Lady Gaga: A Cultural Interpretation - Essay Example

 Lady Gaga: A Cultural Interpretation Lady Gaga represents the celebrity lifestyle in America, with its glamour, riches, and fame, living by a different set of rules than the majority of the people but attempting to develop an artistic and cultural justification for extreme behavior. Lady Gaga clearly follows and builds upon the performance art patterns of previous pop artists and “divas” in the music industry such as Madonna, Cyndi Lauper, Beyonce, Courtney Love, and others who seek the ultimate heights of fame in society through shocking and border-transgressing behavior that attracts extreme attention in the media environment. The ruthlessness or suaveness by which pop artist like Lady Gaga manipulate and master the media environment and the art of attracting sensational coverage creates a mystique that fuels MP3, CD, and record sales, as well as other merchandise. The greater the extent that Lady Gaga’s fame spreads internationally, the more powerful she becomes as a sales and marketing icon. Her fusion of sexuality with fashion and embrace of the gay community has led her to be seen as a groundbreaking artist with a serious social message which revolves around embracing a more inclusive vision of society, ending hate crimes and discrimination against the LGBT community. In this regard, the sales figures, popularity, and fame of Lady Gaga can be seen as consumer support for her message, while her media behavior allows her ideas to reach a larger audience internationally through the commercial media and music video channels. As the leading performing artist of the 21st Century in America, Lady Gaga can be seen as a pop culture icon symbolizing wider movements such as changes in taste, values, and moral standards in the society. Any analysis of the life and work of Lady Gaga would necessarily be required to understand the way that fame, celebrity, and media are integrated in modern American life to create a larger sense of shared community through pop culture. Similarly, attention should be given to whether Lady Gaga is truly a modern or post-modern artist. If Marilyn Monroe is an archetypal example of the female celebrity in modern America, how does Lady Gaga’s performance art distinguish herself from traditional mass-media starlets and pop idols? Lady Gaga’s performance art is clearly finely tuned by an understanding of mass-media similar to Madonna, Marilyn Manson, or Prince, as all of these artists used a fusion of sexuality and shocking behavior to further the popular exposure and sales of their music. These artists also promoted LGBT culture and issues through their art and music. From this perspective, the historical evaluation of Lady Gaga’s work will be related to the civil rights struggle for gay rights, gay marriage, and a non-discriminatory society where LGBT people are accepted normally. The violence, bullying, and hate crimes targeted against LGBT people worldwide are viewed as acceptable by the larger society or tolerated by it if there is not a reform of values towards inclusiveness. Thus, Lady Gaga’s work is related to the social and cultural changes in America and worldwide that is providing more civil rights and legal recognition for LGBT couples, and her main message is to celebrate this community, its values, fashion, and art. A structural approach to understanding the meaning of Lady Gaga as a celebrity in 21st American culture and internationally highlights the fact that it is the decision-making processes of the mass-media itself that gives the airtime to Lady Gaga’s music, videos, entertainment, and gossip news over competing information sources or cultural representatives. In this way, the phenomenon of celebrity and the attention given to “divas” such as Lady Gaga and other pop stars is truly culturally indicative of the contemporary society. For example, rather than spend their time studying higher physics, philosophy, global issues of war and peace, poverty, human rights, religion, morality, or participatory democracy, a huge number of the American population would rather watch, listen to, and gossip about Lady Gaga. While it is unfair to criticize people for what they choose to learn, focus on, or spend their time viewing, it must be asked why America as a nation would dedicate so much media time, attention, and social energy to reporting the gossip of Lady Gaga over the critical issues of global poverty, environmental destruction, homelessness, unemployment, etc. In summary, it appears that there is a great social need in the mass population to escape from the main issues of life and culture that results in the preference of entertainment over religion, history, politics, science, etc. and Lady Gaga provides the dream world of celebrity, wealth, fame, and scandal that offers the people some sense of vicarious enjoyment. In “Claims to fame: celebrity in contemporary America” by Joshua Gamson, the author writes about the interpretation of social meaning derived from the experience of pop icons and celebrities like Lady Gaga, stating: "In an institutional approach, cultural forms are taken as socially determined products, and their own meanings are skipped over: cultural forms reveal aspects of social structure, stratification, or an organizational system." (Gamson, 1994) Following this interpretation, it is possible to see Lady Gaga as a public voice and leader of her community, which is not only the LGBT groups and individuals, but also the larger mass of the population who seeks to end the hatred and homophobia present in society and form a more inclusive vision of America. The glamour, beauty, and wealth worship seen in Lady Gaga’s music and message are similarly rooted in the deeper culture as values, found also in other forms of pop and hip hop music. While not everyone agrees with her vision and style, Lady Gaga has become one of America’s most successful and recognized contemporary pop icons and in this manner can be seen as a brand representative of the culture of today. Where she attracts excessive controversy and attention in the media environment, this can be seen as a form of public discussion of cultural values that are shifting and changing with post-modernism. Sources Cited Gamson, Joshua. Claims to fame: celebrity in contemporary America. University of California Press, 1994. Web. 4 Oct. 2011. ‹http://books.google.co.in/books?id=OWNLM_1u-r8C›. Read More