(Here's another entertaining post where I explode about something stupid. I'm putting in my further opinions in this grey color so those who want to just read the main stuff without getting sidelined can. And sideline I shall likely do a lot of.)
I'm usually pretty good about keeping things that fall under "rants relating to personal taste" on the DL, but as an artist I gotta say something about the shit-storm that is Lady Gaga. Because I feel entitled. Because everyone else feels entitled. Mainly, because she feels entitled.
Lets just end the mystery up front: I've never been a fan. I understand her beginnings in the queer club scene and I suppose I should give her props just for that on a shared level of some sort. But really, she just really rubs me the wrong way. Yeah, she's beautiful and 'a fashion rebel' and all that extra jazz, but-- here, lemme just start off with this:
There are a few things that I will give Lady Gaga. One, she's got a real knack for advertising. Not really for advertising anything of worth, but for pushing herself out there and really make everyone pay attention to her if they like her or not. She's like a cross between a "witty" religious bumper sticker and one of those kids whose diet consists largely of blue-colored candy who races around the playground hitting kids and making weird noises to make up for lack of receiving proper attention at home. And unfortunately, I tend to have a deep hate for both.
Two, I will give her that her fashion is out there. Not good or bad, just out there. While I do consider myself an admirer of world fashion and have subscriptions to a lot of feeds and paper magazines, I don't consider myself personally 'fasionable', so the following statement should be taken with that in mind: LG's fashion choices seem to be a combination of meth-addict and low self-esteem, a clear result of people being (a) afraid to tell her that she looks like an idiot and (b) what friends she does have enjoying the quiet, airy schädenfreude of watching her go out in public without any sort of filter. Perhaps that's the part of high fashion I don't get: that moment where one feels gutsy enough to remove the filter and say 'this is art, this is what I will do to leave my impression on the world!' Well...
color me unimpressed.
Here's why I finally decided to bring this up:
Half of my blogs and another equal amount of magazines I read have their collective bits 'aquiver over LG, and I'm honestly not sure why. Her vocal tenor is not well trained or impressive, the ides of 'singer turned high fashion icon' is not a new idea (hello, entire 1980s?), shes being lauded (and, as would go with the advertising thing i said above) lauding herself as some kind of feminist icon. Also, as more of an annoyance than a real issue, I can't read through a goddamn RSS feed or "top100 images of the day" without there being an infinite amount of the same stale tribute to "OMFG SHE'S SO AMAZING!1" (FYI: riding on her ever-shortening coat-tails by making free animated LJ-icon gifs of her videos is not fanart. its copyright infringement. Its bad enough every other picture is some teenage girl with self esteem issues trussed up with her titties out so she can score some pageviews. Don't make me wade through 40 more pages of Gaga, too.) I can, to a degree, understand the whole "i was a weird kid, a total freak in high school" (weren't we all? isnt that the point of High School, to be an outcast and start the long, arduous task of figuring out what the fuck to make of it?) or even the "im a misunderstood artist" (sure you are. with millions of fans and a cool est. $25M net worth). But don't tell me you're a feminist icon, that you're somehow supposed to be someone I look up to in the closing of the gender divide. Don't act like dressing in nothing is not you getting off on yourself and the millions of male fans you have, that it's somehow all in the interest of Gen-Y feminism and empowering young girls (to be what? thin, attractive, young white women with 10+ advertising contracts? Yeah, wow. really pushing that envelope there. Here's my money. No, please, you deserve it more than I do...) and being 'quirky'. No. You're selling a product. You are selling yourself, attention-driven pretty young starlet with a singing contract. Don't kid yourself into anything different, there is too much proof against you. What proof? well, lets just dig right in.
