An Ode To Lady Gaga (Vertex Tangent)

Lady Gaga Looks Like Lady Gaga

I love Lady Gaga. Not ironically. Not “for a pop artist.” I love and respect Lady Gaga. I think she is great. Why? It’s simple. and it has everything to do with this week’s Vertex.

Earlier this week, Av succinctly summed up the point of this week’s Vertex, a point that the Salahis badly missed and John Beckwith got right:

To achieve real happiness and find someone that fulfills you for the long haul, it is not enough to play the character for a couple of hours. Rather, you need to become that person for real or, better yet, become that person by being yourself.

Lady Gaga is many things – dancer, song writer, pop star, provocateur – but mostly she is one thing, she is herself.

Contrast that with Chuck Klosterman’s 2003 interview with then queen of pop, Britney Spears:

“Why do you dress so provocatively?” I ask. She says she doesn’t dress provocatively. “But look what you’re wearing right now,” I say, while looking at three inches of her inner thigh, her entire abdomen, and enough cleavage to choke a musk ox. “This is just a skirt and a top,” she responds. It is not that Britney Spears denies that she is a sexual icon, or that she disputes that American men are fascinated with the concept of the wet-hot virgin, or that she feels her success says nothing about what our society fantasizes about. She doesn’t disagree with any of that stuff, because she swears she has never even thought about it. Not even once… And suddenly, something becomes painfully clear: Either Britney Spears is the least self-aware person I’ve ever met, or she’s way, way savvier than any of us realize.

With everything that has happened since that interview, I think it is safe to say that his first conclusion was the correct one. Britney Spears was the least self-aware person that Chuck Klosterman has ever met.

Well Lady Gaga might be the most self aware pop artist. She wears outrageous outfits and says outrageous things. She makes artistic videos and choreographs dances out of Rube Goldberg’s imagination. Why does she do it all? It’s because she believes that her life is art. She believes that every fashion trend she champions is a creation unto herself. She wants to put on a show, so she very consciously does.

Even more praise worthy, she does it to set an example. She tries to be herself, so that everyone else can feel comfortable being themselves. Even if that self is as bombastic as Gaga herself. In fact, Lady Gaga made this exact point herself to Ellen DeGeneres:

“The whole point of what I do – The Monster Ball, the music, the performance aspect of it – I want to create a space for my fans where they can feel free and they can celebrate… This is really who I am, and it took a long time to be okay with that… I want my fans to know that it’s okay. Sometimes in life you don’t always feel like a winner, but that doesn’t mean you’re not a winner, you want to be like yourself.“

The Salahis and Lady Gaga both try to emit an image. They both want to put on a show. The Salahis are heirs to the throne of Britney Spears – they try to act for the camera the way they perceive they are supposed to, the way they believe we, the viewing public, want them to. Lady Gaga is just being herself. On camera. And that’s what really works.

To read more about the topics raised in this week’s Vertex Point, check out all the related Vertex Tangents:

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• Lyrically Challenged: Poker Face
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• The Vertex Ranks The Top Comedies Of The Decade
• Two of These Women Suck: Rihanna, Shakira and Lady Gaga