Why do people hate Gaga? The release of Lady Gaga’s new video ‘Telephone’ featuring Beyonce has split ranks in my friendship circle. (If you haven’t seen it yet, watch it, it’s amazing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQ95z6ywcBY). When I say split ranks, I mean more that it has left me isolated on a little desert island of my own frustration. In fact, on many occasions I find myself becoming increasingly more irate as people with whom I normally share musical and cultural tastes condemn the Lady G. I for one am a massive fan. Except I only became aware of this as I was forced to defend what I think is the greatest pop innovator of our measly lifetimes.
Why do some people hate her so vehemently? And why do I apparently love her so much? I think the answer is this: Gaga is a gender crusader and a force for female empowerment all in one. A subtle gender bender, she has managed to co-opt herself into the mainstream, becoming one of the biggest selling female artists in modern times. And yet, while she cultivates an ever growing fan base, she provokes ire in otherwise perfectly reasonable people. Their criticisms?: “She’s ugly”, “she’s just so weird”, “she looks like a man”, “I even read that she admitted she was a man, with a penis and everything!”
Gaga is not beautiful, like Cheryl Cole beautiful, or Beyonce beautiful. And she certainly is weird. Anyone who wears lobsters or telephones on their heads as fashion is definitely a bit weird. But this is why she’s fabulous! Unlike Cole, or Beyonce, the two darlings of today’s female pop industry, she is a creator, not just a performer. Her talent lies in brilliant songwriting – no one can formulate catchy poppy hooks like this mother. She is also an innovator. Working with famous fashion designers and her own Haus of Gaga, she has infiltrated the fashion world, disseminating shoulder pads, robot-like body structures, underwear as outerwear and surrealist forms throughout the glossy magazines and high street clothing racks of the land. Not only that, but she is responsible for the content of all her live shows. In short, she is an artistic director of the highest order. And she is so important precisely because of her prime position at the helm of popular culture.
It could be said that Gaga has a big nose. Gaga has a kind of wide set face. Gaga has not got very large breasts. Yet despite this, she’s carved a space for herself in today’s visual culture through recourse to escapist surrealism. Here she follows the precedent set by Bowie, who portrayed himself as an alien sent down from Mars and in doing so could escape the shackles of gender, donning lipstick and heels in an attempt to imagine a world without gendered boundaries. Gaga does the same, albeit in a more subtle way. In her weirdest outfits she doesn’t look much like a biological human at all, let alone a woman or man. To stoke press fires she claimed she has a penis. Even when she highlights her feminine features, it’s in figure morphing robotic structures that distort as much as they complement. It doesn’t matter much if she’s ‘ugly’. Using her creative impulses she stretches visual boundaries. Her beauty is in her individualistic expression, and from this maybe we can all take a message of empowerment, especially in the context of our gendered (or ungendered) identities.
Though not stereotypically feminine with the soft features desired by many, she does harness the powers of sexuality in her music and videos. Yet this sexuality rests on aggression and assertiveness. She uses her ugly to shock, repulse, disgust but this only draws us in further. Wrapped in police tape and clinging to prison bars baring her genitals in a form of confrontation, the new video displays Gaga’s violent sexuality and is threaded with homoeroticism. This assertive, aggressive form of sexuality contravenes expectations of the feminine, and until Gaga has largely been absent from female pop performers.
In stretching gendered boundaries, and presenting a form of sexuality which clashes with accepted notions of the feminine, Gaga gains herself enemies. This has been brought to the fore in the reaction I’ve seen to ‘Telephone’, where Beyonce has seemingly been drawn into Gaga’s bizarre, surreal, filthy, ugly world. My friends have expressed anger and disappointment at this. Why would Beyonce do that? She has a better voice and a better body. I guess they just can’t understand why she would choose to sully brand Beyonce. What has struck me the most however, is the incessant need to immediately compare the two. They are pitted against each other as if there could only be one talented female popstar. This viewpoint conflicts with everything feminists have been fighting for! And in their minds Beyonce will always come top. The criteria used to judge here are not creativeness, innovation or imagination, but rather physical attributes, and the singing voice. It’s almost as if years of dull female popstars who have little creative authorship but can possibly sing well have lowered expectations of what women can achieve. The potential for invention and creativity is forgotten in this debate, as if a female body is an immediate signifier of all things physical and mechanical, so singing, dancing and beauty come to mind first and foremost.
