http://whatculture.com/music/why-we-...-lady-gaga.php
Some say she’s a genius; others say she’s contrived, but generally nobody is saying much anymore. It seems that Lady Gaga’s stranglehold over pop culture news has all but evaporated. She may have her stalwart fans who follow her movements closely, but for the average Joe, Gaga’s relevance is waning.
Stefani Germanotta’s Lady Gaga persona really gained popularity in 2009 as a sort of poor man’s Gwen Stefani, neither as talented as Madonna or culturally significant as Britney Spears, but not without a modicum of entertaining ability. Most importantly, she was just average enough to feel different without it being the entire reason for her being. That is to say, it was possible to have a conversation about Lady Gaga and actually talk about her musical ability for the majority of the time.
At some point, around the time she performed “Paparazzi” on the MTV Video Music Awards, she really raised the stakes in terms of ridiculous attention seeking behavior. She went from dressing relatively normally (yes, the outfits were revealing, but no more than you’d expect from a woman in the pop music profession) to faking handicaps and dousing herself with artificial blood. Lady Gaga went from musician to performance art, an easily digestible image for the public to consume without further interpretation, containing as much depth as a Facebook profile picture and the same amount of artistic merit. From then on it was a parade of pseudo inspirational sound bites and clothing made from decapitated muppets.
Before the transformation, the only enjoyable part of the Lady Gaga experience was trying to figure out what everything meant. When things weren’t explicit, there was room for interpretation, which is why Lady Gaga is accidentally so important: she represents modern story telling.
The relatively recent explosion of computer technology has opened up new doors for visual story telling. At this point, there’s almost nothing that can’t be created for movies, television or video games. But even though everything looks amazing, you’ll never care about Peter Jackson’s King Kong as much as the original and Grand Theft Auto will never mean as much to as you as Mario does.
King Kong captures the imagination because of the obviousness of the stop motion. To watch the movie, we as viewers have to suspend our disbelief and engage ourselves in the process of pretending that Kong is actually a giant gorilla. Super Mario Bros. provides no explanation for why things happen, but their cartoony nature makes them so lovably ridiculous that you fill in the blanks yourself. This is why Nintendo has never redesigned Mario to look more human. Imagine a game in which Mario actually resembles a stocky Italian man who experiences realistic physics when jumping. It would be unplayable for anyone who’s ever experienced the original.
Movies like Green Lantern, Sucker Punch and The Last Airbender all have special effects that are amazing to the eyes, but provide no fulfillment for the mind. A special effect with no emotional component is simply a technical achievement, which is great for winning awards for superior usage of computer technology, but it does not make for a compelling story. Film makers will concentrate on the appearance of hair follicles and fangs of the giant monster that appears in the second act, but they completely abandon all attempts to make us actually afraid of the creature.
Monsters were a problem for Lady Gaga as well, specifically “The Fame Monster,” the follow up to “The Fame.” While it earned her more critical acclaim, it occurred after the transition from quirky pop star to full on media circus. Compare the music videos for “Just Dance” and “Poker Face” to the ones for “Bad Romance” and “Telephone.” The lyrical content for the songs never changed and the themes are almost identical between the two albums, but the visual vocabulary expanded immensely. People might mention an attractive blond, but they’ll definitely talk at length about an attractive blond wearing a metallic thong.
She was still singing generic love songs, but now her music videos and public appearances provided her with opportunities to dress in provocative ways, thus making her entire catalog FEEL more complex, but without actually deserving it.
On top of that, her popularity amongst the gay club culture offered a loyal and passionate fan base to be exploited. It was after she realized this that she was suddenly an outsider, imploring her fans, whom she dubbed “Little Monsters,” to be themselves and never let the oppressive mainstream culture keep them down. The idea that Lady Gaga could pass herself off as an outsider is laughable, especially considering that at the very beginning of her career, a pudgier, brunette Germanotta played soulful piano ballads akin to Vanessa Carlton. All of which were completely abandoned in order to become a dance music sensation. Even the earliest incarnations of the fully realized Gaga gave no indication that any of these ideas were anywhere on her radar. “Just Dance” is a song about being too drunk in a club to do anything else but move rhythmically, with lyrics like “I’ve had a little bit too much” and “Can’t find my drink or man/Where are my keys? I lost my phone.” The song “Telephone” is almost exactly the same, but adds intrusive phone calls from a man at home to the equation. Yet, judging from the complexity of the video, one would assume that we’re missing something, but nobody is missing anything; it’s all being shoved right in our faces.
Like the special effects of yesteryear, Lady Gaga resonated much more emotionally before she became explicit. She no longer provides the audience with the opportunity to fill in the blanks for ourselves. I spent much more time interpreting her choice to wear big sunglasses on the cover for her first album than I did the now infamous meat dress. I wondered if the succession of the word “papa” in “Paparazzi” actually held some hidden psychological meaning about her father. The lyrics of “Poker Face” brought to mind a spiteful woman who doesn’t want her lover to know she actually enjoys their sexual escapades. But lately, there’s nothing elusive to grab on to. There’s no question as to what a song like “Born This Way” is about, just as the video for the song offers nothing but soulless special affects that have nothing to do with the lyrics. After it’s over, you find yourself thinking “sure I saw some crazy stuff, but I can’t say I felt anything,” which is exactly how you’ll feel after watching the new Conan movie or playing Final Fantasy XIII.
Lady Gaga gives us the ostentatious outfits and bizarre headgear, but she no longer engages the audience. She has become a special effect, empty and meaningless, providing no nutritional value for the mind. Yes, she is wearing an eye patch, but now we know the truth: just like Jar Jar Binks, it’s only there because it CAN be there. No thought has been put into making us actually care anymore. And just like most movies, we will move on from Lady Gaga as soon as the next shiny object catches our attention