’s four novels. I am saving the Emigrants on purpose becuase he is dead and there aren’t going to be more to read later. It is like my last jelly bean. I haven’t read any Bernhard, but I have Frost on my to be read stack.
Lew: I think you have good and interesting points. I am not sure that I agree or disagree. I think I have to think about this some, but by the time I’ve done that, no one will be reading this, so perhaps we will take the topic up on another post–probably one having to do with Kesha.
As for Sarah Silverman, I haven’t seen enough of her stand up to know how I feel. Certainly there is a large and popular world of intentionally offensive/off-color humor and I think that it is a very delicate and complex issue. There is lots that I like, there is lots that I don’t. It seems to me that where the humor is a critique of ignorance and intolerance in our society, it is pretty good (the Chappelle Show for example); where it is just an excuse to offend or actually just get away with being racist, it is very bad (Jeff Dunham). I don’t know where Sarah Silverman would shake out in this. From what I’ve seen, it seems to be offensive just for the shock of what she is saying, rather than having a larger purpose behind it, but I don’t really know well enough to say.
You know what, Lew? I think we’re just going to have to agree to disagree. I’m baffled at your moral stance, and you obviously don’t agree with me. I know this is Videogum and we’re all friends here, but I can’t pretend that I think better of you now. Maybe you’d feel different if you had more personal connections to the Holocaust.
By your measure, any sort of art is beyond reproach morally because of its status as a work of art. A movie that exploits gross homosexual stereotypes is just a bad movie. And a music video that depicts Nazism as sexy is just a lame movie.
I really don’t know what to say to you at this point.
Lew,
You’ve contradicted yourself within a single paragraph, first allowing artist’s intention to matter in interpretation, then wanting to dismiss it. I’m all for dismissing it. The artist’s intent has nothing to do with art being good or bad or failing or succeeding. You’ve also set up a common, but false, choice between only objective or only subjective. Yes, interpretation, reaction to art is subjective, but there are limits. You can’t watch something like this and make a valid interpretation that it is about puppy adoption (we wouldn’t be having this conversation if you could, and we’d all be happier, because of puppies), you have to work with what it gives you, and this gives you little besides excelent cinematography, assault, and imagery of Latin American military dictatorships (I want to refuse the strangehold that Nazis have on anything bad). I also never said that any subject was off limits, only that there are consequences to failure. Art, images, don’t exist in a vacuum, so when we watch this, not only are we relating it to the horrors of the past that it is exploiting, we also work it against other, simliar works (yay intertextuality), and that’s really where the failure comes in. It’s set against works that have done something other than exploit, it’s set against much more complex works of art, works that have more to interpret than use of facist, genoicidal, harmful imagery mixed with forceful, violent sexuality, and that is what lets it fall to being bad art, with the consequence of being morally reprehensible.
Lew,
You’re folding back in on yourself now. I never said anything about cheap or disgusting, and all the people you’ve listed wouldn’t fall into bad art, as they are much, much more complex than this unoriginal, simple video that leaves little room for interpretation. And then you return to wanting to use the artist’s intent as something that matters. I don’t care what Gaga’s objective was here, if she had one greater than what Napoleaon and I (and possibly Mans, but I don’t want to speak for him) interpret.
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I don’t think I’ve contradicted myself. I only brought the intentions of the artist back into the discussion once we got onto the idea of art being successful or failing. I’m not sure how you define success or failure without reference to intent. Any act is successful if it meets its objective. In that sense, you can’t define art as a success or failure unless you consider the artist’s intent. At the risk of giving Lady Gaga too much credit here, I could surmise that her intent is to instigate discussion on the nature of what is or isn’t art. Were that to be the case, one could argue that her art has succeeded as evidenced by this thread.
As far as good and bad are concerned, yeah, artistic intent is pretty much irrelevant there – that’s going to be left entirely to the observer.
Napoleon Complex, I am sorry if I’ve personally offended you. I know that you are discussing this particular image, this particular piece of “art”, and the specific, personal relationship you have to it. I don’t mean to disparrage that at all or to suggest your feelings are “wrong”. I approached this discussion in a general sense, a theoretical sense (again – HAVE NOT SEEN THE VIDEO) and you’ve underscored the fact that for all of the philosophical positions on the subject, art DOES have a powerful ability to strike directly at personal experience and provoke reaction. I understand that this video upsets you and why it upsets you. I guess I’m just defending an artist’s right to upset people. I attempted to do so respectfully.
As to the question of moral reprehensibility, ptsmith_vt, you raise a valid point about incorporating hate speech, racial/sexual/social sterotypes and the like into art. Can art hurt people? It’s a powerful question and one that’s not easily answered. You also make a good point that even if an artist is free to incorporate what they want into their art, that there can be consequences. The recent rash of cartoonists receiving death threats for depicting Muhammed has underscored that point.
So what’s my conclusion? I guess I still tend toward the belief that artists have the right of expression, and if in the course of that expression, they offend people, it doesn’t change the fact that they have the right. This is a free speech arguement at this point as much as anything else. Whether or not they’re morally reprehensible? I’m not sure how to answer that. I think that’s a subjective position as well. I can agree that artistic expression can and does have consequences, and that the artist bears responsibility for those consequences, but how do you measure “societal desensitization” and/or how could you put any measure of that effect on an indivudal artist or work of art? What consequences should/will Lady Gaga face for this video?