When I watch ‘Telephone’ I feel a strange sense of empowerment from seeing two of the most successful female popstars collaborate and support one another. Though it’s a bit of an old-fashioned concept, it’s the first time I’ve felt a connection to ‘sisterhood’. In the mini debates I have been witness to I have been disappointed by the standards with which women have judged other women. I think there is a bigger issue here, which is maybe why I get so irate when Gaga is unfairly criticised. This is not just about Gaga but about expectations of the feminine. In a contradictory way, Gaga at once dispenses with gender while transforming previous articulations of the feminine to throw down a new gauntlet of female sexuality. We should celebrate her success as a strong role model to young women, and not criticise her for her failure to live up to dull, sterile precedents.
Very interesting article – but which raises a few questions. Mainly the whole ‘beauty’ thing – I can’t really see your point about her not looking ‘stereotypically feminine with features desired by many’ or having ‘not very large breasts’ – personally it seems to me, on the contrary, that she has a very conventional model body, impossibly thin, with breasts proportional to this thinness but still big (bigger than mine anyway :D) and that whatever she wears, she wears it to enhance these stereotypically feminine traits – in Telephone: high heels; wigs; corsets; thongs; push-up bras; etc etc. She’s not like Pink, for instance, who could be seen as having masculine traits. The debate on whether Beyonce has ‘a better body’ is, I think, frankly quite insulting to any normal plain girl – seriously, they’re both sex-symbols. I don’t see Gaga, physically, as transgressive or cross-gendered; sure her costumes are quirky but, I believe, do not threaten gender-stereotyped physical appearance. I’m not sure her face is unusual – it has character, but once again I find it conventional in all the ‘conventional-formated-beauty’ ways: straight white teeth, big lips (once again use of lipstick to enhance this stereotypically feminine trait), clear skin, harmonious features. What I mean is that I don’t find that there is anything transgressive or cross-gendered about Lady Gaga. She’s quirky but, to me, she doesn’t use her quirkiness to question femininity or gender.
In fact another thing about Lady Gaga that I find mysterious is that, to me, even her music isn’t very original or transgressive. It is very catchy, but original? Is it really? Is it transgressive? It’s good clubbing music, but is it more than that? I’m not an expert but I feel like everything she sings I’ve heard before… I might be wrong there, I don’t know, but it seems to me that her and her music are conventional enough to be popular, with just that tiny bit of quirkiness that spices it up without being really transgressive.
Entertainment Weekly:
“I think it’s great to be a sexy, beautiful woman who can f— her man after she makes him dinner,” she says. ”There’s a stigma around feminism that’s a little bit man-hating. And I don’t promote hatred, ever. That’s not to say that I don’t appreciate women who feel that way. I’ve got a lot of gay women friends that are like, ‘Put your clothes on.’ People just have different views about it. I’m not wrong. I’m free. And if it’s wrong to be free, then I don’t want to be right. Things are changing. We’ve got a black president, people.”
As much as I love your article, I have reservations about labelling a rather averagely blonde-model-attractive-popstar a feminist icon. I’m not sure she’s my new pin-up gender-bender, but she’s certainly interesting.
Haha I’ve seen that quotation too Ceridwen. (Sof has it on her blog!) I nearly got sucked into the whole “wow how refreshingly queer and quirky and deviant” after watching the Telephone video (and I did really enjoy the video!), but then I realised that actually, wearing black crosses on your nipples and sunglasses made out of cigarettes doesn’t mean you’re really going against the grain. She’s still prancing around in the nud and writhing around on the floor like a stunned animal. She’s still selling us Virgin Mobiles and prioritising certain body types. The cigaspectacles are presumably just another selling point. Also yeah, I agree with the comment about her music not being as ostentatiously unconventional as her apparent style. It’s catchy and poppy but repeating vowel sounds in a vaguely futuristic way is the only thing that distinguishes her from the kind of stuff that Katy Perry is producing.
Wow. This is an AMAZING article!! Really convincing and well written – try getting it published in Varsity or something! I know almost nothing about Gaga, having dismissed her as mainstream and therefore boring, but I will now go look her up a bit more (no innuendo intended). I was forced to watch the Telephone video though. A couple of points: My initial reaction to the video was, boring song, same old corporate churn-out. However, I admit to being impressed by the fashion side of things. I think you have a point comparing her to Bowie. Really crazy stuff going on, which if nothing else does take you a little out of your comfort zone. I do think the objections raised above are valid – I certainly wouldn’t say it challenges gender stereotypes.
