Gaga as a teenager: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ke2JG5v5Y0.
Camille Paglia will reveal in the Sunday Times that Lady Gaga is in fact bluffin' with her muffin: she's fake, antiseptic, and stripped of eroticism. It's an enjoyable irony that the moralizers of this generation must hearken back to those simpler, more innocent times like the ... 70s. Women were women, men were men, and the group sex was authentically erotic.
Camille Paglia will reveal in the Sunday Times that Lady Gaga is in fact bluffin' with her muffin:
Although she presents herself as the clarion voice of all the freaks and misfits of life, there is little evidence that she ever was one. Her upbringing was comfortable and eventually affluent, and she attended the same upscale Manhattan private school as Paris and Nicky Hilton. There is a monumental disconnect between Gaga’s melodramatic self-portrayal as a lonely, rebellious, marginalised artist and the powerful corporate apparatus that bankrolled her makeover and has steamrollered her songs into heavy rotation on radio stations everywhere.
And:
Furthermore, despite showing acres of pallid flesh in the fetish-bondage garb of urban prostitution, Gaga isn’t sexy at all – she’s like a gangly marionette or plasticised android. How could a figure so calculated and artificial, so clinical and strangely antiseptic, so stripped of genuine eroticism have become the icon of her generation? Can it be that Gaga represents the exhausted end of the sexual revolution? In Gaga’s manic miming of persona after persona, over-conceptualised and claustrophobic, we may have reached the limit of an era…
I've always thought that transcending sex in some way -- trying to be extremely sexual while being extremely un-sexy -- was Gaga's whole shtick, as pretentious and tiresome as it has become. You know, she means to challenge our preconceived notions of gender and sexuality and blah blah blah. Reams of post-modern literature about her are earning professors tenure as we speak .... And the professor whose Gender Transgression Studies class inspired her should be suing Gaga for his fair ... Pièce de muffin.
But I'm wary about the dramatic death-of-this-or-that talk. It's an enjoyable irony that the moralizers of this generation must hearken back to those simpler, more innocent times like the ... 70s. Women were women, men were men, and the group sex was authentically erotic. But heed the soothsayer's warning:
Generation Gaga doesn’t identify with powerful vocal styles because their own voices have atrophied: they communicate mutely via a constant stream of atomised, telegraphic text messages. Gaga’s flat affect doesn’t bother them because they’re not attuned to facial expressions. ... Gaga's fans are marooned in a global technocracy of fancy gadgets but emotional poverty. Borderlines have been blurred between public and private: reality TV shows multiply, cell phone conversations blare everywhere; secrets are heedlessly blabbed on Facebook and Twitter. Hence, Gaga gratuitously natters on about her vagina…
I've read so many critical theory and cultural studies papers with the same sort of critique that I can't get worked up any more about Paglia's -- especially by the idea that a whole generation isn't "attuned to facial expressions." The Church and the Critical Theorists agree on one thing: our values are going to hell in a hand-basket, and they would like to see them reformed, whether via Christ or Marx (or at least, once-upon-a-time it was Marx).
There is an anti-Culture Industry industry. It's about as tiresome -- and unexciting -- as Gaga herself.
By: Wes Alwan
Social commentator and quite good guitarist Mark Knopfler once wrote:
I shoulda learned to play the guitar,
I shoulda learned to play them drums,
Look at that mama, she got it stickin’ in the camera,
Man we could have some fun,
And he’s up there, what’s that? Hawaiian noises?
Bangin’ on the bongoes like a chimpanzee
That ain’t workin’ that’s the way you do it
Get your money for nothin’ get your chicks for free.
Is it chicks for free or checks for free?
I’m off to move some microwave ovens.
Pretty much everything I read by Camille Paglia makes me want to bash my head on something.
For instance, this: http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/camille_paglia/2009/09/09/healthcare. Does it make any more sense now in hindsight than at the time?
I just don’t get her; whereas many a commentator lets me see where he or she is coming from, and I like to try on positions of even those I fully disagree with, Paglia has always struck me as forcefully arbitrary. I’m not able to try on her point of view, because I can’t predict what she’ll condemn from moment to moment. Is this just me being a guy or something?
I’m not going to pay for a subscription just to read the full article, but there appear to be a number of ‘claims’ by Paglia about Gaga in the article:
* She tours a lot so has avoided “serious scrutiny” (thanks Camille for addressing this glaring need!)
* She loves her fans and encourages them to love themselves – all while getting money from them (gasp!)
