I was thinking about Lady Gaga for some reason this morning. I had seen her “Fame Monster” cover the other day, with the mascara that looks like she had been crying. In effect, it looked to me like an invitation to consume her pain. She called her audience “little monsters” once, and I think the reason is that what seems to sell for her is a more or less overt masochism. “When it comes to love, it ain’t fun if there isn’t a gun”. Something close to that.
Unless I miss my guess, I suspect she has fantasies about committing suicide on stage. Who is she? Is she who she used to be–uncertain of herself, craving the approval of others–or this stage persona, this monster she has created? Should she love the people who have granted her fame and fortune, at the cost of what seems to be her soul? Who crave her public displays of more or less self inflicted grief and longing?
Leopold Ritter von Sacher-Masoch, from whose name we get “masochism”, had a thing for women in furs. One could perhaps generalize and say he had a thing for women dressed extravagantly. I think Lady Gaga qualifies.
What I will say is that there is in my opinion real beauty in her, that is plainly expressed in at least the song “Poker Face”. That song derives it’s somewhat cruel power from the contrast between her potential for beauty–when she lets her voice go–and the continual return to a compulsive masochism.
What I would like to see is her either reinvent this Lady Gaga persona–which is likely impossible–or give it up, and write songs that make her happy. They are in her. I can feel it. At this point, she’s made enough money. If she wants to really not care what people think, that would be the route to take.
I’m not sure why I think about her. I think there is something in her that is common to many of us. That is perhaps part of the reason why she is so popular.
How many of us, I wonder, erect public faces to hide private griefs or aggressions? How many of us are who we appear to be?
As I think I have said before, the process of personal growth, of Goodness, is in my view the progressive reduction in the number of our personalities until we are perfectly congruent in our thoughts/emotions, words, and actions.