Where I agree is that it does all feel strangely empowering. It is good to see a mega-famous mainstream pop icon actually controlling her own artistic output (rather than, say, hiring Swedes to do it for her). It makes you feel a tincy tiny bit better about the music industry – that it’s not entirely fat 50-year-old cigar-wielding men puppeteering mass-produced junk entirely calculated for it’s profitability. It’s good to see that while Gaga does rely on the old selling points of sex, mindless catchy beats-based tunes, and virgin mobile placements, she at least occasionally dons outfits that are more designed to shock than look good. I’ve hear in her shows she even plays piano occasionally!!!
But then again you know you’ve sunk pretty low when you’re impressed that -shock, horror- _instruments_ make it onstage in a modern stadium gig. I think Gaga is not the answer to any feminist woes, but she is certainly not another step in the wrong direction.
And one other thing – I agree with you that it is despicable that people judge female superstars by their beauty (either its perceived lack or abundance). I would hate to think that people don’t like Gaga for that reason. One nice thing about her is that I have no idea what she looks like! In every photo I’ve seen, which is admittedly not as many as some but still a lot, she looks like a completely new person. I swear I would not recognise her in an elevator. Noboby seems to mention this fact, but to me it seems really striking. Her hair is always a different colour, shape and type; even her actual face (when you can see it – normally its obscured by bizarre fashion accessories/wigs/makeup) I swear changes from one photoshoot to the next!! This is crazy stuff! Normally icons trade on their instantaneously-recognisable image, which cannot ever change or all would be lost, but Gaga’s image is that she’s constantly changing. She changes costume five or six times in ONE SHOW. I think that’s a really cool innovation. It does draw people’s attention away from raw female beauty (which is where people’s attention is normally directed in most of the mainstream pop world), even if most of her incarnations do reaffirm the traditional signs of such beauty (lipstick, high heels etc, as mentioned by previous commenters).
I’m surprised how often the ideas of cutting-edge-fashion (‘against the grain’) and feminism are thrown into similar, or parallel, catagories during these debates.
I entirely understand that the fight to challenge traditional values is an integral part of the feminist movement. But the fashion world is uninterested in any political values: it is interested in consumerism. Despite being an attractive art-form, the fashion world is still only another machine for profit. Being ‘against the grain’ in the world of style is not being ‘against the grain’ of the industry itself.
The replacement of overtly sexual, feminine images of the female body with even more overtly sexual, feminine images of the female body fails to address any of the actual issues that I have with the fashion world. GaGa by no means challenges the media obsession with female nudity, high heels, luxurious amounts of styling, heavy amounts of make-up… ad nauseum. The dawn of a ‘new fashion’ is not a movement towards female freedom – just another wave of exciteable, ‘cutting-edge’ consumerism. Gaga simply has a new outfit to writhe around in, a mask to wear when baring her breasts, and goggles to don when going in for that oh-so-erotic lesbian kiss.
I know gender-bending kids that only wear their daddies’ clothes; I know anti-capitalist kids that only wear what they find in skips and charity shops; I know incredible kids that make their own clothes from whatever they like that day; and I know kids that wear the same things day in day out because they’re warm and they do the job. I’m not saying that this is ‘true feminist fashion’. I’m saying that you can’t make one happen on the cat walk, because the cat walk is the problem.
Would you do away with the aesthetic concepts and art that have been/are born out of the fashion industry?
No I wouldn’t. Art is a very important part of culture, obviously.
But the ‘industry’ is just that. An industry. That is designed to fuel consumerist desires for more, and new, and now. It’s not a sustainable industry, and it’s not one that is interested in art for the sake of culture. It’s interested in profit.
I also love adverts. I think they’re gorgeous, especially for perfume and cars. God, the music, the colours. Everything. But that doesn’t mean I endorse the advertising industry, just because artists work at the helm.
Maybe my feeling about the fashion world are inextricably linked to the fact that I don’t believe that any profit-making machine can be used for the liberation of anyone. I am an anti-capitalist, and this is very much a part of my feminism.
