Musings of an Inappropriate Woman

Marina + the Diamonds. “Primadonna Girl”.

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Best of 2010: Lady Gaga, ‘Telephone’ and 21st century ‘noise’

This post didn’t do so well here on Tumblr, but it did launch off my occasional guest posting relationship with Meanjin, and it won me a prize at a blog slamming night in London later in the year, so I’m including it as my selection for June. Plus, I like it. And for those in the know, it was rather precipitous of the emotional events of the months to follow.

“Do you know that song Telephone, by Lady Gaga?” I find myself asking over and over again, lately.

“Of course you do - it’s the biggest pop song of the year. Well, that’s how I feel at the moment.”

Except for all the drinking and dancing.

Stop calling, stop calling,
I don’t wanna think anymore!
I left my head and my heart on the dance floor.
Stop calling, stop calling,
I don’t wanna talk anymore!
I left my head and my heart on the dance floor.

Perhaps it’s because I just finished reading Kate Crawford’s meditation on noise and technology in the latest issue of Meanjin, but it’s only this week that it occurred to me that perhaps the way I’ve always interpreted this song (“stop freaking calling me! I need some space to think/breathe!”) is the way Gaga actually intended. That as much as ‘Telephone’ is about a) an assertion of independence, b) partying, c) nothing at all - just the joy of a good beat and melody - so too is it a song about d) the inescapable intrusion of modern technology.

I shoulda left my phone at home,
‘cause this is a disaster!
Callin’ like a collector -
sorry, I cannot answer!

In her Meanjin essay, Crawford traces various historical movements to limit noise: against horsedrawn carriages, the din of conversation travelling through too-thin walls, the radio and the mobile phone. (I’m probably amongst the youngest of those to remember when owning one was tantamount to declaring oneself a wanker, something which only changed around 2000 or so.) She writes:

In the early twenty-first century, there is a new kind of noise problem: networked conversation. This is not the street noise that floats into open windows, but it finds us nonetheless: via text messages, Twitter, Facebook and emails. It does not cease.

In ‘Telephone’, Gaga and Beyonce make a similar claim:

Not that I don’t like you,
I’m just at a party.
And I am sick and tired
of my phone r-ringing.
Sometimes I feel like
I live in Grand Central Station.
Tonight I’m not taking no calls…

This post feels very First Year Media Studies, but I don’t think the leap I’m making here is that large. The key to Gaga’s success, after all, is her ability to tap into the zeitgeist, and I do detect a grimace on her face when she sings “stop calling, stop calling, I don’t want to talk anymore” in the final choruses after she and Beyonce committ mass homicide.

Like Crawford, I’m no luddite, and I don’t believe that switching off altogether is the answer. I love my internets dearly, and I will happily talk to anyone who will listen about how my iPhone revolutionised my life. (The major difference? Lack of a need for forward planning due to constant access to Facebook, email, text and GPS.) When Crawford described her tinny mobile phone ‘alarm clock’, I hummed the familiar tune to myself, and I’d probably be very sad indeed if everyone stopped “telephonin’ me”.

But damn if I don’t relate to Gaga sometimes.

Lady Gaga, ‘Telephone’ and 21st century ‘noise’

“Do you know that song Telephone, by Lady Gaga?” I find myself asking over and over again, lately.

“Of course you do - it’s the biggest pop song of the year. Well, that’s how I feel at the moment.”

Except for all the drinking and dancing.

Stop calling, stop calling,
I don’t wanna think anymore!
I left my head and my heart on the dance floor.
Stop calling, stop calling,
I don’t wanna talk anymore!
I left my head and my heart on the dance floor.

Perhaps it’s because I just finished reading Kate Crawford’s meditation on noise and technology in the latest issue of Meanjin, but it’s only this week that it occurred to me that perhaps the way I’ve always interpreted this song (“stop freaking calling me! I need some space to think/breathe!”) is the way Gaga actually intended. That as much as ‘Telephone’ is about a) an assertion of independence, b) partying, c) nothing at all - just the joy of a good beat and melody - so too is it a song about d) the inescapable intrusion of modern technology.

I shoulda left my phone at home,
‘cause this is a disaster!
Callin’ like a collector -
sorry, I cannot answer!

In her Meanjin essay, Crawford traces various historical movements to limit noise: against horsedrawn carriages, the din of conversation travelling through too-thin walls, the radio and the mobile phone. (I’m probably amongst the youngest of those to remember when owning one was tantamount to declaring oneself a wanker, something which only changed around 2000 or so.) She writes:

In the early twenty-first century, there is a new kind of noise problem: networked conversation. This is not the street noise that floats into open windows, but it finds us nonetheless: via text messages, Twitter, Facebook and emails. It does not cease.

In ‘Telephone’, Gaga and Beyonce make a similar claim:

Not that I don’t like you,
I’m just at a party.
And I am sick and tired
of my phone r-ringing.
Sometimes I feel like
I live in Grand Central Station.
Tonight I’m not taking no calls…

This post feels very First Year Media Studies, but I don’t think the leap I’m making here is that large. The key to Gaga’s success, after all, is her ability to tap into the zeitgeist, and I do detect a grimace on her face when she sings “stop calling, stop calling, I don’t want to talk anymore” in the final choruses after she and Beyonce committ mass homicide.