Lew, the difference here is that I am arguing that it is morally wrong to exploit Holocaust symbolism and you are arguing that it isn’t. This is a free country, and an artist may choose to offend people if he or she wishes.
I’m not arguing that we should censor works of art, I’m arguing that it is wrong to exploit [and I mean exploit, not use] other peoples’ suffering for any reason, especially something so shallow as a pop music video.
I don’t really know how or why you would disagree with that.
Fair enough NC. I respect you and your opinions. I’ve stated mine in the above. I’ll watch the video later and see if it raises any additional thoughts, otherwise we’ve probably run this one into the ground.
I truly did not at any point mean to belittle your feelings, offend anyone, or make this a personal attack. Just pontificating on the nature of art and taboo.
I realize I’m pretty late to this party, and there have probably been a bunch of new posts since I started writing this, but here’s my thoughts:
NC: I’m also Jewish, have family members who have died in the Holocaust, and have visited several concentration camps in Poland and seen first-hand the horrors of WWII. However, I lean towards Lew’s point of view, which is that though Nazi references are already tired and no longer shocking, there is nothing morally reprehensible about the use of them. If we shouted “GENOCIDE!” and “SUFFERING!” every time someone appropriated a symbol, we certainly wouldn’t have Thanksgiving or Hawaiian luaus. I think it’s a fine line between justifiable and icky appropriation, but one that some artists manage to skirt fairly well. Personally, I don’t think Gaga has said anything original in this video, but that doesn’t necessarily mean this is “bad art” (I’m on Lew’s side that there’s no such thing).
Re: Sarah Silverman: I think it makes a big difference that she is Jewish and has her own connections to the Holocaust and jokes about it with a certain air of satire. At the same time, some of her jokes make me uncomfortable and I don’t find them particularly funny. (But some of her jokes are hilarious! Jesus is magic!) Her positionality as a Jew is important, though, something Lady Gaga lacks, giving her little credence to appropriate symbols to which she can claim no connection.
I know this conversation is basically over, but I just wanted to add that I just watched the video and….umm…it is incredibly tame. Really. After all of this, I was really expecting something super over the top, like a dude in a Hitler mustache going down on Lady Gaga atop Brandenburg Gate or something, but nothing even close. I was willing to concede some degree of artistic responsibility for trying to profit from exploiting victims of genocide, but I see nothing even remotely approaching moral reprehension here. Just a lame, boring video with dudes in leather outfits, that do resemble Nazi couture, but I don’t even think the Nazi own that look anymore.
Sorry, NC, again, all due respect, but I do have to agree to disagree.
I don’t really have anything else to say besides this whole thing made me nauseous and I’m going to go cry in to a pillow now.
PS Thanks for having this conversation with me, guys.
Hmm.
While I can see some justification to your reaction to Nazi-fetishization in general, I am at a loss as to the indignation towards this video in particular.
I feel like the production design behind this video is more strongly co-opting both a Franco-era Spain version of facism and a diluted version of gay culture’s leather attachment – both of which seem a pretty good fit to the song and Gaga’s audience. Apart from the obvious religious/sexual debt it owes to Madonna’s most “controversial” videos, a big tip of the hat needs to be directed toward the whole Tom Of Finland catalog.
And then there are those Moe cuts.
And the Spanx.
And the London Bobby’s hat.
And Ace of Base.
And ABBA.
And Andrea True.
Lady Gaga has a picture of something Jewish in her wallet. Sexy Jewish.
NICE.
Really? With the downvotes? Fuck anyone who downvoted anyone in this part of the thread, including Lew. When there’s a serious discussion, and it’s really well-mannered and even productive, if you aren’t contributing, downvoting is sorta pathetic and encourages people from participating.
Lew, you are contradicting yourself, either artist’s intent matters or it doesn’t. Lord of the Rings succeeds as a World War II parable regardless of the fact that Tolkien denies it is. And then, as you admit, the video is lame and tame, so appropriation of Nazi, or Latin American, or Franco facism is just pathetic, and in its being pathetic, that much more offensive because it serves no purpose other than to try to offend, transgress, whatever, and nothing else, and it fails really even at that.
MY personal feeling is that Gaga ONLY thinks of the leather and the military uniforms and can’t even ASSOCIATE it in any sort of historical context. She’s just a stupid Gen-Xer (?) who probably only associates Hilter and the Third Reich as something very, very evil (without really knowing what it was all about) and therefore endeavoring to make it into something very, very naughty. And there you have your taboo.
