Sunday Times Magazine: Feminist Writer Camille Paglia Slams Lady Gaga Says Pop Star Is A Complete Joke & Manufactured!
Lady Gaga and the death of sex
An erotic breaker of taboos or an asexual copycat? Camille Paglia, America’s foremost cultural critic, demolishes an icon
American singer Lady Gaga, born Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta (Francois Berthier)
Lady Gaga is the first major star of the digital age. Since her rise, she has remained almost continually on tour. Hence, she is a moving target who has escaped serious scrutiny. She is often pictured tottering down the street in some outlandish get-up and fright wig. Most of what she has said about herself has not been independently corroborated… “Music is a lie”, “Art is a lie”, “Gaga is a lie”, and “I profusely lie” have been among Gaga’s pronouncements, but her fans swallow her line whole…
She constantly touts her symbiotic bond with her fans, the “little monsters”, who she inspires to “love themselves” as if they are damaged goods in need of her therapeutic repair. “You’re a superstar, no matter who you are!” She earnestly tells them from the stage, while their cash ends up in her pockets. She told a magazine with messianic fervour: “I love my fans more than any artist who has ever lived.” She claims to have changed the lives of the disabled, thrilled by her jewelled parody crutches in the Paparazzi video.
Although she presents herself as the clarion voice of all the freaks and misfits of life, there is little evidence that she ever was one. Her upbringing was comfortable and eventually affluent, and she attended the same upscale Manhattan private school as Paris and Nicky Hilton. There is a monumental disconnect between Gaga’s melodramatic self-portrayal as a lonely, rebellious, marginalised artist and the powerful corporate apparatus that bankrolled her makeover and has steamrollered her songs into heavy rotation on radio stations everywhere.
For two years, I have spent an irritating amount of time trying to avoid Gaga’s catchy but depthless hits Lady Gaga is a manufactured personality, and a recent one at that. Photos of Stefani Germanotta just a few years ago show a bubbly brunette with a glowing complexion. The Gaga of world fame, however, with her heavy wigs and giant sunglasses (rudely worn during interviews) looks either simperingly doll-like or ghoulish, without a trace of spontaneity. Every public appearance, even absurdly at airports where most celebrities want to pass incognito, has been lavishly scripted in advance with a flamboyant outfit and bizarre hairdo assembled by an invisible company of elves.
Furthermore, despite showing acres of pallid flesh in the fetish-bondage garb of urban prostitution, Gaga isn’t sexy at all – she’s like a gangly marionette or plasticised android. How could a figure so calculated and artificial, so clinical and strangely antiseptic, so stripped of genuine eroticism have become the icon of her generation? Can it be that Gaga represents the exhausted end of the sexual revolution? In Gaga’s manic miming of persona after persona, over-conceptualised and claustrophobic, we may have reached the limit of an era…
Gaga has borrowed so heavily from Madonna (as in her latest video-Alejandro) that it must be asked, at what point does homage become theft? However, the main point is that the young Madonna was on fire. She was indeed the imperious Marlene Dietrich’s true heir. For Gaga, sex is mainly decor and surface; she’s like a laminated piece of ersatz rococo furniture. Alarmingly, Generation Gaga can’t tell the difference. Is it the death of sex? Perhaps the symbolic status that sex had for a century has gone kaput; that blazing trajectory is over…
Gaga seems comet-like, a stimulating burst of novelty, even though she is a ruthless recycler of other people’s work. She is the diva of déjà vu. Gaga has glibly appropriated from performers like Cher, Jane Fonda as Barbarella, Gwen Stefani and Pink, as well as from fashion muses like Isabella Blow and Daphne Guinness. Drag queens, whom Gaga professes to admire, are usually far sexier in many of her over-the-top outfits than she is.
Peeping dourly through all that tat is Gaga’s limited range of facial expressions. Her videos repeatedly thrust that blank, lugubrious face at the camera and us; it’s creepy and coercive. Marlene and Madonna gave the impression, true or false, of being pansexual. Gaga, for all her writhing and posturing, is asexual. Going off to the gym in broad daylight, as Gaga recently did, dressed in a black bustier, fishnet stockings and stiletto heels isn’t sexy – it’s sexually dysfunctional.
Compare Gaga’s insipid songs, with their nursery-rhyme nonsense syllables, to the title and hypnotic refrain of the first Madonna song and video to bring her attention on MTV, Burning Up, with its elemental fire imagery and its then-shocking offer of fellatio. In place of Madonna’s valiant life force, what we find in Gaga is a disturbing trend towards mutilation and death…
Gaga is in way over her head with her avant-garde pretensions… She wants to have it both ways – to be hip and avant-garde and yet popular and universal, a practitioner of gung-ho “show biz”. Most of her worshippers seem to have had little or no contact with such powerful performers as Tina Turner or Janis Joplin, with their huge personalities and deep wells of passion.
Generation Gaga doesn’t identify with powerful vocal styles because their own voices have atrophied: they communicate mutely via a constant stream of atomised, telegraphic text messages. Gaga’s flat affect doesn’t bother them because they’re not attuned to facial expressions.
Gaga’s fans are marooned in a global technocracy of fancy gadgets but emotional poverty. Borderlines have been blurred between public and private: reality TV shows multiply, cell phone conversations blare everywhere; secrets are heedlessly blabbed on Facebook and Twitter. Hence, Gaga gratuitously natters on about her vagina…
To read the rest of this explosive profile, including Paglia’s debunking of comparisons to Madonna, David Bowie, Elton John and Andy Warhol, and to view a slideshow of photographs, visit the thesundaytimes.co.uk/magazine this Sunday
Rafael Nadal Wins The US Open and Career Grand Slam But Federer and Nadal Dominance Is Destroying Men’s Tennis!!!
