Majoring In Lady Gaga?

Lady Gaga's fame has reached a new high: academia.

Doctoral student Meghan Vicks and poet/performer Kate Durbin started Gaga Stigmata earlier this year to compile their distillations of Gaga videos, original artwork and guest essays (sample: "On the Shared Sisterhood of Kate Bush's 'The Big Sky' & Lady Gaga's 'Dance in the Dark.'")

Salon posted an interview with Vicks and Durbin today, in which they explain the reasoning behind their project:

Salon: Why is Lady Gaga worth studying?

Durbin: Pop matters. What we hear in the mall, in our cars, on YouTube, makes the world around us, which is to say that it makes us. I believe Lady Gaga's art pioneers awareness and liberation at such a massive cultural scale that it would be ignorant, and potentially even destructive, not to take it seriously. We needed a pop star who could simultaneously celebrate the spirit of pop -- the spirit that makes everyone, no matter who or where they are in the world, stand up and start dancing when "Billie Jean" comes on the jukebox -- and deconstruct, and ultimately shift, the static notion of the pop star as a figure of blind worship and untouchable-ness. Gaga has put the glitter wand back into the hands of the audience. She's made the audience responsible for what they are viewing. No other pop singers are doing that, at least not on the level that Gaga is. No pop singer has done it on that level, ever, period.

Durbin and Vicks say they hope to collect enough writings to make a book. Read the interview in full here.

Comments

[Anthony OReilly]

11:34 PM on 05/31/2010

Just answer me this. What job does one get with a doctorate in Lady GaGa?

[REDSTATEREFUGEE]

01:57 PM on 05/31/2010

.....and so the devolvement of academic continues.

[Silent Edge]

12:19 PM on 05/31/2010

Did I just see a comparison between Lady Gaga and Michael Jackson? No way, I refuse to hear it. Of all the things, I'd take Freddie Mercury anytime over her.

[Igor13]

12:14 PM on 05/31/2010

I got something major I'd like in Lady Gaga!

[brettrobbins]

03:49 AM on 05/31/2010

Their emphasis on audience-reception and song is nothing new, only their choice of subject matter. Big deal. Gaga is the new Sappho for sure.

[PenguinsInGuam]

12:08 AM on 05/31/2010

Um oookay? I could understand like a minor in popular culture (not useful, but not like minors ever are) but not a big study of Gaga.

[MARYHOBE]

04:31 PM on 05/30/2010

These are doctoral students, probably in their middle twenties, studying the movement of the masses toward one expression of popular culture. Of course it is valid area for research and discussion. And if you believe that this is a waste of time as far as making a living is concerned, well, I guess you have not seen what percentage of our economy is related to entertainment and popular culture these days. In any event, I think she's hot...so there!

[thephenomenologist]

04:21 PM on 05/30/2010

the degradation of academia sadly reaches new lows with this. the claim that "pop matters" and the belief that it is worthy of serious academic study is one of the many reasons why the humanities and liberal education continue their decline into irrelevance. if i were a parent and found out that my kid's university was using tuition money to support this kind of research or offering courses in "comparative diva," i'm sure i'd have a few things to say to the provost.

[brettrobbins]

03:44 AM on 05/31/2010

Your cultural history is slightly off the mark: the notion that "pop matters" is hardly new; it goes at least back to Warhol in the 1960's, let alone Rabelais (France) and Brueghel (Holland) in the 1500s, Petronius during the Roman Empire, etc. etc., each of whose works were considered to be popular trash by the cognoscenti of their time (you're in good company, thephenomenologist), yet are now considered to be timeless classics.

[bridgesandballoons]

10:36 AM on 06/01/2010

Um, apparently you've never heard of cultural anthropology.

[hypnotoad72]

11:54 AM on 05/30/2010

No wonder students are unprepared for the workplace!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/28/college-grads-unprepared_n_593524.html

Imagine if, 40 years ago, there were majors for "The Beatles" or "Jefferson Airplane"...

[America Today Anthony]

12:19 PM on 05/30/2010

Its cool that you can drop out of college, blow your brains out with drugs while doing the NY club scene trying to make it big, and even do a stint as a stripper...

Sounds like a role model for America's youth to me!

I agree with hypnotoad 100%. This is a prime example of why our youth are unprepared for anything. That is unless you are talking about being prepared to show up at a club around 10:30pm for a night of partying!

