Lady Gaga's 'Born This Way' video: Making goddess culture accessible

Lady Gaga has every right -- and, you could even argue, a responsibility -- to fashion her own creation myth. The civil rights activism that serves as both gimmick and moral center in her art resonates more strongly if it’s backed by real political involvement; but since she’s an artist, after all, sometimes symbolic shows of solidarity are enough.

Her new video for “Born This Way” is one such declaration of alliance. Though it’s freaky enough to convince the casual viewer that it’s totally original, the Nick Knight-directed clip simply updates radical feminist lore for the cyber-prosthetic age. In doing so, Gaga gives a slimy new sheen to the Second Wave catchphrase “goddesses in every woman.” Yet for all of the intensity of the scenes where Gaga updates the feminist practice of myth-remaking to make room for both sci-fi surrealism and machine goods, the video ultimately fails its own message -- and all for the glory of a bikini.

While some have rejected the song “Born This Way” as a straight woman’s misguided attempt to claim queerness as her own, its instant cultural omnipresence proves that many fans accept and even revel in Gaga’s symbolic volunteer leadership.  (For great queer analysis of Gaga’s work, I highly recommend the writing that J. Jack Halberstam and Tavia Nyong’o have been doing on the Bully Bloggers website.)

Related: Ladies and queens, Gaga gives you "Born This Way."

“Born This Way” is the culmination of Gaga's informal campaign. Its housey beats and diva wails strut through the history of LGBT clubland, and the lyrics make explicit the elements of liberation more subtly driving Gaga’s earlier work: the self-determination in “Poker Face,” the determination to survive depicted in the video for “Paparazzi”;  the victimization recast as empowerment in “Bad Romance”; the celebration of sensuality as a route to innocence in “Alejandro.” In one disco-fabulous fell swoop, “Born This Way” completes Gaga’s metamorphosis from dance floor-damaged freak baby to doyenne of the disenfranchised. She is post-gender,  hear her roar.

The video backs up this move with the oldest trick in the radical feminist book: reinventing Genesis.  “In the infinite moment before time, the Goddess arose from chaos and gave birth to herself,” reads one creation myth, recorded not at the beginning of time but circa 1971. Feminist writers such as Jean Shinoda Bolen, Mary Daly, Starhawk and Riane Eisler gave women a way to view spirituality beyond the male-dominated religions of their youth; uncovering (or, sometimes, inventing) new myths was a key part of this process.

The goddess movement certainly addressed sexuality, but it was not conventionally sexy -- like many whose lives were changed by Second Wave feminism, its adherents mostly rejected the trappings of lipstick-and-lace femininity, instead favoring flowing Wiccan skirts and fair-trade ethnic jewelry. Gaga, raised under the shadow of the Catholic cross but also at the makeup table in her mom’s boudoir, uses the “Born This Way” video to sprinkle some of her trademarked plastic glitter glamour on the goddess role.

In a move typical of today’s vehemently anti-separatist, often apolitical “post-feminism,” Gaga makes goddess culture accessible by pairing its touchstones with images borrowed from fine art, cinema and cool subcultures (her partner in the vid’s Black Madonna sequences, for example, isn’t a boy god or a female consort but the ever-so-hip tattoo extremist Zombie Boy).

Turning goddess culture dystopian and sexy -- and focusing not on the often militantly uncool women’s movement that (pun avoidable) birthed it, but on the queer community that, lately, has been making remarkable inroads in the Glee-ful mainstream  -- Gaga has found a way to place female empowerment at the center of her vision without sacrificing the gains she makes by being a daddy’s girl or a “boy toy.”

This, more than any sonic tie-in with Madonna’s songbook, is what makes Gaga most like the Material Girl.  Madonna broke ground at a point in feminism’s history when the movement’s radicalism was beginning to feel strident to some, especially to younger women. Gaga has emerged at a similar moment. A new generation of feminist writers, artists and activists is taking charge, and these strong voices need partners in popular culture to reflect and magnify their challenges and their dreams. Gaga has been doing her best to fit that role.

I wish, though, that Gaga could recognize the point where her crowd-embracing self-liberation begins to feel like the same old girlie show. The “Born This Way” video may include fascinating images of intergalactic birth (including one shot of Gaga pulling a gun from her lower regions that strangely echoes one of Second Wave feminism’s best known performance art works, “Interior Scroll” by Carolee Schneemann), but it also spends much time focusing on Gaga dancing in a scant bikini.