In the late 1970s and most of the 1980s, Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova dominated women’s tennis until Steffi Graf emerged. For many years, the media criticized women’s tennis for having a lack of depth. Currently in women’s tennis, there is depth at the top of the WTA Tour and although Serena Williams is number one, she at least has some competition. The Belgian duo Kim Clijsters and Justine Henin have proven they have the weapons to challenge Serena Williams.
However, there is a new Chris and Martina except they are not female they are male. Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal are dominating men’s tennis with an iron fist. Since the year 2005, only three men have won grand slams other than Federer and Nadal.
Rafael Nadal is an attractive man he’s got a nice butt, cute face, and strong legs. The quandary is, Nadal is too macho and his personality is very boring. The problem for the ATP Tour is how do they market Nadal to the English-speaking public?
Rafael Nadal English has improved but he still isn’t fluent in English. There is a language barrier between Nadal and the non Spanish-speaking audience, we really don’t know Nadal’s true personality. Nadal always has a nasty look on his face when he competes there is no joy, no passion, no excitement about his tennis.
By contrast, Roger Federer is a rare male athlete, he is so sensitive and the world loves him. Federer will cry if he loses a tennis match he is not afraid to show he is vulnerable. Most male athletes are afraid of being emotional for fear people will say they are homosexual. Federer is the exact opposite. Federer loves fashion, he hangs out with Vogue editor Anna Wintour and he understands he is more than just a tennis player. Federer can also be arrogant, after he lost to Novak Djokovic in the semifinals of the US Open he said he won’t “watch the final.”
There is no drama or excitement with Rafael Nadal he just plays tennis and that’s it. In women’s tennis, the Williams Sisters, Jelena Jankovic, Elena Demntieva, Francesca Schiavone, Samantha Stosur, Vera Zvonareva are very emotional. Last year, Serena was so upset at a foot fault during the 2009 Us Open semifinal against Clijsters she exploded. Women’s tennis always has drama because the female tennis players understand they are not just athletes they are also entertainers.
Rafael Nadal doesn’t seem to understand or care that he can’t just play tennis he needs to allow the public to see his vulnerability.
Last night, Nadal proved he is a legend at the tender age of twenty tour he now has won all four grand slam singles titles. The problem for men’s tennis is Federer and Nadal’s dominance is predictable and very boring. It is not exciting watching men’s tennis anymore, despite the fact the men have thick muscular thighs, hard abs, big butts, and attractive faces.
The rest of the ATP Tour have the capability to beat Nadal and Federer but they lack the mental toughness at the grand slams.
Great Britain Andy Murray was supposed to win the 2010 US Open, but he choked against Stanislas Wawrinka of Switzerland in the third round. Murray has the game to beat Federer and Nadal but he lacks the confidence to do it in the grand slams. Murray is still only twenty-three years old but he’s got believe in himself more.
Perhaps Andy Murray needs to set up an appointment with a sports psychologist? Murray’s game frustrates Federer and Nadal because he doesn’t win with power, he wins by being extremely consistent and making few unforced errors.
Unfortunately, Del Potro the 2009 men’s US Open champion is still injured and this is the only reason Nadal easily won the 2010 Us Open.
Of course, the media will praise Nadal for winning the grand slam at the age of twenty four but ignore the fact that Del Potro was a huge road block for him.
At the 2009 US Open, Del Potro humiliated Nadal blasting the Spaniard 6-2 6-2 6-2 in straight sets in the semifinals. Del Potro simply blew Nadal off the tennis court. Del Potro has a huge serve, huge groundstrokes, but he also has the mental toughness that Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray, Robin Soderling, and Tomas Berdych lack.
Del Potro is the only player on the ATP Tour to prove he can beat Nadal and Federer and win a grand slam title. In the year 2009, Del Potro defeated Nadal three times in a row and he beat Federer the last two times they played.
The three men with the capability to seriously challenge Federer and Nadal are the triple towers. Robin Soderling is six-foot four, Juan Martin Del Potro is six-foot six, and Tomas Berdych is six-foot five. Soderling, Del Potro, and Berdych are all big, strong, powerful men they have the serve, groundstrokes, and the ability to blast Federer and Nadal off the tennis court.
The Swede Robin Soderling has gotten very close to winning the 2009 and 2010 French Open. Soderling proved he can beat Federer and Nadal at a slam but he chokes at the final round. The problem for Soderling is he needs to develop the mental toughness at the final hurdle, to actually breakthrough and win a grand slam. The problem in Soderling’s game is he can be inconsistent and extremely temperamental.
Tomas Berdych of the Czech Republic has improved his mental toughness by reaching the 2010 Wimbledon final. Berdych smashed Roger Federer in the quarterfinals only to lose to Rafael Nadal in the final. The dilemma for Berdych is simply his mind. Berdych does not “believe” he can beat Rafael Nadal in a grand slam. Berdych does not trust himself or his talent.
Tennis fans better pray that in 2011 someone will challenge Rafael Nadal because this boring Spaniard is hurting men’s tennis. Nadal is a great champion but he lacks charisma and the ability to connect with the English-speaking audience.
Gayblackcanada 