I was raised as a child to be proud of my German heritage. Then in my sophomore year in high school, my English teacher introduced a film (I’m sorry I cannot remember the name…. I really wish I could) that was about the Holocaust and was beyond vivid and disturbing…. I am at a loss to explain what I felt while watching and how I felt afteward. My father was a History teacher, and I knew (like Gaga, I am supposing) that Hitler and his regime was evil, but it took a certain English teacher to have the balls to pose this film to his class, which he KNEW was crammed full of German Americans to open my eyes and frankly, cry very hard tears of pain over that which I was not entirely aware of and how then my feelings of being German had changed. I think this (of myself and of Lady Gaga) is a clear case of “ignorance is bliss”. But on my part, not that it really matters to this thread, to WWII, to the Holocaust of so many Jews and Poles, or to anything really, I prefer to be informed, even if I sat sadly disallusioned with a Kleenex in my hand as I wept for that which I had not known……
What’s Spanish for “coma-inducing”?
inducir el coma
Needs more Skarsgard.
Hello young girl, could I interest you in a banana?
And this is where I realize you said Skarsgard, not Sarsgaard. Bah.
Scandinaviangum.com today!
(@kingmaker…your misunderstanding made this 1000x more hilarious to me. You should consider misunderstanding more things!)
It’s a very welcomed, very hilarious mistake. I wish you could have seen my face as it faded from excited to horrified.
Here we go, Pop Quiz Kid…
Wait, what? D’OH.
I still use the “[blank] called and they want their [blank] back” ALL THE TIME. It’s usually when I’m drunk & extra-snarky, and I tend to follow it up with hysterical laughter because that shit never gets old.
agreed. my italian catholic blood loves this.
that was suppose to be a reply to the comment under this one. I lose.
haters they gon hate. i can get behind anything with rosary-swallowing. that’s what i like.
Yes. My Italian-Catholic blood loves this.
You know what would’ve really classed-up this video?
This guy.
Lady Gaga’s inbox also has a message from Moe from the Three Stooges asking for his haircut back! Lady Gaga, you are so bad at returning your friends’ things!
Best part was surely the last minute or so when the muscled up model-dancers ripped off her outfit to feign shock at her breasts.
joey heatherton doing liza moves in a halston pantsuit. i’m guessing alejandro is her coke dealer?
I didn’t watch this video, because I just do not believe that the world needs to take 8-1/2 minutes of their precious time for this song.
That video is almost 9 minutes long? Seriously Lady Gaga? More like Lady Haha if you think I’m watching that crap for 9 minutes.
Scott Baio?
I never in my wildest dreams thought I would ever type this but…could someone make a gif of the dancing Moes doing the jerk-off pantomime?
“Coitanly!”
Lady Ga Ga, Dr. Steve Brule called. He wants his make up back
http://s3.amazonaws.com/twitpic/photos/large/112652778.gif?AWSAccessKeyId=0ZRYP5X5F6FSMBCCSE82&Expires=1276021735&Signature=tzJUwIJXuI5CQ%2FRLkqtFf%2FC8DAM%3D
Oh god GIF fail…
Murder is the new Homage.
i’m old and i don’t really keep on top of the conversations that the kids are having these days, but i can say that my mom, who is outrageously old, made a lady gaga joke TWO MONTHS AGO. i took that as a pretty solid indicator that lady gaga was not, in fact, the subject of the conversation these days.
What really shows your age is the fact that you still think liking the same thing as your mom is uncool. Cause it’s the coolest.
Hey Lady Gaga’s dancers, Moe from the Three Stooges called and he wants his hair back.
I can’t believe Madonna & Interview Magazine blatantly ripped off Gaga:
http://www.looptvandfilm.com/blog/img-may-2010-cover_11071526732.jpg_issuethumb
aw jeez, someday i’ll learn how to post pix like the cool kidz do…
I just think it’s admirable how Lady Gaga has managed to build an entire career solely on having a face that can hold inordinate amounts of makeup.
Like A Prayer
Express Yourself
Vogue
I prefer Madonna’s versions, honestly. But this video is nice to look at.
This guy also called. Mainly to apologize that this picture is so big.
soooo gay. awesome.
I’m so confused. Wasn’t it only last week that we chastised that nutjob who said all Nazis were homosexuals?
The video reminds me of Madonna. No wait, Janet Jackson. No…Christina Aguilera. On second thought, Kylie Minogue. And the song really reminds me of Abba, or Ace of Base…no wait, Madonna – La Isla Bonita meets Who’s That Girl.
Everything in the world can be compared to everything else. “Only Cannibalism unites us.”
Rammstein called…they want their everything back.
Tom Jayne called. He just wants his kids back.
upvotes forever.
So, I convinced my company to use this song in an ad campaign for a major clothing brand. For preteens.
I am so fired. Yep, fired.
At some point she is going to look at herself in the mirror and say “what have I been doing for the past few years? Oh my god…my pores!” and I’ll be there, arms crossed and with holding facial wipes.
I am sincerely looking forward to Lady Gaga’s “Evita.”
I also like to add that Alejandro looks like Louie Anderson.
Who cares!! Great spam!
During the machine gun bra bit, Miss GaGa has a Karen O haircut, but in the color of Claire L. Evans’ (from YACHT)hair. One would think that since Karen O and Claire are my favorite lady musicians their amazing hair mixed together like this would be bitchin….It’s not though, not at all.
I watched this twice and that’s all I could think about. That and those men’s hair.
You can make it up: ‘Lady Gaga Weird for Gay People Too’