If something is making a profit in capitalist system, then it cannot be used for the liberation of the female; however, I am in full support of individuals who work within art industries. There the problem lies.
but clearly if you removed the industry from the art you’d get a very different product, one that would lack a lot of the aesthetic nuances of the piece as it is produced in an industrial/profit-making mode. If Mozart hadn’t been in the pay of the Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg perhaps his work at this time – if written for the sake of art itself – would have been totally different.
I’m not saying that people ought to create for free/the public good. Everyone should be paid fairly.
But I’d be pretty stumped if I thought that, like you seem to imply, the quality of art is relative to the profit margin?
Quality in the sense of its character and style, not in a hierarchical sense!
I would normally take ceridwen’s side, as a staunch anti-capitalist myself; all I was saying is that IF we accept the fashion industry exists and IF we accept that it has lots of fundamental flaws, THEN Lady Gaga is not as bad as she could be, in fact she is significantly better than the average. But the average is so poor that this, admittedly, is not an endorsement at all.
http://www.out.com/detail.asp?page=3&id=26601
This is a super link that Kate showed me; the ‘butch girl’ that makes out with Lady Gaga in the video is interviewed about depictions of ‘queer’.
I love that article, Heather Cassils is super hot and her art sounds literally amazing. I basically agree with everything she says.
Potentially interesting article on this subject by singer-songwriter/political activist lefty Chris TT:
http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/news/content/view/full/88256
This is a really well written article and I strongly agree that Gaga is a welcome change from all the plastic and boring female popstars that appeared in the last decade. However, I am unsure whether we can call her a feminist icon as such, because of the way she speaks about the concept of feminism. She implies that to be a feminist you need to really dislike men altogether. This youtube video of one of her interviews is an example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=habpdmFSTOo
As she has gained media influence and dozens of fans with her album sales, it is a shame that she has conveyed feminism in this way, because it reinforces a non inclusive and ignorant stereotype. I won’t deny though, I do have her albums on my ipod and love her music! I do not see her as a feminist icon but certainly a much better role model than Girls Aloud or the Pussycat Dolls, for her originality and her refusal to be a more ‘conventional’ singer who just looks pretty for the media and tries to please everyone.
So, I’ve been away from my laptop for some time and in the interim much has been written. In reply, a few clarifications and elaborations which the brevity of the article would not allow:
1) Many disagree with the concept of Gaga as a gender bender. While I agree in part with some of this, I still think a case can be made for her subversive disposition.
-Gaga does highlight her feminine features, but I think in this she often utilises homovestism as a tool, whereby she distorts the feminine in a mode of self-parody that highlights gender’s performative aspects. This has been written about in relation to Annie Lennox, we see it also in some phases of PJ Harvey. Take for instance Gaga in the Bad Romance video where she’s wearing a fur coat and lingerie. Her face is so heavily made up it looks ridiculous. You can clearly and deliberately see the make up line around her chin. I think it’s important to note how the feminine doesn’t have to be completely rejected when women gender bend, and Gaga doesn’t have to do this consistently to have an effect.
-Also, if, we look outside of Gaga as the person, and onto Gaga as a brand/concept/package, we can get a greater sense of her potential to upset gendered stabilities. Trans prison guards and a kiss with the ‘butch’ Heather Cassils feature in the Telephone video. The penis claim/rumour is also quite a big deal for many people. If you type Lady Gaga into the Google toolbar, ‘Lady Gaga hermaphrodite’ is the second suggestion that comes up. The article with Heather Cassils suggests Gaga has an interest in gender and feminism which is the sense I’ve always got. I like her point about the mystery of Gaga’s gender and anatomy.
2) I think Gaga needs to be situated in her context much more. I did say she was a subtle gender bender. And don’t forget we discussing this read, think and write about gender whereas many/most don’t. So for the large majority of her audience, aspects of her that might not seem so radical to us are picked up on. People I have talked to are really weirded out by the penis thing. ‘Weird’ is quite an amorphous word, but I read it as a gendered phrase when used in relation to Gaga. Certainly this is the sense I’ve got from the conversations I had which prompted the article in the first place. My comment about audience is not meant to be patronising but a lot of intelligent people don’t consider gender in conscious terms.
