[If you wanna go back to the part I focus on as you read what I write, go to the 2:30 mark] So in the video around the start you see Lady Gaga get out of a limo in a wheel chair with a neck brace and a completely stiff body. But this entrance is very different than any really disabled persons would ever be. She is surrounded by men all dressed up like butlers dancing around her in a worshiping way by the way they don't ever truely touch her when they put their hands around her except for when they help her take some of her clothes off and they carry her up the stairs while still dancing along side her as one pushing her across the flatter grounds. They make her seem as this epic piece of royalty. Then when she gets inside whose there to welcome her home? Some decked out tredy twists on maid figures. Also dancing but forming a line around Gaga leading her into her outrageously massive mansion.
Also she is dressed pretty damn good from someone "just out of the hospital" with first her metal corsette, frilly shoulder pads, and lace leggings which then change when the butlers help her take off her clothes. The new outfit is a pair of stilletos, a gold metal leotard with a matching helmet, and a pair of crutches; and not even the crutches you typically see on people fresh out of the hospital they're the ones stereotypically seen on people depiciting physically disabled individuals.
I know what you're think, what the hell is she doing?! I like Gaga but I still think the same thing even though I've seen this video many times since its release over a year ago. But I believe you could take this scene in 2 different ways: making a mockery of the disabled community along with the idea of embracing the disabled community and giving them a new look.
It's very obvious that disabled people [or even able bodied people] ever get this sort of treatment. But the outfit she eventually changed in to with the metal leotard is very negetively depicting a disabled individual and how they walk and how they might be dressed. Her way of waddling towards the camera and her facial expressions make it seem as if she's making fun of a disabled person more than depicting someone who just arrived home from the hospital.
Now you can't even tell me that this depicts a positive image of disability.
But the posibility that she is more embracing and showing a positive image of the disabled community is the fact that she's glamorizing and sexualizing a disabled individual. Which may not sound like a good thing, and that it could still be mocking the group of people but in a way its not. Most groups of people have a sexual being that is apart of their same group and gives them someone to look up to, well the disabled community doesn't really. So I see this as something that could potentially include the disabled community in the sexual idolism that the world has because Gaga makes herself a disabled person and makes herself look sexually pleasing thus connecting the two and including disabled people in something never really seen before: having sex appeal.
*video from search results on Hulu.com which linked me to the video on MTV's website http://www.mtv.com/videos/lady-gaga/400705/paparazzi.jhtml#artist=3061469
*photo from http://www.wornthrough.com/2010/01/page/2
Interesting connection between being disabled and having the papparizzi following/helping. I know plenty of disbaled people and can guarantee, this never happens to them. I liked the song and hated the video.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your two possible interpretations of this video. I like your analysis of disability and sexuality here. Unfortunately, powerful female artists often have videos produced and directed by men who try to fit them into a box of sexism and objectification. So I have to point out the video cliches here - the fragmented shots of women's bodies, and the glamorizing of violence against women.
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