Cluster Blog

The following is a list of things I have in common with Lady Gaga:

We are both white Italian women.

We are (currently) blonde.

We were raised Catholic by upwardly mobile parents.

We both attended East Coast art schools We both love Alexander McQueen and Alexander Skarsgård.

We both take our clothes off for money and call it art.

For these reasons, Cluster Mag sent me to cover the fray between Madonna and Lady Gaga. And by “sent me to cover” I mean “allowed me to read every interview with Lady Gaga ever and copy and paste her quotes as though they were her responses during a made up interview.” All quotes are hyperlinked with the source article  for proper re-contexualization after you read.

MH:  What was it like to be called “reductive” by an icon, by someone you’ve modeled your career after?

LG: If you put the songs next to each other, side by side, the only similarities are the chord progressions.

MH:  Oh okay. Yeah. Cool. What is a chord progression again? Sorry, I’m a fashion writer. Does that mean—kind of like, if you sing the words to “Express Yourself” while “Born this Way” is playing the music and cadence and delivery and general persona and basically everything are pretty much exactly the same?

LG:  I will look you in your eyes and tell you that I am not dumb enough or moronic enough to think that you are dumb enough or moronic enough not to see that I would have stolen a melody.

MH:  So did you like…inherit it? Like from a pop star trust fund?

LG: I don’t see myself as ever being like anybody else. I don’t see myself as an heir.

MH:  Didn’t Madonna make you know there was a place for women and artists like you—sexual, aggressive, skinny, Italian? Didn’t her success prove you had cultural permission to be provocative and strange and still desirable—still marketable?

LG:  I feel blessed to have grown up with a ­powerful, blonde woman to show us the ropes. It’s all due to her that I’m able to do what I do.

MH:  I think she showed you how to walk the tightrope of transgression: enough that every outfit of yours is a news story, but not so much that you’re actually changing social narratives.   In a way, Madonna’s hardly-shade about your being “reductive” only reinforces that you are an heiress to America’s unrelenting desire for white, blonde, skinny heroines.  You talk a lot about “not fitting in,” but now you have endless space to exist.  Like, the average length of your videos, for example, is 257 minutes.

LG: I do see myself to be in an endless transformative state.

MH:  Yes exactly! That’s what I love about fashion: the power of transformation. Like, I have no idea what the fuck you actually look like.  I could be talking to your second cousin right now.  And as someone who also loves fashion deeply, it is beautiful to watch you display multiple dimensions of your persona through clothes. You know the Madonna/Madonna/Whore complex and all of that that. And it is galvanizing to see you feature fashion from both couture and obscure designers as an artistic element of not just your videos, but your daily life.  There’s definitely a need to “get out in front of Gaga” if you are going to be an innovator. So let’s talk about your most recent video, “Marry the Night,” clocking in at 7,000 minutes.

LG:  It was intensely important to me that it was not too beautiful.

 MH: Yes it was very “I’m so beautiful I can be so ugly that I’m beautiful again.”  Kind of like those white people who don’t shower as part of their aesthetic, except that in the video you were in a bathtub. I have to admit Gaga, I think your biggest fashion statement in “Marry the Night” was being naked in that bathtub. Nudity has always been an element of fashion. I can’t stop thinking about you naked…

LG:  Baby you were born this way, no matter gay straight or bi, Lesbian, transgendered [SIC] life.

MH: …not because I was into it or anything (I do eat pussy though) but because it occurred to me finally that your unsexy nudity—while possibly controversial—is primarily an act of white privilege.  Your whiteness, Mother Monster, is a significant factor in being able to represent your femininity beyond the sexualized norm and still be protected/praised/paid while women of color are most often expected to use their nakedness for sex appeal.  Women of color are more likely to be exotified like, “wow look at her body.”  Whereas your white ass is getting, “wow that was so deep and artistic how she was naked.” Your whiteness gives you more freedom of meaning even while appearing the exactly the same amount of naked. It’s not just because you’re a creative/reductive genius.  It’s partly because you’re white.  You’re like the most famous white bitch on the planet.

LG:  One of my greatest artworks is fame.

MH:  But waiiiiit though—let’s dwell on the white bitch part for a second. Let’s just relate to one another non famous white bitch to famous white bitch for a second.  First, you can’t say “Orient” about people.  Second, you cannot equate your experiences with being bullied for being a weirdo with being marginalized or oppressed. They are not the same. Third, it does matter if you are black or white and/or gay. It still matters even though drag queens perform your songs. And fourth, you are in a position of power as a white woman who takes from and then re-makes culture.

LG:  I don’t think I have power. I don’t like that word.

MH:  COME THE FUCK ON LADY. You can’t have it both ways boo.  Either you were born this way or you weren’t. Either you are going to meet with President Obama about bullying, or you don’t have power.  Either you have unparalleled access to next season’s couture, or you don’t have power. Either you control your image or you don’t have power. Either you have 18,086,776 Twitter followers or…Actually, there’s no other side of that argument.  

Your ability to deny your power while you use it is you acting out your white privilege. You feel like the legacy of Grace Jones belongs to you, is yours to scavenge and excavate.  You feel you were born to sing “don’t be a drag just be a queen” like you had just coined the only gay liberation anthem in a stolen dialect.  You claim the right to re-write history in your “Marry the Night” video—“truthfully the lie of it is much more honest”—and then you thrash around naked throwing Cheerios on yourself. This is the power of being a white artist.

I imagine that it’s been awhile since you had any girl talk backstage with anybody not on your payroll. I imagine that it must be hard to get critical feedback when you’re lining people’s pockets; that old adage about biting the hand that feeds. But to bring us back to the beginning, thinking about Madonna’s “reductive” comment, and remembering that long before Madonna said “look it up” Grace Jones refused to fuck with you: what is the difference between paying homage and stealing?  How do you decide what is yours to write about, perform, observe, or wear –and to whom are you accountable for that decision?  How do you measure what you give versus what you take from a culture?

LG: My mother and I have initiated a passion project called the Born This Way Foundation.

 MH: Well I’m gay. Why don’t you donate those Giuseppe Zanottis to me?