Friday, December 2, 2011

Art School emotional jerk-off


I just watched Lady Gaga's new video for "Marry the Night." Let me explain something first, and this will be very important to keep in mind, as I continue writing, and you continue reading. I love this song. I love everything about this song. I also, most of the time, love Lady Gaga. I say most of the time, because the other times that I don't care for her, is when she takes her bullshit art student pretention to the Nth degree. I went to art school too lady, and I understand performance art. It took me a long time to really like performance art, and I would venture to say that about 90% of the time, the reason I don't like watching performance art is because of the performer.

Ok, so I watched the video. It's fourteen minutes long. Now, I have no problem with the length of the mini-film. (I've watched Matthew Barney's Cremaster Cycle. I have no problem sitting for hours watching the the same repetitive motion over and over.) The costumes, styling, set design, choreography, all of that is on POINT. My problem with it, is that, for the first almost five minutes of the video, she's narrating some bullshit about how she "loathes reality" and how the nurses uniforms are Calvin Klein (next season), and the shoes are custom Giuseppe Zanotti, and the hospital is this big stylized thing, and it doesn't make any narrative sense, I mean, it kind of does, but mainly it's this masturbatory thing wherin Gaga tells us of her struggles as an artist, by mentioning a Bedazzler, and pulling out some moves from Flashdance, and alluding to Dario Argento movies. THEN! after all of this thrashing around, and making herself look ugly by smearing her makup and dragging chunks of kohl eyeliner across her body, the song begins.

Again, I went to art school. I knew this girl. I was ALWAYS and will forever ALWAYS be annoyed by this type of person. A person who wallows in the generic and says pretentious things because she thinks people will think she's tormented and at the same time, wise. This person uses images that we have seen a million times before and resurrects them, and in their feeble attempt at real art, we realize later that what she is doing is borrowing, nay, stealing from those who have done it better and were smarter than her and her false attitude.

I don't doubt the work of women artists who were making themselves ugly as a means to show the world that they were not objects, and that they were and should be seen as equals to men. I don't doubt the validity of their work, nor do I hesitate to refer to them as artists. I hesitate to jump on the "Gaga is an artist" bandwagon because I don't think she is one. I think she is playing the part of the tragic fool all too well. I don't think she is original and I don't think she should throw around the word "artist" like it was a brand of potato chips. It cheapens the meaning thus making every idiot with a glitter pen think they can do it too (I'm looking directly at you Ke$ha).

You peaked with "Telephone"girlfriend. Non-pretentious, campy, stylish, funny, perfect. You don't have to try so hard. If your work is genuine, people will like it. Stop trying to force everyone's hand. You haven't done anything new, and the fact that you keep trying to play us like you ARE doing something new, is just making me more pissed off. Maybe you seem new to some people, but those people don't read or were born and kept in a basement their whole lives and are scared of their own shadows.

I still love this song, but I give this video and pretty much all of her other videos with the exception of "Telephone" on big, fat, NEEEEXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!!!!

Oh yeah, here's the video. Enjoy.


XOXO!

Betsy