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Lady Gaga v Camille Paglia

Sep 11, 2010#1

Espy

Lady Gaga and the death of sex | The Sunday Times

Some choice parts from Paglia deconstruction of Gaga:

Although she presents herself as the clarion voice of all the freaks and misfits of life, there is little evidence that she ever was one. Her upbringing was comfortable and eventually affluent, and she attended the same upscale Manhattan private school as Paris and Nicky Hilton. There is a monumental disconnect between Gaga’s melodramatic self-portrayal as a lonely, rebellious, marginalised artist and the powerful corporate apparatus that bankrolled her makeover and has steamrollered her songs into heavy rotation on radio stations everywhere.

Lady Gaga is a manufactured personality, and a recent one at that. Photos of Stefani Germanotta just a few years ago show a bubbly brunette with a glowing complexion. The Gaga of world fame, however, with her heavy wigs and giant sunglasses (rudely worn during interviews) looks either simperingly doll-like or ghoulish, without a trace of spontaneity. Every public appearance, even absurdly at airports where most celebrities want to pass incognito, has been lavishly scripted in advance with a flamboyant outfit and bizarre hairdo assembled by an invisible company of elves.

Gaga has borrowed so heavily from Madonna (as in her latest video-Alejandro) that it must be asked, at what point does homage become theft? However, the main point is that the young Madonna was on fire. She was indeed the imperious Marlene Dietrich’s true heir. For Gaga, sex is mainly decor and surface; she’s like a laminated piece of ersatz rococo furniture. Alarmingly, Generation Gaga can’t tell the difference. Is it the death of sex? Perhaps the symbolic status that sex had for a century has gone kaput; that blazing trajectory is over…

Gaga seems comet-like, a stimulating burst of novelty, even though she is a ruthless recycler of other people’s work. She is the diva of déjà vu. Gaga has glibly appropriated from performers like Cher, Jane Fonda as Barbarella, Gwen Stefani and Pink, as well as from fashion muses like Isabella Blow and Daphne Guinness. Drag queens, whom Gaga professes to admire, are usually far sexier in many of her over-the-top outfits than she is.

Peeping dourly through all that tat is Gaga’s limited range of facial expressions. Her videos repeatedly thrust that blank, lugubrious face at the camera and us; it’s creepy and coercive. Marlene and Madonna gave the impression, true or false, of being pansexual. Gaga, for all her writhing and posturing, is asexual. Going off to the gym in broad daylight, as Gaga recently did, dressed in a black bustier, fishnet stockings and stiletto heels isn’t sexy – it’s sexually dysfunctional.

And finally:

Gaga's fans are marooned in a global technocracy of fancy gadgets but emotional poverty. Borderlines have been blurred between public and private: reality TV shows multiply, cell phone conversations blare everywhere; secrets are heedlessly blabbed on Facebook and Twitter. Hence, Gaga gratuitously natters on about her vagina…

So... I get the feeling Paglia doesn't care for her... I'd love to hear what Charlie thinks about it him being the resident uber-fan. Is she merely a poor reconstruction of elements of other peoples hard work via the record companies as Paglia asserts or is she truly the artist and generational leader she portrays?
What say you halforums?

Sep 11, 2010#2

The Lovely Boehner

I really don't over-analyze Gaga. It's still super awesome to me.

Sep 11, 2010#3

drifter

I've never considered Lady Gaga as being anything more than a well-crafted pop fabrication, so I guess I'm rolling with Paglia on this. To be fair though, I've not given Lady Gaga much more than cursory attention.

Sep 11, 2010#4

AshburnerX

I don't think this person understands that Lady Gaga is supposed to be a parody of the manufactured artist, not a sincere attempt to BE one. Everything she does is exaggerated to the extreme, past the levels of mere obnoxiousness and into the realm of Cartoonishness, in order to get the average public to understand that this is what music has become... a shallow, unnatural beast that cares nothing for soul and originality, but only of profit and mass market appeal. That artists no longer have the true sincerity that they once did, having long ago sold their souls in the name of popularity and fame.

The problem is that she has grossly over-estimated her audience's intelligence and that they are taking her at face value. If they weren't, the record companies wouldn't be throwing so much fucking money her way.

Sep 12, 2010#5

Shegokigo

Really? I thought she was popular cause her music is annoyingly catchy as hell.

Sep 12, 2010#6

Philosopher B.

(rudely worn during interviews)

Lol, the minute I read this I looked up this Paglia person on Wikipedia. 'Born 1947'.

One thing I'll agree with Paglia on, is I get tired of everyone acting as though LG is the first female pop star to wear crazy outfits and shit ... if she wore a swan dress, people'd think she was the first. There's not much that's new or original in pop.

Sep 12, 2010#7

Officer_Charon

Shegokigo said:
Really? I thought she was popular cause her music is annoyingly catchy as hell.

BOOM! Headshot!

Sep 12, 2010#8

The Lovely Boehner

I like Gaga's music more than the performance artist aspect of her.

Sep 12, 2010#9

Hailey Knight

This reeks of an article wanting to be controversial, when I doubt anyone's going to care to disagree. Of course Lady Gaga is a manufactured persona--does the writer actually believe most flamboyant celebrities are spontaneous? That seems to be the kind of mentality as seeing someone with messy hair and clothing who looks good, not realizing this is crafted to look messy and good, and that is why slobs who roll out of bed thinking they can do the same cannot.

It's all an act. That was pretty obvious.

