Lady Gaga is the death of sex? I bow to the Gaga machine, but the headline from this week's Sunday Times (excerpted here) gives her too much credit. The piece itself reads more like Camille Paglia -- despite her preference for women -- doesn't find pop's hottest diva attractive. "Gaga isn't sexy at all," she writes. I'm straight and don't happen to agree with that assessment, so I took a quick survey of my male friends, young and old, straight and gay. Turns out, they don't find her sexy either, although 85 percent of them would bang her. Whew, sexual attraction-as-unusual lives on. What this scathing article does do well (besides the brilliant writing) is illustrate a generational divide.
Just as Paglia's hero Madonna was the natural extension of a generation that grew up with the super heroines of DC comics, all short-shorts and pillowy cleavage, Lady Gaga embodies the anime characters who provided the wallpaper for her contemporaries, all big eyes and mechanized enhancements. Paglia complains that Gaga is "like a gangly marionette or plasticised android," when I'd say that's exactly the look she's after.
In her 1990 classic New York Times piece about "Justify My Love," Paglia was my hero for " target="_hplink">calling Madonna a feminist for busting through sexual stereotypes. But now I have to wonder if she's seen the "Paparazzi" video. This isn't a musician playing around with sexual taboos, this is a woman who takes polyamory for granted. The reason Gaga is worthy of the "avant-garde artist" title Paglia so easily bestowed upon the Material Girl back then is this: Stefani Germanotta, aka Lady Gaga, has turned her entire life into a performance art spectacle. Criticize her all you want for carefully scripting her every public appearance, you gotta give the Lady credit. I can barely be bothered to brush my hair before leaving the house.
The interesting thing here is how in that same piece, Paglia suggests that artists don't owe it to the world to stand up for liberal causes. The same is no less true now, and can be applied to ideas of what is and isn't sexy. Paglia may be consumed with sex and/or signs of its waning, but Gaga's kinda over the whole thing. In fact, she's admitted as much.
Gaga was recently quoted as saying she was giving up sex because during the act she could feel her creativity being sapped out through her vagina. Maybe that was a joke, maybe that was dead serious. What difference does it make? It's not Gaga's job to teach us morals and sexuality. She's taken it upon herself only to make us look. If she's gotten your attention, job done. Her songs always have elements of hooking up at clubs and navigating relationships. On that level you could say, nothing to see here.
The worst is when Paglia laments the fans. She writes:
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.
Please. Just because text messaging has eclipsed her, I hardly think that this technology is going to do more to re-wire the human brain than any other gadgetry. This jab has undertones of walking to school uphill in the snow both ways, of course they only knew how to communicate back in the writer's day. Not.
We will continue to be neurotic creatures obsessed with food, shelter and sex. Until we all die and another generation comes along, bemoaning the quaint times of Generation Gaga, and proving we're still having sex.
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For being a completely derivative, unoriginal, manufactured product?
Absolutely, all the credit she deserves.
I think a lot of women suffer from being too cognitive about sex and not getting enough of it. It's because there is a lack of men who can uphold a conversation well enough to be a respectable date, and then also be capable of relating on instinct when it matters most. Too much mental noise kills intimacy and spontaneity.
Also, there is the lack of discretion. Men who seek to take a woman's social status after sex are the problem. Having sex for its own sake is worthwhile, but using sex as a means of social ascent is what inhibits trust. Too many douche-bags with cameras, who like to gossip just like girls - they are causing almost as much sexual inhibition as sexually transmitted diseases.
Men who do this should be exiled by self-respecting women, and there should be retaliation against those who make keepsakes and then publicize them to degrade the woman in question.
So, Lady Gaga runs around in her underwear and outlandish outfits and pretends to be an artist. The young lack music education or taste and labor under the delusion that rhythmic profane and misogynist verbalization equals music.
Female musicians did not used to dress like strippers and prostitutes and unlike Gaga and the rest of her ilk, could actually read and write music and possessed vocal and instrumental talent and ability. Barbara Streisand, Joni Mitchell, Judy Collins, Carole King, Aimee Mann --- compared to these women, Lady Gaga is a complete devolution, another sign of decay in the decaying empire, another talentless poseur who is famous for being famous.
That aside - has anyone actually read the full Paglia article (not just the free excerpt on the Times website?) She bemoans the lack of authenticity more than anything. And she's right:
Listen to 'Girl Next Door' by Darin and compare it to Just Dance; then 'Calling You' by Kat de Luna and compare it to Poker Face. Both were written by RedOne before he met Lady gaga. Bad Romance: beat from Ballnation by DJ Dean, melody from 'Fly Project' by Lumea Mea and 'Lick It' by Roula, special mention goes to Rasputin by Boney M.
The clothes are all chosen by Matthew Williams and Nicola Formichetti. And pieces of personas of artists past: Nina Hagen, Wendy O Williams, Grace Jones, Jana Sterbak. Then it's packed up and sold as Halloween costumes and T-shirts on her website. She's just inked a perfume deal. How very Britney.
They've cut and pasted an outsider non-conformist persona to capitalise on the cash of vulnerable people who identify. It's manufactured pop marketed to an untapped market. Paglia called her a confected copycat. Paglia was right.
Next.
Bring me another pop tart, please, with a little more juice this time.
I like Gaga alright but the hype is a bit much. She hasn't proven herself just yet. I would like to see if she can put out a Like A Prayer or Ray of Light type album ( or for that matter Erotica!!!).
Paglia is just Paglia- never happy anymore. She loves Madonna. Hates Madonna. Hates Gaga. Next she will love Gaga only to hate her again then find love for her after that.
And please, Lady Gaga the genuine and prodigious talent? Hyperbole much?
Madonna was just named as the 16th Greatest Artist of all time ( top ranked female) from a survey of hundreds of musicians. Her fellow musicians ranked her that high for a reason- her talent.
heard all the hype about her and Beyonce's prison video, finally saw it, and I suppose for some that might have been pretty racy but it was kinda tame...different strokes.
I really like Camille Paglia as well, even have one of her books, but the generational ageism/conservatism applies. Is she a Republican yet?
and like carrie finds out with mr. big at one point, men like women who arent so "complicated". if carrie can be too complicated for men, lady gaga is outta the ball park.