Gaga Update

I happened across the March issue of Vogue magazine the other day. Guess who was the subject of the cover article?  Yup—none other than herself, Lady Gaga.  As you can imagine, I was eager to see what Vogue had to say about her, and slightly anxious that I was about to have my entire thesis demolished before my eyes.

Not to worry.  Yes, the slutty bit was absent— tasteful make-up (pee-hole-in-the-snow eyeliner gone), an arty pink hair-do, and a sumptuous array of photo layouts with Gaga dressed in costumes of the highest and most exquisite femme-fantastical order you could ever imagine.  Quite beautiful, actually.  Then it hit me—Marie Antoinette!  Well, sure—Lady Gaga is the new royalty.  In essence, what I found myself looking at was a let-them-eat-cake ideology only Vogue can deliver with quite the slick and delicious perfection that it does.

You might notice, if you go to Vogue’s website, an advertisement for “chalk calf copper anklet sandal, also available in black: $2,295.”  Ee-ee-kkk!  I don’t know about you, but if I had that kind of incidental cash, I’d rather spend it on a heating system for my humble abode (mine is not functioning).  Leafing through the magazine itself, you might also notice in the advertisements, as did I, a fashion trend that is quite reminiscent of the Roaring 20’s, which is also present in the Gaga layouts, or, as it seems to me.  Hello?  Are they telling us something, or not?  And isn’t this yet another face of the zeitgeist, where wealth and fame and extravagance and cold cash are the ultimate values? Class warfare? You bet!

The Gaga article is pure cotton candy, supporting the ridiculous notion that she is an artist, though I don’t know why I would even hope for a RollingStone sort of exposé in Vogue. And the Lady lies through her perfect teeth again, claiming to have been bullied in her school days. Well, the myth must be perpetuated, after all.  The author did use the word “zeitgeist,” however.  That I found most interesting.


(Note: Fair Use doctrine applied to the use of this photograph, as it is being used for the purpose of artistic criticism. And because not all that many people will see it here!)