Like Crawford, I’m no luddite, and I don’t believe that switching off altogether is the answer. I love my internets dearly, and I will happily talk to anyone who will listen about how my iPhone revolutionised my life. (The major difference? Lack of a need for forward planning due to constant access to Facebook, email, text and GPS.) When Crawford described her tinny mobile phone ‘alarm clock’, I hummed the familiar tune to myself, and I’d probably be very sad indeed if everyone stopped “telephonin’ me”.

But damn if I don’t relate to Gaga sometimes.

Lady Gaga: Gen Y sex icon?

Like everyone else on the internet, it seems, Lady Gaga has grown on me. But it’s not for her music (a couple of tracks aside, it’s pretty mediocre) or even for her outrageous costumes and sense of theatrics (fantastic as she is to look at). I’m a fan of Lady Gaga because of her attitude to sex, and the new model of sex positivity she represents.

It’s easy to dismiss Gaga as just another attention seeking, sexualised pop tart. At the conference I spoke at last month, one of the researchers expressed dismay that her daughters idolised Gaga and Beyonce (better oddball Gaga and insanely talented Beyonce than a lot of other pop stars, I thought). And certainly, Sam has documented in detail Gaga’s reliance on sexual “shock tactics” to draw attention to herself (I used to tell him he deserved a Walkley for ‘Continuous Coverage of Lady Gaga’).

But the problem with raunch culture isn’t that it is hyper-sexed, or even that it is showy. It’s that it can be prescriptive – especially when it’s the only story being told.

And while Gaga plays right into that script with her sound bites about orgasming on stage and the “secret lesbian meaning” of ‘Poker Face’, she departs from it in her enthusiasm for difference. She embraces her nickname “Lady Gay Gay” and is unfazed by rumours she might be intersex. She gives out condoms at her concerts, but speaks openly about how she’s not having sex herself. It’s a terrain that at first glance looks similar to that trodden by stars like Britney Spears, Jessica Simpson and Miley Cyrus, but it sounds qualitatively different coming from Gaga.

Gaga’s world is one in which “anything goes” – but that means literally anything goes. You can be gay, straight, trans, cis, sexually active, virginal, temporarily celibate… Gaga doesn’t care, so long as it makes you happy. She accepts and embraces you, and she wants you to accept and embrace yourself.

Gaga represents a truly laissez-faire approach to sexuality, one that values sexual freedom in all its manifestations.

Related: ‘Everything’s cool as long as I’m getting thinner’: how Karl de-fanged Lily Allen
Britney Spears and why it’s painful to be conventionally beautiful
Is ‘raunch culture’ real? Young adults on media and casual sex

Elsewhere: The Sex Myth

abbyjean writes:

amazing fan made vid to Britney’s ‘Piece of Me’ by obsessive24. it made me cry (yes really) and also made me want to find brit and give her a big hug. and ban paparazzi.

Worth watching.

‘Everything’s cool as long as I’m getting thinner’: how Karl de-fanged Lily Allen

I felt strangely sad when I read about Lily Allen’s big debut onto the fashion scene, performing at the Chanel show in Paris last week.

Strange because, well, she certainly seemed happy about. She’s ‘one of them’ now: friends with Kate Moss, one of Karl Lagerfeld’s British darlings. I wouldn’t call it ‘selling out’, because it’s not like it has affected her music - or like she ever wasn’t a mainstream pop star to begin with. And yes, she does look pretty fabulous in the photo above.

But I’m wondering if this newfound ‘fabulousness’ comes at too high a price - namely, her shrinking body. In this week’s Grazia, Maxine Frith writes:

After the show, Karl gave Lily a massive bunch of roses and told her she was a Chanel girl now. Her appearance came after months of dieting and exercise to ensure she looked her best.

“She and Karl had been talking for ages about what she should do for the show,” says an inside source. “Lily’s really slimmed down but she’s never going to be a size zero so she didn’t want to walk the runway and be compared to the models.

Now, Grazia is the classiest of the weekly magazines, but I’d be silly if I didn’t consider that the above was probably at least a bit made up - like most celebrity gossip stories. But the overall narrative strikes me as true. Allen has dropped a dress size or two over the past year or so.

And, well, ew. It’s not like she’s alone in her body shrinking as her fame grows (the same could be said of almost any female celebrity), but there’s something particularly uncomfortable about it in her case, because she’s always been so open about her insecurities - in her lyrics, her blog posts and her comments to the media.

I wish my life was a little less seedy
Why am I always so greedy?
Wish I looked just like Cheryl Tweedy
I know I never will

One thing some people seem to miss about Lily Allen’s lyrics (I’m thinking all those people who hate the song 22 here) is that they tend to be three things at once: part facetious comment on society, part facetious comment on her own shortcomings, and part painfully honest admission of her insecurities.

So in the case of 22, when she says of a woman in her late-20s “it’s sad but it’s true that society says her life is already over”, I don’t think she’s saying that she, Lily Allen, thinks that women are “past it” once they hit 30. I think she’s saying that certain segments of society imply this is the case, and that if you’re the kind of woman who believes that her value resides entirely in her looks, ‘it girl’ qualities and ability to attract a man, there’s an element of truth to it.

Similarly, when she sings “I’m not a saint, and I’m not a sinner, now everything’s cool as long as I’m getting thinner”, she’s a making a social comment, yes, but it’s a comment that works because it’s something a lot of women actually think, if only secretly. Including, I’m willing to bet, Lily Allen.

Which is why the Karl Lagerfeld connection is so off-putting. Because it hinges on her meeting his ridiculous body standards. And because it backs up what her lyrics suggest she has long believed, at least on an emotional level - that social acceptance and affirmation come from being as thin as possible.