Many people "don't get" Lady Gaga. Many reactions to her visceral VMA's performance I've heard have been along the lines of "that was really weird", or "i don't get her. why all the blood...?". My first response to comments like these are "it's not weird, it's genius, and you don't get it because for some tragic reason you are oblivious to the depth of the immediacy of abstract art and humanity she reaches on a daily basis".
Most people's initial reaction to the Lady is that she must be on tons of drugs. While I'm not quite naive enough to completely exonerate her from dabbling, I do think it's completely possible that she's not on any mood or reality-altering illegal substances. Why does someone have to be on drugs to come up with some of the things she does in terms of fashion and performance aesthetic? Could these thoughts not dawn on her when she's dead sober? Perhaps when the rest of the world was growing up and figuring out how to fit in, she was figuring out how to look more like Boy George and David Bowie. At least, that's what I like to think. Is everyone supposed to be Taylor Swift? I hope not.
Most people's initial reaction to the Lady is that she must be on tons of drugs. While I'm not quite naive enough to completely exonerate her from dabbling, I do think it's completely possible that she's not on any mood or reality-altering illegal substances. Why does someone have to be on drugs to come up with some of the things she does in terms of fashion and performance aesthetic? Could these thoughts not dawn on her when she's dead sober? Perhaps when the rest of the world was growing up and figuring out how to fit in, she was figuring out how to look more like Boy George and David Bowie. At least, that's what I like to think. Is everyone supposed to be Taylor Swift? I hope not.
I think Lady Gaga's music, lyrics, fashion, and general art aesthetic speak to the darkest and most twisted complications of human emotions that is all at once astounding, abstract, and accessible. Some find her aesthetic alienating, I find it freeing from every kind of suffocating convention of modern conceptions of music, fame, and fashion.