[brettrobbins]

03:57 AM on 05/31/2010

What workplace?

[KJLSanDiego]

02:43 AM on 06/02/2010

ha ha ha right? where are these jobs of which he speaks?

[Loveismreligion]

09:33 AM on 05/30/2010

Pop culture is what keeps most people dumb...

They don't want to expand thier brain.

[brettrobbins]

01:16 AM on 06/02/2010

They share a brain? No wonder they seem to be dumb.

[Loveismreligion]

09:31 AM on 05/30/2010

Lol..wow..wow..really guys?..lol...lol

[SteveDenver]

02:58 AM on 05/30/2010

Course of study: Gaga 101
Prerequisites: Taylor Dayne: Fame To Obscurity, Britney 101/102, and summer studies in Backstreet Boys
Forum: Gay bar

[Oleg1]

11:54 AM on 05/30/2010

For those minoring in gay musicology the prerequisites will have to include Pet Shop Boys; Abba and of course.... one semester course on Bette Midler.

[America Today Anthony]

12:27 PM on 05/30/2010

That Britney 102 must be a killer.

Is the final like you have to do 8 shots of tequila, 2 lines of coke, and then properly get out of a car flashing your beaver without falling flat ono your face?

At least it would be funny to watch!

[JaredO]

07:06 PM on 05/29/2010

Sometimes I think she dresses the way she does because she knows she's really popular and she wants to see how crazy she can act before people think it's too much. Hey, at least all those insane outfits from fashion shows have someone that will actually wear them outside the cat walk ;)

[LiberalTreeHugger]

03:50 AM on 05/30/2010

The lonely catwalk outfits shouldn't get too excited, because gaga makes her clothes herself.

[Hardyman1966]

06:57 PM on 05/29/2010

If you take away the costume changes and the masks/wigs/hats....

Is there REALLY enough to study for an entire class? It's not like there's a 30 year career to look at. Talented, yes, absolutely, but also equally overexposed in such a short time frame.

[SteveDenver]

03:02 AM on 05/30/2010

She's a costume parade. At least past "dress-up pop" has usually involved costume personas with seasonal staying power (Madonna's pointy bra, platinum blond, goth maven, cowboy pimp; Jacko's sparkly glove). Lady Caca is one vignette after another, without continuity or message.

[Hardyman1966]

10:09 AM on 05/30/2010

I was trying to give her an honest unbiased shot, as I saw an early college video on stage with just a piano on YouTube, and it was quite good.

That was then.

I gave up when she was recently quoted as saying, "Donatella Versace is a fashion icon."

Check, please. Nothing to see here people. :)

[LiberalTreeHugger]

03:52 AM on 05/30/2010

She's hot though

[joeyc]

05:39 PM on 05/29/2010

LOL. Lady Gaga has a few good tunes, but she's not that special. She's just capitalizing on Americans' insatiable desire to be shocked, and her act is more and more about "theater" than music.

If you really like MUSIC, then check out anything by Au Revoir Simone, Rokkuro, or La Roux, all contemporary female-led groups with uncompromising musical integrity.

[Eleanor gla]

06:12 PM on 05/29/2010

I believe that's exactly what these students are arguing. By "putting the glitter wand back into the hands of the audience", she's inviting the audience to become an integral part of her show, much as a theatrical audience would (the performers and the audience share a symbiotic relationship).

[joeyc]

06:47 PM on 05/29/2010

I like Lada Gaga, and I like her dancers and outfits, but what she is doing is right in line with what began as Glam in the 70's, morphed into a darker "Shock/Glam" in the 90's, and continues with Gaga's "Shock/Glam with Dancers" act. Gaga has taken this shtick further, and with greater success, than anyone else, but she's right in the mainstream of what the commercial music industry has been moving towards for many years now.

And I'm skeptical of what the Shock/Glam style of entertainment has to offer the the listener/viewer. I see it as more symptomatic of audiences who can no longer Hear or See. Modern audiences have become so desensitized that they have to be nearly bludgeoned sonically and visually for them to respond. That's why I'm so impressed with groups like Au Revoir Simone. Their music is the exact OPPOSITE of what the contemporary music industry is pushing.

[Hardyman1966]

10:10 AM on 05/30/2010

It's Marilyn Manson's younger sister, only without so much Wednesday Addams... :)