Also, I am not claiming that Gaga is the pinnacle of feminist achievement. She does not represent the greatest intellectual exploration of gender. She is not my top feminist icon. In reply to some comments about her musical originality she is not my favourite artist ever. If, for some reason, I was on desert island discs, she would not make the cut. But if we contextualise her resonance much more, she is an important step forward within popular culture and within popular mainstream music. I agree that there are overarching structures, both commercial and political, that serve to subordinate certain groups, including women. But I think appropriation is an important aspect of pop culture, and a vital tool for personal empowerment. If we only ever focused on the larger structures the world would be such a miserable place! Surely it’s important for self preservation on an individual level. Who’s to say what a person thinks or feels when that person puts on a certain outfit. Fashion can be a great form of expression. Gaga taps into this. So, though not my top feminist icon, within the context, I find Lady Gaga empowering.
3) Third, it seems that issues of body and sexuality are bubbling up through these comments. I think its ok that she writhes around on the floor. Many people enjoy writhing. And I think it’s ok that she’s nearly naked. I don’t think that women should feel the need to subordinate their body or cover up. This should not be the criteria for respectability. We should not judge a woman as being of creative substance only if she first regulates the amount of flesh on show. Sometimes I feel women are hemmed in from both sides- on the one hand is the pressure to display their body and pin their self-worth to it, and on the other, to reject it entirely. I think Gaga enjoys her body, and I don’t think she utilises it in a way which is subservient or demeaning.
Also, I don’t think it matters much what body type she has. I just want to make it clear that it’s not me making the comparisons about Gaga and Beyonce’s beauty, but that the article was prompted in the first place because people around me were saying this. I was simply trying to understand their point of view. I think it’s awful too, hence my point about the standards women use to judge other women.
Apologies for this overly long reply. x
PS. I do think it’s a shame that she decries feminism but I guess it’s the difference between what she says and what she does, and how you appropriate that. I agree with the first part of the interview Morwenna posted and her points about double standards in relation to what it means to be a rockstar. To me this is blatantly feminist. Sounds like she just has a negative stereotype of feminism through lack of investigation.
I also agree with her interview (until she is actually asked about feminism itself), so she does have the potential to make a difference for women in the music industry and the perception of them in wider society. If only she was a little more informed about feminism and challenged the stereotype!
Very impressive, Lily!
One thing to bear in mind is that Lady Gaga isn’t the only female artist out there who goes against the grain, and even if she is the most popular, there are other females doing similar, and in many ways superior, things with a huge amount of success. A good example is St Vincent, a fabulous guitarist and breathtaking singer, whose songwriting skills way surpass Gaga. She hasn’t made it big yet in the UK, but she’s doing extremely well for herself in the US. Her take on the issue is that women shouldn’t be given extra praise when they are good musicians, just for being women. There’s a great interview here: http://www.spinnermusic.co.uk/2009/08/19/st-vincent-slams-lilith-fair-lady-gaga-and-sexism/, which explains her position, as well as a semi-attack on Gaga for the same reasons. She likes to be “gender-blind”.
Now there’s a good debate to be had about which approach brings feminism the most success: Lady Gaga’s extreme gender-bending (or at least highlighting of gender issues) or St Vincent’s refusal to acknowledge gender. In past debates, I’ve tended to side much more with Gaga’s line of attack, but that doesn’t mean I think St Vincent’s is invalid. It’s like Obama attempting to be “post-partisan” in a clearly partisan world: I applaud the effort but I think more might be achieved if we tackled the issue head on by highlighting the evils of partisanship/gender inequality.
Still, I think it’s very very important not to let Gaga adoration distract us from all the other great feminist icons, be they gender-blind like St Vincent or in-your-face-punk like Ani Difranco. I think its great that a growing number of bands are mixed-sex, too. I think it’s wrong to report it in terms of “isn’t it great what Gaga is doing for music” – rather, it should be “isn’t it great that Gaga is bringing what is now quite widespread in music to the top levels of popularity that have until now remained fairly staunchly stereotype-entrenched.”
I was surprised to read some of the comments the OPs friends made about Lady Gaga’s beauty/lack of it, because I’ve always considered her to be very conventionally attractive, even if she does dress in a quirky way. Before I watched the video for Telephone I had always been quite impressed with the way that Gaga seemed not to buy into the objectification of female popstars that so often characterises their music videos. I watched Telephone with three of my male friends who all told me excitedly how great it was, and I have to say I was thoroughly disappointed, both with the video, and to realise that part of their admiration was for the flagrant sexualisation of Gaga. Gaga, despite her quirky outfits, presents herself in a very conventionally ‘sexy’ way, buys into the “lesbians are sexy” lads mag school of thought, and openly presents her body, and those of her dancers, as something to be objectified. Consequently I found the video rather boring, and was upset that Gaga had presented herself and her gender in this way.
