Maybe this doesn’t say anything about pop culture’s need to consistently subsume and then excrete and then bury the past. Maybe this is just a surprisingly redundant music video for a catchy pop song from an artist who tends to avoid blatant redundancy and has lived in the long dark shadow cast by Madonna’s desperate skeleton-face-and-also-arms legacy. That being said, how mad is Madonna right now? Because this is basically Lady Gaga just straight up MURDERING Madonna, right? In just one video, she has basically reduced Madonna to a memory, and then absorbed that memory into herself, and now she can move on. That pre-rolls before a YouTube clip of a baby farthing. At this point, the visual language developed by music videos is so quickly reappropriated into feature films and Super Bowl advertising that they are, as a medium, about as surprising as a Snickers commercial. Seriously, though (another good construct, the “seriously, though” tonal shift construct) this video is so ’90s! Speaking of constructs! It would almost be surprising how much this plays off of lukewarm tropes, if a music video still held the capacity to surprise. You guys probably forgot about the “ called and they want their back” joke construct, but I just reminded you of how good it is. Hey Lady Gaga, 1995 called, they want this video back! The video for Alejandro, the third song off Lady Gaga’s Fame Monster, directed by fashion photographer Steven Klein, has arrived.Insofar as an almost nine-minute video featuring dozens of. Lady Gaga may have detractors, but it’s doubtful anyone would argue she may be the only artist out right now where the release of a video is treated as a media event. Lady Gaga’s star has burned bright since her explosive release of The Fame, and hopefully the missteps in “Alejandro†aren’t indicators it’s soon to flicker out.Whatever your opinions about Lady Gaga, it is always nice to feel like you’re part of the conversation, and she does seem to be the subject these days. Outfitting oneself in a red latex habit is sure to still raise eyebrows, but it’s blasphemy for its own sake, and nothing more.Īll this being said, “Alejandro†has a sumptuous mise en scene in keeping with Gaga’s earlier projects, which have collectively succeeded in resuscitating the music video from its long coma. “Alejandro†fully embraces its seedy imagery without any reflexive critique, and while some have already denounced Lady Gaga for blasphemy, it seems more appropriate to denounce her for picking an easy target. Gaga appeared on CNN’s Larry King Live last week to screen the first teaser of the Alejandro video, which she described to the veteran talk show host as having a homoerotic, military theme.
Though Lady Gaga stated in a recent interview with Larry King that she intended the video to be “a celebration of love and appreciation for the gay community,†her depiction taps into an old, unsettling narrative that equates homosexuality with deep, impenetrable evil.Īnyone who had a pulse in the 80s - or watched a pathetic amount of VH1 in the 90s - won’t help but notice the multiple Madonna references propping up the video’s narrative, from the sexualized nun of “Like a Prayer†- complete with inverted crotch cross - to the black-and-white catwalking of “Vogue.†Lady Gaga is no stranger to copping styles “Telephone†featured Quentin Tarantino’s infamous “Pussy Wagon†as well as heavy indebtedness to Bonnie and Clyde, and the earlier “ Bad Romance†drew its stop-motion camera techniques and Bakhtinian costuming from the unlikely inspiration of Marilyn Manson.īut Gaga’s heavy reliance on standard Madonna fare isn’t mere homage. Lady Gaga Lady Gaga recruited fashion photographer Steven Klein, best known for his work with Madonna, to make his music video directorial debut on her latest effort.
The unfortunate link between gay BDSM culture and fascism in “Alejandro†is troubling. The all-male ensemble introduces the video with a menacing march in uniforms - and bowl haircuts - reminiscent of the Third Reich, a violent, symbolic memory not assuaged by the occasional high-heeled soldier or Gaga’s sexy dominating. €œAlejandro†departs from the kitschy Americana seen in her previous clip, “ Telephone,†and instead creates a brooding, industrio-fascist backdrop for some exceptionally steamy fetish sexploits. Yet “Alejandro,†with its didactic investments in Madonna-esque blasphemy and fascist military imagery, fails to provide Lady Gaga’s brilliant, trademark pop derivations or her meta-corporate critiques. There’s a fine line between postmodern pastiche and corporatized pop rehash, but Lady Gaga - who just released the epic-length music video for her latest single, “Alejandro” - has heretofore stylishly and successfully danced on that tightrope wearing a myriad of medical fetish gear, latex bodysuits, and Alexander McQueen heels.
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