Lady Gaga Telephone - Essay Example

Lady Gaga-Telephone Introduction: Lady Gaga’s song Telephone was released in 2010. The music video features Beyonce and is known to be full of weird elements and shocking visuals. According to Gaga, the lyrics of the song simply talk about her lover’s phone call that she avoids and prefers dancing on the dance floor. However, the lyrics and the video have a deeper meaning which takes it to another level of interpretation. It talks about the phone call telling her to keep working harder and ignore the call. The video refers to mind control as Gaga is a mind controlled figure that is being controlled to kill people. The song, without the video, sounds like a simple scenario where the girl isn’t picking up a phone call while she is at the club, but the music video shows a hidden, deeper meaning. In 2011, the song was nominated as the Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals at the Grammy’s. It became one of the best-selling singles of Gaga in 2010 after 7.4 million copies were sold. It was also nominated as the Video of the Year at the 2010 MTV Music Video Awards. Thus, the song has a deeper, hidden meaning which is not understandable by the masses because it is meant to be ‘hidden’. Telephone is actually used as a metaphor to describe Gaga’s brain, and she is not answering the phone means she is disconnected from the reality. Creators of the song: Lady Gaga is an American singer, record producer, song writer along with being a fashion designer and businesswoman. She had initially started working as a songwriter when hired by Vincent Herbert for the label Interscope Records. Her vocal abilities were soon recognized by Akon, a recording artist, who signed her for his own label. Her debut album was The Fame after which she rose to prominence in 2008. The album was a commercial and critical success with some of the best international numbers such as Poker Face and Just Dance. Then she released The Fame Monster in 2009 which was an extended play that produced some of the biggest hits including Telephone and Bad Romance. Gaga is widely recognized for her songs and more importantly her music videos. Her videos always have a deep meaning which is not noticeable from the lyrics of the song. She always adds a deeper meaning to the lyrics through her videos and her videos provide great insight into the reality and cruelty of the world. In the video of Telephone also she has succeeded in providing a deep meaning which can’t be understood by the masses because they are meant to be understood by the elites only (Marshall 148). Akerlund is the man behind the video of Telephone. The 44-year-old filmmaker belongs to Sweden and has worked in many Swedish acts. The director achieved his first international success and greatest achievement till date with Ray of Light by Madonna. The music video won several awards including one at Grammy. Akerlund has worked with Gaga on various videos such as Paparazzi and Telephone. Audience of the song: The video was made in 2009 and it was released in 2010. There may be many cultural aspects of the American life seen in the video. The video was made in accordance to the 21st century problems of the celebrities and the society in general. The mind controlling aspect was related to fame culture which Gaga has shown in her video of Telephone. She named her second album The Fame Monster in which she used symbolism to explain how celebrities are literally trapped by fame. She shows the darker sides of being a celebrity in Telephone as well and uses the concepts of love, death, sex, loneliness, and alcohol as part of her fears (Marshall 148). In the beginning of the nine-minute video, Gaga is in a women’s prison where she is left by two guards who strip off her clothes and leave her lying naked. She faces mocking by the women prisoners which also refers to the real life rumours that Gaga is intersex. Her activities in prison are shown which include kissing lesbian prisoners, watching catfights, and smoking cigarettes. Eventually Gaga gets bailed out by Beyonce and starts to sing and perform. Thus, the video shows many cultures of the 21st century which have become common in the American society today. It mostly shows the evils of the society (Marshall 148). Critiques believe that this music video is strictly not for kids because Gaga has always been open in her concepts and themes. She has openly shown the evils that fame culture can lead to and in fact not only that, but she has show the general bad effects of the American culture. However, some critiques consider Lady Gaga as evil as she shows in her videos what she believes in. This portrays her as evil and results in many people wishing to ban the video considering Gaga as extremely dangerous. The music is interesting and entertaining for the audience but the music video may appear to be ‘weird’ for many. It precisely shows the audience how the mind control is applied due to which Gaga kills many people. It was to expose the young adults to materialism, corruption, and taking them away from spirituality. The real, deeper message can’t be understood by the masses. Analysis of the song: The song Telephone was written by Beyonce, Gaga, Rodney Jerkins, Lazonate Franklin, and LaShawn Daniels. The most important part of the lyrics is the telephone call of Gaga’s boyfriend that she is avoiding because she is too busy dancing in the club to her favourite song. There is a chorus which sings ‘Stop calling, stop calling, I don’t want to talk anymore, I left my head and my heart on the dance floor’ (Gaga, 2010). However, it is actually Gaga’s brain that is the telephone calling her which she doesn’t want to answer. In regard to the video, the lyrics can be analyzed as a telephone which is calling Gaga to come to the reality. The telephone is shown as Gaga’s mind and the club and dance floor represent her dissociative position. The dance club is represented as the place where the mind controlled people go to escape from traumatic events. The lyrics also use the words ‘kinda busy, kinda busy, sorry I cannot hear you, I’m kinda busy’ (Gaga, 2010). ‘Kinda busy’ means that she is separated from the reality whereas her real life is calling her but there’s ‘no service’ and she’s not there. The telephone which is addressed in the lyrics is not just a physical object, but also a voice present in her head telling her to work harder. It’s not just a telephone; it’s the thoughts in the head. Telephone was a big composition in pop music of the 21st century. It consisted of a bridge, a verse-rap, and epilogue that gives a voice announcing that the phone line isn’t reachable. Beyonce starts from the middle of the song and sings the verses with double beats in a rapid-fire mode (Zafar 1). The music video shows at many places that Gaga’s head is actually the telephone calling her but she doesn’t want to answer because her mind is controlled by the mind controllers. In one scene of the video, her head is the telephone which she doesn’t want to answer while in another scene the telephone receiver is actually made up of her hair showing her brain making the call. These controllers are related to the illuminate as her video represents at many places the signs of illuminate mind control. The music video is far from the lyrical content of the song and it wasn’t much expected by the fans of the song. The music video rather left many fans in confusion of its meaning. The video represents the mind controlled personality of Gaga and Beyonce at many occasions. When they are in the car having a dissociative conversation, they talk like two controlled slaves. They enter an American club where they begin to poison the customers with honey. Gaga comes from the kitchen with the honey and poisons the masses. She stands there and watches a customer have the poisoned honey as if her mind is controlled. The mass killings start which refer to the illuminate elite poisoning the masses using toxic media. Gaga dances and sings around the dead people as the lyrics say ‘can call all you want, but there’s no one home, and you’re not gonna reach my telephone’. This refers to the dead people around and the fact that she is mind controlled and dissociated from reality (Zafar 1). Conclusion: Thus, most of Gaga’s works are about mind control and Telephone is just one of them. There is symbolism and imagery which is used in the music video showing the references to mind controlled personalities and objects. There is a hidden, deeper meaning to the music video in reference to the lyrics of the song. This hidden meaning can be known after a deep analysis of the video as well as Gaga’s previous videos and statements about her work. The video shows many of the issues of the 21st century culture yet the main concept of this video revolves around mind controlled personalities. Work Cited Lady Gaga. “Telephone.” Jonas Akerlund, 2010 Marshall, Melanie. Lady Gaga and Popular Music: Performing Gender, Fashion, and Culture. USA: Routledge, 2014 Zafar, Aylin. Deconstructing Lady Gaga’s “Telephone” Video. USA: The Atlantic, 2010 Read More