The reason I avoided watching ANY of her videos until 10 minutes ago when I figured it would be good to see them once (and thus, cement my feelings further) was because with the amount of stills and advertisements and animated gifs, i'd really already seen them all and there was not much more to be impressed about. I've heard her music in passing, and I've even heard 'telephone' and 'video phone' and 'bad romance' all the way through. Again: not impressed. The vocal integrity was not good (save for Beyoncé, which made it a little better), the lyrics were trite, and save for a few fun things they did with the chord progressions, it wasn't any pop song I hadn't heard a million times before. And I grew up in the fucking 90s, so I know (shitty) pop music to a 'T'. What annoys me about all of her videos (after having seen them once, i guess..) is that its written under the guise of being empowering and cutting edge and 'grindhouse-esque' without all of the irony, but it isn't: It's a bunch of half naked women (nothing new, also very 1990s/2000s), kissing up on each other (..for the male audience. I like women and I sure wasn't feeling anything but anger, even when there were women I personally found attractive), with a loosely contrived storyline about how the lyrics were empowering them to take a shitty situation and make it better:
"You like my body? I'll dance for your camera phone but only because I feel like it. I wanna watch you squirm, little man!"
Uh, so you're using your sexuality to bait someone and then getting pissed when it comes back on you negatively? Oh, wait, no... You just wanted to go out at the club and dance but now you're getting guy's attention and you're acting like you're doing them a favor by giving them exactly what they want? Oh wait,... no! I got it!... I guess this one was actually on Beyoncé. Girl, I know you can do better than this shit.
"I'm dancing at the club, don't call me while i'm here just having a night out! shit, why do you have to be so possessive?"
Then turn your phone off. When I was in college and I went out to bars, I couldn't hear my phone because I was tipsy and the music was loud. And If I had it on me, it was on silent anyway. problem solved. Also: Quintin Tarantino's films are probably not what you want to copy if you're looking for a pro-female message.
I was going to write something about 'bad romance', but other than it being a "I like snuff imagery! Holy fuck, there's some android people over there! WHEE, MONEY!" I couldn't really figure out what the song was supposed to be about. If it is what some people are saying its about online, again... how is this at all feminism? "You're an abusive asshole but I need you anyway?" yeah, i know that situation SO more than I need to, but what made me regain power from it was actively calling the other person out and ending the relationship/friendship. not begging like a wounded puppy in some co-dependent stupor about how 'we'll make it work... i can change you!"
I think the magazines and the blogs have to do what is in their interests: bring in the top polarizing stories to rake in some cash and get people talking, but why is this woman getting the Sarah Palin treatment (as was given from the Right)? I ask myself, 'If she's really so small and silly to you, why does it matter? is it actual hate? jealousy? sadness?" Maybe its all of those things - Anger over the fact that she's falsely advertising herself under a banner she only flies under as an ironic parody (and ironic parody is associated with hipsters, if if there's one thing I hate more than total conservative wing-nuts its hipsters), jealousy that someone younger than me has made millions off of something I could've done if I was 30 lbs lighter and had more ego (Grapefruit and Hoodia diet, here I come!), sadness that she doesn't seem to realize that she's fallen for her own advertising.
Lady Gaga is not in the soft, white underbelly of the cultural underground. She is not 'misunderstood,' as she makes it quite unable to misunderstand her from the millions of interviews shes always doing. Lady Gaga is not a victim of a world who does not understand her. Lady Gaga is a victim of herself. And now that a year or so into her reign people are finally starting to tire of her as well, hopefully they will get sick of her vaudeville act and move on. It's not that im interested in watching Lady Gaga fall -- i'm not, by the way. Far from it. -- It's that I'm not interested in watching Lady Gaga. And I'd appreciate if the Mass Media respected that.
Me being angry about this isn't going to change anything, and I'm sure I scare people away with posts like these (and give credit to the 'all feminists are just angry and boy don't they just love to complain about shit' trolls), but it is super frustrating to watch the equivalent of Andy Warhol v2.0 (another long rant, I assure you) and realize that instead of the joke being on all the poor assholes who took ready-made fame to be some sort of shiny new art messiah, the public is playing the joke on her but no one has told her yet. I think women should be able to hustle however they damn-well please, but to do it under the guise of something it isn't is not only saying "I disrespect my fans", its also saying "I disrespect myself." And she shouldn't have to be resorting to that tired shit. (Or, maybe the jokes' on me and she realized people are idiots and will flock to any new thing and shes taking advantage of that. In which case, why isn't she working in-- ohh.)
