I like Lady Gaga, and the video is clever and kinky, but I can’t help but think of it as a portrayal of sexy with all of the sensuality distilled and sterilized out of it.
The problem with that is that Pop music has been ironic for so long that it’s no longer ironic to make it ironic. Isn’t that ironic?
I would then have to say you don’t ‘get’ Lady Gaga.
Well maybe; however, the slip in the linked pic is clearly an actual slip and not a purposeful Tori Amos type of statement.
Or if it is purposeful, it’s very poorly done which I have trouble believing given the precision with which Lady Gaga executes the rest of her persona.
There are ways to be shocking but having your tampon string sneak out the side of your costume is just a very sad, Britney Spears way of doing it and I don’t think that ANY pop star is currently trying to emulate poor Britney.
Tampon strings are the new irony!
Seems like she’s inspired by Eurythmics-era Annie Lennox to me (albeit much less effective and cool, IMO). But that may just be me.
Irony in pop-music is so overdone it’s trite. As are shocking sexual exploitation moments like tampon strings.
I like Lady Gaga’s music and think she is talented, but she has not done anything that hasn’t been done a thousand times before. I guess the fire tits are fairly unique to her. 
You mean she wasn’t paying tribute to this? I assumed that’s why people were referring to her as a fembot. Also, didn’t I see Mr. Bigglesworth? Oh behave, Gaga!
I called her a fembot, less because of the Austin Powers thing (didn’t even make the Mr. Bigglesworth connection) and more because she always just looks like a cyborg to me.
I think the director may have watched a few too many Chris Cunningham videos.
It’s a hell of a lot better than the vast majority of music videos out there nowadays, but that’s more of a statement about the death of the high-budget high-concept video than it is about any particular brilliance on the part of Gaga or her team.
I have to say, though, they did a FANTASTIC job with her makeup. She doesn’t even look like herself in some of the shots.
If I can combine this with an earlier post, I think it’s equal parts Britney Spears and Marilyn Manson, with the sum being somewhat less than. I suppose it’s interesting visually. About the same vocally too. Not great, but not terrible. Interesting works best. Lyrically, it’s watered down Pink. I wouldn’t take much pride in writing part of that song any more than I’d take pride in writing all of it. It’s very repetitive: not as much as most techno/electronica but certainly more than pop tends to be. I guess it’s closest to a song from Dora the Explorer with more base.
I’ll qualify this post by saying that she is most certainly not my kind of music. I watched the video because it’s popped up on my radar a couple of times today and I wanted to see what the fuss was about.
I would like to see Lady Gaga in a Rob Zombie movie.
I’m totally taken by her and I don’t know why.
Hi all. New to the boards. Was doing a little googling and came across your site.
Anyway…I see perfect placement for the Nemiroff Vodka and it makes sense to me. We seem fairly agreeable that the video is about human trafficking. Well, Nemiroff Vodka is Ukrainian. Of the Eastern European countries…the Ukraine is said to lead in the number of people forced into human trafficking. So…maybe in the beginning Nemiroff was all excited to have Lady Gaga spotlight their vodka…but I have noticed the Nemiroff vodka bottle scenes have been pulled from some video play. Peace
It makes sense but for some reason I didn’t associate the video with trafficking humans into sex slavery in a Russian bath house so much as trafficking some sort of weird humanoid/alien/sex cyborgs…or…whatever in the cargo hold of the Sulacco. The Russian stuff was just there for the sake of additional weirdness. Specifically, the pods in the beginning of the video, the bizarre vinyl outfits, the big empty rooms filled with florescent light, the sparks shooting out of Lady Gaga’s boobs like an Austin Power’s fembot, the weird Russian dudes with the metal crap on their faces, etc, etc.
The video actually uses sex trafficking as a metaphor for the way the entertainment industry exploits artists.
The theme of the video is metamorphism. That’s the point of the cocoon thing in the beginning and the animalistic dance moves. Throughout the video Lady Gaga is being transformed by force to entertain the Russian mobsters. Also throughout the video we see brief shots of Lady Gaga without makeup, in extreme closeups. She is usually sad or crying in those shots and we can never tell her location. It’s as if the “real” Lady Gaga is lost in purgatory somewhere and all we get to see is the Lady Gaga that’s been transformed for our viewing pleasure. I see the alien atmosphere as just a really cool style choice.
I don’t really like Lady Gaga’s music, but as a visual artist she’s at the top of her class.
Is she ever not wearing make up? I mean, I guess there’s some parts where she’s wearing less…but I didn’t think there were any shots of her totally without it.
Yep, I would say she’s “not wearing the stylized make-up associated with Lady Gaga” but she’s definitely wearing make-up.
I was thinking of the last picture here (figure c). She’s not completely without makeup, but it’s less than what Gaga normally wears.
I’m a fan of Badder Romance, myself.
Seriously? She looks like she’s wearing a ton of it–on her lashes, as well as eyeliner, and lip gloss. And probably a good deal of foundation.