Pop Performances

To be a fan of Lady Gaga isn’t hard. The entertainer has an undeniable knack for creating polished beats and insanely catchy lyrics. Her videos and performances are the apex of twenty-first century postmodern mass pop spectacles, and are targeted, according to her recent interview with Los Angeles music critic Ann Powers, to a wide coalition of viewers. These factors, taken in consideration with the critical buzz surrounding the star’s stance on everything from sexuality to her brand of multi-media performance art, have made the entertainer inescapable in any discussion revolving around celebrity, art, and/or popular culture in 2009. And this is exactly where fandom of Gaga becomes difficult to analyze. Once one begins to acknowledge her contribution to these critical questions of contemporary media, our perceptions of celebrity are upset.

The burning question of Gaga’s meteoric rise to fame is who, exactly, is the joke on? In other words, Gaga’s stardom turns the tables on the fans of popular culture, and highlights the sadistic relationship between the public and their consumption of popular media. It is an over-used truism that contemporary popular audiences are both fascinated and repulsed by stars that exhibit, either intentionally or unintentionally, self-destructive behavior. This truism, however, encapsulates our expectations of star behavior. Consider, for example, Britney Spears’ spectacle of self-mutilation and reconstruction, fed by the speculation and derision from the industry and the media that placed those original seeds of self-doubt. A contemporaneous example of this behavior would be the painfully slow process of entertainment news outlets in the unraveling of the connections between Tiger Woods and his sixteen (and counting) mistresses. Spears and Woods’ displays of weakness in the face of media scrutiny have, among countless other examples, shifted our perspective as to what the proper role of the popular media star is in relation to the public eye.

I writhe around on the floor and say, 'Do you wanna [have sex with] me?' It's asking the question, 'What is that we really love about stars?' - Lady Gaga, interviewed by Ann Powers

Recently, it seems that a star is suspect for not allowing their inner demons to color their public image. When a media star appears to have no perceptible weaknesses for the tabloids to dissect, our perception of celebrity is thrown into crisis. Lady Gaga has micro-managed her career to the point that her life is indistinguishable from her ambitions for mega-stardom. Her single-minded focus upon her career is, in my opinion, the most important thing about Gaga. Very rarely are we confronted with a popular star that is focused so entirely upon creating the image and the career that she wants; it is much more common to see a star that is either unable to gracefully acknowledge media buzz (Kristen Stewart), or is far too obsessed with hanging on, tooth and nail, to that spotlight (Heidi Pratt). To be able to engage the media on one’s own terms is a rare gift, usually achieved through sheer force of will and years of industry experience. Somehow (If I were to investigate this question further, it would exceed the limits of this particular article), Gaga has achieved what appears to be control of her media image. The biggest blemish to her name thus far have been the rumors concerning the entertainer’s gender, which she ultimately worked to her own advantage.

The micromanagement of her public persona worries us as to where this particular star falls into the hierarchy of our predatory celebrity culture. Most importantly, the inability to pinpoint the chink in Gaga’s armor immediately incites feelings of manipulation when we consider the implications of being a Gaga fan. This discomfort is too easily reduced to Gaga’s perceived lack of authenticity due to the fact that Gaga never morphs back to Stefani Germanotta. Because she never reveals her true face to the public, her persona is instantly suspected as falsified. If everything that Gaga is comprised is over-calculated, then it is easy to blame her for manipulating us. This chain of thought, however, misses the crucial question of why Gaga insists on performing, or, more accurately, personifying, Gaga, every second of her day.

Gaga embodies the fact that we, as individuals and as a culture, are always performing. Personal and public have become one and the same due to the many tools of self-expression, promotion, and distribution available to our digitized and wireless age: social networking sites, cell phone cameras, the paparazzi, video and photo uploading sites, etc. We are, for better or for worse, aware of our self-imposed and self-mediated social surveillance. However, we are less aware of the conditions that this surveillance culture imposes upon the shape of art, media, and commerce. The blurring and bending of the lines of entertainment and art, and the questions they pose as to how we respond to popular media, does not preface itself with a reason, let alone an explanation. Our interaction with this blurring of entertainment, information, and celebrity in the media has taken the form of self-determined, anamorphous determination of personal identity identity. If anyone can represent our schizophrenic state of existence in the twenty-first century, it is Gaga. This observation, and the insight it affords us, is exactly why we need entertainers like Gaga, who force us to consider these difficult questions of identity and the media - the quintessential ‘Bad Romance.’