I'm usually pretty good about keeping things that fall under "rants relating to personal taste" on the DL, but as an artist I gotta say something about the shit-storm that is Lady Gaga. Because I feel entitled. Because everyone else feels entitled. Mainly, because she feels entitled.
Lets just end the mystery up front: I've never been a fan. I understand her beginnings in the queer club scene and I suppose I should give her props just for that on a shared level of some sort. But really, she just really rubs me the wrong way. Yeah, she's beautiful and 'a fashion rebel' and all that extra jazz, but-- here, lemme just start off with this:
There are a few things that I will give Lady Gaga. One, she's got a real knack for advertising. Not really for advertising anything of worth, but for pushing herself out there and really make everyone pay attention to her if they like her or not. She's like a cross between a "witty" religious bumper sticker and one of those kids whose diet consists largely of blue-colored candy who races around the playground hitting kids and making weird noises to make up for lack of receiving proper attention at home. And unfortunately, I tend to have a deep hate for both.
Two, I will give her that her fashion is out there. Not good or bad, just out there. While I do consider myself an admirer of world fashion and have subscriptions to a lot of feeds and paper magazines, I don't consider myself personally 'fasionable', so the following statement should be taken with that in mind: LG's fashion choices seem to be a combination of meth-addict and low self-esteem, a clear result of people being (a) afraid to tell her that she looks like an idiot and (b) what friends she does have enjoying the quiet, airy schädenfreude of watching her go out in public without any sort of filter. Perhaps that's the part of high fashion I don't get: that moment where one feels gutsy enough to remove the filter and say 'this is art, this is what I will do to leave my impression on the world!' Well...
Here's why I finally decided to bring this up:
Half of my blogs and another equal amount of magazines I read have their collective bits 'aquiver over LG, and I'm honestly not sure why. Her vocal tenor is not well trained or impressive, the ides of 'singer turned high fashion icon' is not a new idea (hello, entire 1980s?), shes being lauded (and, as would go with the advertising thing i said above) lauding herself as some kind of feminist icon. Also, as more of an annoyance than a real issue, I can't read through a goddamn RSS feed or "top100 images of the day" without there being an infinite amount of the same stale tribute to "OMFG SHE'S SO AMAZING!1" (FYI: riding on her ever-shortening coat-tails by making free animated LJ-icon gifs of her videos is not fanart. its copyright infringement. Its bad enough every other picture is some teenage girl with self esteem issues trussed up with her titties out so she can score some pageviews. Don't make me wade through 40 more pages of Gaga, too.) I can, to a degree, understand the whole "i was a weird kid, a total freak in high school" (weren't we all? isnt that the point of High School, to be an outcast and start the long, arduous task of figuring out what the fuck to make of it?) or even the "im a misunderstood artist" (sure you are. with millions of fans and a cool est. $25M net worth). But don't tell me you're a feminist icon, that you're somehow supposed to be someone I look up to in the closing of the gender divide. Don't act like dressing in nothing is not you getting off on yourself and the millions of male fans you have, that it's somehow all in the interest of Gen-Y feminism and empowering young girls (to be what? thin, attractive, young white women with 10+ advertising contracts? Yeah, wow. really pushing that envelope there. Here's my money. No, please, you deserve it more than I do...) and being 'quirky'. No. You're selling a product. You are selling yourself, attention-driven pretty young starlet with a singing contract. Don't kid yourself into anything different, there is too much proof against you. What proof? well, lets just dig right in.The reason I avoided watching ANY of her videos until 10 minutes ago when I figured it would be good to see them once (and thus, cement my feelings further) was because with the amount of stills and advertisements and animated gifs, i'd really already seen them all and there was not much more to be impressed about. I've heard her music in passing, and I've even heard 'telephone' and 'video phone' and 'bad romance' all the way through. Again: not impressed. The vocal integrity was not good (save for Beyoncé, which made it a little better), the lyrics were trite, and save for a few fun things they did with the chord progressions, it wasn't any pop song I hadn't heard a million times before. And I grew up in the fucking 90s, so I know (shitty) pop music to a 'T'. What annoys me about all of her videos (after having seen them once, i guess..) is that its written under the guise of being empowering and cutting edge and 'grindhouse-esque' without all of the irony, but it isn't: It's a bunch of half naked women (nothing new, also very 1990s/2000s), kissing up on each other (..for the male audience. I like women and I sure wasn't feeling anything but anger, even when there were women I personally found attractive), with a loosely contrived storyline about how the lyrics were empowering them to take a shitty situation and make it better:Uh, so you're using your sexuality to bait someone and then getting pissed when it comes back on you negatively? Oh, wait, no... You just wanted to go out at the club and dance but now you're getting guy's attention and you're acting like you're doing them a favor by giving them exactly what they want? Oh wait,... no! I got it!...