The Matthew Barney-lite body prostheses Gaga wears during these sequences don’t make up for the fact that they’re just so much showgirl strutting. She and choreographer Laurieann Gibson don’t even come up with dance moves that register as distinct from what we’ve seen in Gaga's previous videos. It’s probably too much to ask, in a time when radical reconciliation with the mainstream is pretty much defining pop culture, that Gaga find some way beyond the marketplace’s demand for plain old female objectification. But as far as she’s gone -- to the last galaxy and back -- she hasn’t arrived there yet.

Related: 

- Critic's Notebook: Lady Gaga, sexuality and 21st century pop: Speaking truth to Camille Paglia

- Live Review: Lady Gaga at Staples Center

 

-- Ann Powers

Photos: Images of Lady Gaga's "Born This Way" video, courtesy of Interscope Records/Vevo.com. 

Comments

[Drayke]

Excellent analysis!

[Bradford]

Ann,

You seen to have done your research on for this article, particularly on feminist theory, however, I have to disagree with you concerning the final two paragraphs.

First of all, I can't agree with the use of the word "girlie." The way you use this word reinforces stereotypical gender roles implying that all girls and women fit the traditional, heteronormative definition of the word. I am under the assumption that you meant to say either feminine or for (lack of a better word) "slutty." I can agree with neither. If the root of feminism is to support women's rights and equality then to present judgment upon a woman in what she chooses to wear is to undermine the very message that Gaga is trying to perform.

Lady Gaga wears what she chooses to because her sense of fashion is what she feels comfortable in as clearly seen through her fashion the last three years. I think that at this point it would be impossible for Lady Gaga to "objectify" herself with the use of nudity as she is seen wearing even less clothing in her previous videos.

Furthermore, since when has Lady Gaga ever conformed to "plain old female objectification?" She covers herself in blood, has horns coming out of her forehead, wears giant cylinders of hair, all the while still wearing a bikini. She rejoices in her fashion and sexuality because she rejoices in herself, ergo, she was born that way.

[Zarah McIntosh]

She's perfectly perfect. It's perfectly perfect but thanks for the insight.

[Ted Kazmar]

Great article but I really love the video I love the song and a body that great belongs in a bikini!

[DR]

I agree as well. Great analysis. It's amazing to see how she stretches across different strata of culture to come up with something that's universal and beautiful. I do have to point out, however, that she's only 24 and she just so happens to have a great body, so we can't necessarily fault her for, well, prancing around in a bikini. But great article, nonetheless.

[Pro-Life]

I checked out the video with an open mind & while I thought that the prelude to the song certainly was visually interesting, I realized very early on that her concept bears a strong resemblance to that of a far more talented yet far lesser known artist. I am speaking of course of Janelle Monae. I've known now for quite some time that Lady Gaga is profoundly unoriginal but I find it quite pathetic that her new gimmick is nearly identical, at least visually, to the concept art that Jane has been imagining for the better part of four years now.

[A Flanagan]

An eloquent nail in a half-lovely egg. You are singular, Mrs. Powers.

[Amanda]

"I'd rather be a Cyborg than a goddess." -Donna Haraway

The video is cool (sort of Blade Runner/Aliens/Rush's 2112 meets Milton/Dante's Inferno, although I am certainly reading too much into it), however, I wish people could embrace something other than the pseudo goddess manifesto. I would assume the notion of queer theory would be more akin to the "Cyborg Manifesto", no? Besides, Donna Haraway is far more radical than GaGa, even if more than half the population does not have the energy to read her.

That being said, the first part is excellent, the dancing part is old and overdone. Let's move on.

[Mike Stephens]

"plain old female objectification"? newsflash ... she IS female.

work.

[Jargoun]

Incredibly insightful.

[sidewalk]

stefani creates her art while drunk or high, so best to be in the same state of mind before trying to decipher the symbolism and synergistics --

[Donald Paul Winston]

Good grief. This "review" is barely readable. What is readable isn't worth reading. Being a "Show girl" and wearing a "scant bikini" supposedly ruins whatever else about feminism she's trying to convey? 99/100 viewers of Lady Gaga's videos don't have a clue about what this reviewer is talking about. Being a show girl and looking sexy does not undermine feminism. Sexual liberation is feminism. The only thing anti-feminist about being a "show girl" is when women are limited to being just show girls and nothing else.

