Friday, June 21, 2013

Lady Gaga and the Death of Sex
Part 1
1. Why cant Gaga be the "voice of all the freaks and misfits"?
2. Why are other celebrities sexuality are with compared  Gaga's sexuality?
3. Why is Lady Gaga's name considered a "manufactured personality", when many celebrities change their names all the time?
Part 2
1. Why cant Gaga be the "voice of all the freaks and misfits"?


After reading this article, first thing is obvious Camille Paglia is not a fan. Second, I noticed that Paglia contradicts herself, when she questions Gaga’s credibility to be the voice of all the freaks and misfits. Paglia states that there is little evidence that she was ever was a freak or misfit herself because of her comfortable upbringing and eventual wealth. Another reason she questions her credibility is because she attended the same private school as Paris and Nicky Hilton did. This made me ponder for a bit, I thought to myself everyone goes to school whether it’s a public or private school; people don’t always fit in and are automatically labeled freaks or misfits. How do we know if Gaga wasn’t a misfit or freak herself when attending private school? So to me it makes Paglia’s statement invalid because all she presents is superficial remarks. Later on Paglia writes that “Warhol’s superstars were authentic misfits”, because they were the “products of New York’s bohemian and Beatnik underground in the 1950s”. She says they were edgy and at times self-destructive. This makes me question, why are Warhol’s superstars authentic misfits, just because they are products of New York’s Bohemia and Beatnik underground, their  edginess and self-destruction what about the misfits that came before Warhol; to me it seems she is generalizing the misfits to Warhol’s view of misfits. In parts of her article it seems that she has no concrete evidence to support her statements, she mostly writes about her clear dislike for Gaga. Compared to other pop artist she is not of the norm, which in a way makes her a misfit or a freak, with her meat dress, big wigs, unique attire, elaborate entrances, and videos that feature “murders of men”. Without a doubt Gaga’s misfit or freakish ways, make people want to know what she will come out with next.

1 comment:

  1. I agree completely that the author's claims that Gaga is not an "authentic" outcast are based simply on her own arbitrary definition of what it means to be an outcast or misfit. While reading the article I became increasingly under the impression that she does not dislike Gaga for the reasons she mentions, but rather that she comes up with those reasons because she dislikes Gaga.

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