"I'm dancing at the club, don't call me while i'm here just having a night out! shit, why do you have to be so possessive?"
Then turn your phone off. When I was in college and I went out to bars, I couldn't hear my phone because I was tipsy and the music was loud. And If I had it on me, it was on silent anyway. problem solved. Also: Quintin Tarantino's films are probably not what you want to copy if you're looking for a pro-female message.
I was going to write something about 'bad romance', but other than it being a "I like snuff imagery! Holy fuck, there's some android people over there! WHEE, MONEY!" I couldn't really figure out what the song was supposed to be about. If it is what some people are saying its about online, again... how is this at all feminism? "You're an abusive asshole but I need you anyway?" yeah, i know that situation SO more than I need to, but what made me regain power from it was actively calling the other person out and ending the relationship/friendship. not begging like a wounded puppy in some co-dependent stupor about how 'we'll make it work... i can change you!"
I think the magazines and the blogs have to do what is in their interests: bring in the top polarizing stories to rake in some cash and get people talking, but why is this woman getting the Sarah Palin treatment (as was given from the Right)? I ask myself, 'If she's really so small and silly to you, why does it matter? is it actual hate? jealousy? sadness?" Maybe its all of those things - Anger over the fact that she's falsely advertising herself under a banner she only flies under as an ironic parody (and ironic parody is associated with hipsters, if if there's one thing I hate more than total conservative wing-nuts its hipsters), jealousy that someone younger than me has made millions off of something I could've done if I was 30 lbs lighter and had more ego (Grapefruit and Hoodia diet, here I come!), sadness that she doesn't seem to realize that she's fallen for her own advertising.
Lady Gaga is not in the soft, white underbelly of the cultural underground. She is not 'misunderstood,' as she makes it quite unable to misunderstand her from the millions of interviews shes always doing. Lady Gaga is not a victim of a world who does not understand her. Lady Gaga is a victim of herself. And now that a year or so into her reign people are finally starting to tire of her as well, hopefully they will get sick of her vaudeville act and move on. It's not that im interested in watching Lady Gaga fall -- i'm not, by the way. Far from it. -- It's that I'm not interested in watching Lady Gaga. And I'd appreciate if the Mass Media respected that.
Me being angry about this isn't going to change anything, and I'm sure I scare people away with posts like these (and give credit to the 'all feminists are just angry and boy don't they just love to complain about shit' trolls), but it is super frustrating to watch the equivalent of Andy Warhol v2.0 (another long rant, I assure you) and realize that instead of the joke being on all the poor assholes who took ready-made fame to be some sort of shiny new art messiah, the public is playing the joke on her but no one has told her yet. I think women should be able to hustle however they damn-well please, but to do it under the guise of something it isn't is not only saying "I disrespect my fans", its also saying "I disrespect myself." And she shouldn't have to be resorting to that tired shit. (Or, maybe the jokes' on me and she realized people are idiots and will flock to any new thing and shes taking advantage of that. In which case, why isn't she working in-- ohh.)
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