If you haven’t seen Lady Gaga’s “Born this Way” video, you’re missing out. I’m not saying this is the best music video of the year so far, it sure beats out the worst… (Rebecca Black’s Friday, anyone?) If you’ve ever listened to a Gaga album or seen one of her more controversial videos, you’ll recognize a few key elements as you watch - reference to religion, comfort with explicit homosexuality, and the nearly-nude leather-clad body of “The Gaga” herself.
However, this track is more about the fans and their place in society than the music. Nick Knight, director of the video and famous fashion photographer, provides a fresh (albeit sometimes revolting) take on Gaga’s public image (“mother monster”) through the use of birth scenes and idealistic population as metaphor for her ever-growing fan base. Something of a stretch... but come, on, it's Gaga. She treats her fans like family, calling them 'little monsters.' Unlike Rihanna’s S&M Video, which ignores her fan base but instead directly references multiple scenes shot by Avant Garde photographer David LaChapelle, Gaga hires an artiste director and creates an original work of art. whereas Gaga’s entire style is influenced by Madonna and the feminists of the 80s, rather than directly derivative in one instance (though internet critics like myself have found a similarity to Madge’s Express Yourself.)
The lyrics and the images don’t quite match up in this video.
The first, most pressing discontinuity between word and image is between Gaga’s message and her perfectly toned, flab-less body. “‘There’s nothing wrong with loving who you are,’ she said, ‘cause He made you perfect babe.’” Of course the artist is physically perfect, and conveniently fits into the body shape deemed “acceptable” by today’s sex-crazed society. While another chorus leads us to understand the main theme to be tolerance and acceptance of sexual and racial differences, she’s sure as hell not saying it’s okay to be fat or ugly. She missed the mark on that one.
Another disjunction of image and meaning is in the juxtaposition of the Mother Monster character and her awkwardly-worded narration, and the meaning of the song itself. “...But the birth was as the wombs numbered and the mitosis of the future began, it was perceived that this infamous moment in life is not temporal, it is eternal, and thus began the beginning of a new race within the race of humans.” Yeah… okay, Gaga. I believe you. A new race… in space… and we’re supposed to be able to put ourselves in your position and feel like us viewers, too, can be without prejudice? Are you the mother referenced in the first lines of the song? Or are you playing God to up your fame? Either way, I feel belittled (or be-fattened, as it may be.)
Gaga is working constantly to help people feel better about themselves, through her constant work for the formation and support of LGBT groups, as well as less fortunate people like those in Japan’s recent earthquake disaster. However, her video, while presented in a fresh manner, leaves her ultimate message falling flat because of her overly conceptual mixed signals in word and image.
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