Female objectification arguments are little different then the rationalization the Taliban uses to force women to wear bags over their heads.

[Heidi]

I like some of lady gaga's songs, but her new songs melody sounds like Madonna's Express Yourself.

[Polomoche]

Sorry, but this 'new generation of feminist writers, artists, and activists' you speak of could do much better than the hackneyed, formulaic songs of Lady Gaga. In my day the real artists rejected mainstream pop because of its banal redundancy, overt commercialism, and general garishness, all of which Gaga receives big check marks. (Jumping out of an egg in an 'egg yolk' body suit is a bit too literal, don't you think? She should have had some of her back up singers holding huge pieces of toast and dressed in bacon meat-suits... wait she already did that. I digress).

Did you notice the latest Grammy awards were like a Halloween show? I think that must be what Lady Gaga means by discovering your inner superstar as she is certainly drawing imitation; it is a competition to see who can dress most outlandishly, create the biggest spectacle, etc. Is that really consistent with being who you really are?

There is much, much better music out there - she wouldn't bother me in the least if her music and style wasn't eclipsing the beautiful depth of art going on outside of the corporate/commercial music world today. That is what our youth needs to be listening to, not this Madonna-recycled-dress-your-banal-songs-in-club-beats-and-alien-costume crap.

[Hudsen]

I find it rather comical reading comments saying, this is old or overdone when you couldn't do it much better yourself, my mother monster is an entertainer and a true visionary you people are just critical to a degree where you begin to criticize yourself. Long live the queen of pop culture bitchez

[MojoFiltre]

Everything she does is so heavily slathered in luciferian mind-controlled imagery it's beyond blatant. Any message she is trying to convey is brittle and dissolves after even a half-informed, half-interested glance. Do the research people.

[Janine]

I think Lady Gaga is not an original artist. She recycles so many so many styles and songs, we can call her copy-cat. I think people only like her because she parades around in E. Coli (meat dress)and constantly states how much she loves the gay community. I am an advocate for they gay community myself, but i feel that she uses it as a foil for herself.

[Fleurdamour]

Goddess, yeah, but she eternally trolls around at the lowest end of the goddess spectrum. Everything she does is banal and ugly and extreme. There is no beauty or proportion in her work, and her ego is breathtakingly outsized for her actual talent or accomplishments. I think she is the worst artist who has ever achieved such wide success, and that is saying something. It's saying something about our culture that this is the best goddess we can find, gods help us.

[Lola]

Not quite sure why such a fuss is made for such a bland song and bland "artist". Lady Gagas music is generic, contrived and cheesy, all things one has heard before, in one form or the other, what is the connection between that and "art", also "art" that is often ripped off ?

[Lola]

"Furthermore, since when has Lady Gaga ever conformed to "plain old female objectification?" She covers herself in blood, has horns coming out of her forehead, wears giant cylinders of hair, all the while still wearing a bikini. She rejoices in her fashion and sexuality because she rejoices in herself, ergo, she was born that way."

But it's all stuff others have done before and she blatantly rips off. Sorry, but that is NOT "BORN THIS WAY". Do your research, people. pffft

[Lola]

"I find it rather comical reading comments saying, this is old or overdone when you couldn't do it much better yourself, my mother monster is an entertainer and a true visionary you people are just critical to a degree where you begin to criticize yourself. Long live the queen of pop culture bitchez"

It's actually all very amateur, and most her fans are middle of the road generic mainstream teens. "queen of pop culture", for divs, perhaps.

[dharshanist]

GaGa is certainly not making music that is 'avant-garde' in any way yet her use of her mass-appeal to support the LGBT community and her exhibitionist attitude strangely feels empowering to those who are outcast by society! Her reference to her fans as 'Little Monsters' does a lot to unite these people who feel small or who seem not to belong in with the 'normal' others. Her gravitas is lauded because people feel if she can be comfortable in garish attire without care for what other people seem to think,why not them? Also, her supposed rejection of the 'mainstream' pop-culture strikes a chord with those people dejected with never belonging anywhere and therefore their own desire to stand and not belong with the 'in'-crowd!
From the personal but impartial observations of a little monster :)

[Lucia]

Notice how the male comments seem to center around how great Gaga looks in a bikini or how being a showgirl is feminist...

Yikes. It makes me wonder if men should be allowed to vote or have driver's licenses. Do men think about anything other than sex?