And what's with the "death of sex" thing? She never explains the meaning she feels is disappearing due to Lady Gaga and her fans' generation.

Sep 12, 2010#10

Silver Jelly

I like the parody perspective, and it's the prism through wich I have always looked at her persona, and her songs are very catchy. What else would I want?

Sep 12, 2010#11

SpecialKO

I'm confused as to why the author of this article seems to think Madonna's stage persona wasn't manufactured.

I get the impression that LG is going for a "theater of the absurd" approach to of music, what Ionesco called "showing the strings" when it was applied to theater. It's just that a) people aren't noticing the strings, because b) even in this day and age, people primarily listen to, not watch, music.

Sep 12, 2010#12

DarkAudit

I'd never heard of Lady Gaga until I saw her Dale Bozzio ripoff Rolling Stone cover last year. Now I can't go two minutes without her name popping up everywhere.

Do a Hustler shoot and the circle will be complete.

Sep 12, 2010#13

Ravenpoe

Honestly? That article just strikes me as an old person rambling about how much better she thinks things were in the past.

Sep 12, 2010#14

Dieb

I've read a little of Camille Pagilia, and quite frankly I dislike her quite a bit. She makes great big pronouncements about how bad the present is that not only have no evidence to back them up, but quite frankly become absurd when you think about them in any depth. For example:

"Generation Gaga doesn’t identify with powerful vocal styles because their own voices have atrophied: they communicate mutely via a constant stream of atomised, telegraphic text messages. Gaga’s flat affect doesn’t bother them because they’re not attuned to facial expressions."

Seriously? SERIOUSLY? I mean, I don't particularly like text messages either, but people don't "identify with powerful vocal styles" because of TEXTING? That statement is a parody of itself. And she doesn't think young people are "attuned to facial expressions"? Does she think everyone under the age of 30 has never met another person? I mean, this is taking the idea of people spend too much time on the internet and going to a crazy extreme. People learn facial expressions in their first year, for god's sake.

Anyway, I do dislike Lady Gaga, but let's not pretend that there is anything new about her, even her unoriginality is not new. Every generation has catchy songs that have no depth, they are quickly forgotten due to the fact that they suck. But because they are forgotten, the next generation's hacks are treated as somehow worse than the preceding generation's. Very silly.

Sep 12, 2010#15

Rob King

escushion said:
And what's with the "death of sex" thing? She never explains the meaning she feels is disappearing due to Lady Gaga and her fans' generation.

I think the death of sex thing is supposed to mean "death of sex as a means of female empowerment" although I'm admittedly taking that from a very limited context.

Sep 12, 2010#16

Hailey Knight

Amorous Eyes said:
She was offered and accepted this role, most likely not even realizing just how far it could potentially go. But they pay her well to maintain the act and if she can keep her fame for at least a few more years she can retire "Gaga" and do whatever the hell she wants.

Her songs are still catchy though.

I'd rather she did stuff like pre-Gaga. So the sooner she gets that level of wealth, the better.

Sep 12, 2010#17

Element 117

I just cannot get past the image of Hipster Espy reading Paglia.

Sep 12, 2010#18

Espy

PCT said:
I just cannot get past the image of Hipster Espy reading Paglia.

It was done in a totally post-ironic way.

Sep 13, 2010#19

Calleja

Wait, what's post-ironic? What comes after irony? Poignancy? You read it in a poignant way?

Sep 13, 2010#20

sixpackshaker

I wish I could find the old articles of Gaga's outlandish clothes being a direct copy of several European Fashion models and pop singers from the 80's. But alas, my Google-Fu is week.

Sep 13, 2010#21

sixpackshaker

Roisin Murphy Knows That Lady GaGa’s Imitation Is In Fact Flattery | Music News, Reviews, and Gossip on Idolator.com

No, more literal theft.

Sep 13, 2010#22

Disconnected

her music and persona has always reminded me of annie lennox not madonna.

Sep 13, 2010#23

strawman

Amorous Eyes said:
Gaga has a pretty face

Her face is, at best, average. There's something a little off about it such that I suspect she is very careful to present her "best side" whenever cameras are near.

She is good at what she does, no more, no less. I doubt she or her work will become timeless, and as such she is only an artist inasmuch as it remains profitable for her. She's smart, though, so I doubt she'll burn out.

Sep 14, 2010#24

Cajungal

Rob King;436437][QUOTE=escushion said:
And what's with the "death of sex" thing? She never explains the meaning she feels is disappearing due to Lady Gaga and her fans' generation.

I think the death of sex thing is supposed to mean "death of sex as a means of female empowerment" although I'm admittedly taking that from a very limited context.[/QUOTE]

I think you're right about that. But really... If I panicked every time a woman in the entertainment business tried to make sex empowering and turned out to be obnoxious/awkward, I'd never have a relaxing moment.

Sep 14, 2010#25

Ravenpoe

You mean sex isn't supposed to be obnoxiously awkward?

Sep 14, 2010#26

Silver Jelly

Ravenpoe said:
You mean sex isn't supposed to be obnoxiously awkward?

And something that you only see being done by women in the entertainment business?

Sep 14, 2010#27

Cajungal

Silver Jelly;436931][QUOTE=Ravenpoe said:
You mean sex isn't supposed to be obnoxiously awkward?

And something that you only see being done by women in the entertainment business?[/QUOTE]

:laugh: Nope. I see it every time a girl on facebook posts another stupid "kissy face" picture with her girlfriends.

Sep 14, 2010#28