Reading some of the above comments, I think that this kind of video also presents a possible danger for feminism. Despite Gaga being overtly sexualised in an undeniably feminine way, because she wears eccentric outfits, she is somehow thought to be going against gender stereotypes and helping fight a feminist cause. I don’t think that she is empowered in the video, just as I don’t think that the Cambridge Union’s pole fitness sessions will empower Cambridge students. Dressing up objectification behind a veil of quirkiness (or exercise, in the case of the pole dancing) doesn’t subvert it, instead it can lead people to think that she is breaking the mould, and so fail to realise that she is supporting and endorsing a sexist, misogynist music industry.
But lesbians R sexy?! JOKES. Oh god I’ve lowered the tone.
I think Lady Gaga is attractive. And i think she’s so popular now because we are starved of weird entertainers in the music industry. In the 80s, she may not have been as popular(number 1), what with Michael Jackson, Madonna, Billy Idol, and others. But now, she’s unique. Maybe she’s trying to wake us all up from our beige-walled homes, and beige-coloured outfits, in our beige-coloured lives… It’s okay to idolize such a person, i’m not saying go out and dance in a thong, but take note of her courage to go out, courageous and proud, and be herself, regardless. I guess she became so popular when most girls were thinking only one look was attractive. But, petite is considered very feminine, and Lady Gaga is very petite, so concerning the way she looks only, she’s as feminine as the ‘child-bearing hips’ type ladies. We’re all feminine. I’m rambling.
And maybe people should think about her singing:
‘Stop callin’, stop callin’,
I don’t wanna think anymore!
I left my head and my heart on the dance floor.
Stop callin’, stop callin’,
I don’t wanna talk anymore!
I left my head and my heart on the dance floor.
While she provocatively dances in very revealing lingerie… Maybe she’s saying to all the perves out there ‘i’ll wear what i want, and i’ll dance how i want, while saying what i want, so stop trying to interrupt me with your over-thought analysis!’ Anyone who thinks this video is against feminism needs to watch, listen and think at the same time. She reminds me a lil of Marilyn Manson actually, weird outfits… But his lyrics are more in your face and argumentative. Maybe she’ll do a song like that next.
Something I found amusing (and I might well return with a proper reply later) is that Gaga apparently said she wants to do a collaboration with Grace Jones next, and Grace Jones absolutely refused because she sees Gaga as yet another piece of populist, mass-produced rubbish*…
Cxxx
*which is where you get the problem of pop-stars being seen as products…
**someone just screamed outside. Gotta go.
i think this is the most accurate critique of lady gaga that i have seen so far: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvOucvTpKrE
The main problem I have with these videos (sorry for using such a lame term, I hope you understand what I mean…), spectacularly produced they may be, is that a huge market for this stuff is children. Bleeping out the ‘naughty’ words to make them suitable for children doesn’t really cut it in my opinion, videos like this are forming an image of what it means to be a successful woman in children’s minds, and that image consists of prancing around wearing next to nothing. I’m afraid I’m going to draw your attention to the following video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoiMUOqKORY
The problem is the original Beyonce video, however artfully shot and well choreographed, still influences what children think is the normal way to dress. Obviously the parents of the children in this video are the real culprits, but again, it’s due to the bombardment of videos depicting skinny girls wearing less and less clothes, that the sexual overtones are almost forgotten, and that way of dressing becomes normal, and the result is something like this.
While I appreciate Gaga’s dress sense (weird is definitely better than slutty), in order to really make a difference, she needs to make videos that will appeal to people without taking her clothes off, as she is capable of.
Although it kinda sucks that instead of just including a shot without underwear to debunk the myth that she has a penis, she also included some pretty offensive stereotyping of transwomen in the two prison guards. Section 2) here says it better than I ever could: http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2010/03/13/weekend-arts-section-nothing-that-happened-this-week-was-ever-going-to-be-as-important-as-the-telephone-video/
See this? http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/aug/22/lady-gaga-sexual-aesthetic-pop