* She presents herself as a champion of misfits and but she never was one (potentially interesting, if true)
* She’s a manufactured personality (duh – and she’s the one doing it)
* She’s void of genuine eroticism, so how could she have become an icon of her generation (ah! here’s the problem. Paglia can’t imagine a female pop culture icon who doesn’t use sexuality in a way she can understand and of which she can approve. Such as…)
* Madonna! She borrowed from Madonna to the point of “theft” (oh nos! see how Paglia goes back to the foil that made her relevant in the 80s. For a minute.)
So, she’s a thief who’s not as sexy as those she steals from (catch these keywords: Cher, Jane Fonda as Barbarella, Gwen Stefani, Pink, Isabella blow, Daphne Guinness, Drag queens, Marlene Dietrich, Tina Turner, Janis Joplin). She’s sexually dysfunctional instead of presenting a “valiant life force” (yes, that’s a quote, referring to, of course, Madonna).
It’s here that Paglia trips over something interesting, although she filters it through her extreme view: Gaga’s intentional asexuality while she uses traditional signs of sex (nudity, suggestive dance, miming of sexual acts, etc.), her mechanized and repetitive refrains and beats, her over the top outfits and videos; have all not only gotten her noticed, but have endeared her to a huge legion of fans world wide. Naturally, Paglia assumes that those fans are the ‘teenage generation’ of soulless texters, raised on social media, emotionally deficient, unable to have authentic connections with each other.
I’m not going to rail against Critical Theory, but it angers me that purportedly responsible media outlets publish crap from so-called experts (or at least ‘names), that perpetuate stereotypes and gross generalizations. The thesis that Gaga represents a new model of sexuality and self-identification that represents itself as avant-garde, digitally connected and asexual and that this is mirrored in a certain age group might be interesting to pursue, but has to have SOME meat behind and take into account that people like me like Gaga as well.
To clear your palate, read the Vanity Fair interview of Gaga. Then read this response in the Guardian. By the way, where was Paglia when Marilyn Manson was challenging the same social norms as Madonna and Gaga and getting pilloried for inciting violence in teenagers? Oh, yeah, he’s not a woman. Pussy Wagon. There, I said it.
–seth
@Mark “forcefully arbitrary,” I agree; she unpredictable because she mistakes taking the opposite view for bold independence of mind.
@Seth, lol, nice rant, I’ll look at those links.
An Andrew Sullivan Reader (http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2010/09/the-manufactured-misfit-ctd-2.html): “Paglia’s criticism that Lady Gaga is nothing more than a manufactured misfit echoes a similar complaint she has leveled against Obama in the past, for “trying to act more casual and folksy to appeal to working-class white voters” – a demographic she is forever claiming to speak for (namely by nattering on in her essays about her exposure to the urban proletariat during her childhood in Philadelphia). So, Gaga – and, presumably, Obama – are to be condemned as “manufactured personalities,” while right-wing radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh are heralded by this salt-of-the-earth cultural critic as the “embodiment of the American dream,” and Sarah Palin is fawned over for her “fresh, natural, rapid fire delivery.”
Camille Paglia’s work has devolved into a boring parlor trick consisting of lazy contrarianism, arbitrary administrations of her authenticity sniff-test, and compulsive hymns to another performer – Madonna – whose performances have grown almost as stale as hers. Also, sentences like “Gaga’s fans are marooned in a global technocracy of fancy gadgets but emotional poverty,” just make her sound … well, old. “
Seriously: Lady Gaga is faulted for stealing from Madonna? The parallels between the two performers are hard to miss, but whereas Madonna’s attempts at challenging taboos always struck me as contrived and rather too obvious, Lady Gaga appears to pull off the same basic routine with a lot more style and self-effacing humor. She also has a much better voice than Madonna. And I say that as someone who came of age during the 80s, when pop music reached what I consider its nadir. I am supposed to like 70s and 80s pop, but instead I cringe when I recall much of it. Pop today may not produce many masterpieces, but it strikes me as no worse than say, the compositions of REO Speedwagon or Journey. And let’s be clear: the clothes and hairstyles of those decades were an embarrassment. Current fashions are certainly no more worthy of ridicule.
As for Paglia: What’s with the old fogeyism? No, the kids today are not more degenerate than previous generations because of the effects of communication technologies. If you don’t like Facebook and Twitter, don’t use it. But brains are not rotting because the youth are texting while on the bus. Quite the opposite in my view. Kids are writing and communicating more than before, which can only be a good thing. Emotional impoverishment is what I experienced, growing up in the redneck-dominated rural South: a feeling that if I don’t find a non-fundamentalist who has actually read a book to talk to soon, I shall lose my mind. Today, I could find such a person, at least through a virtual network. Back in the 80s, it was a lot more difficult to connect with the wider world.
And no, Camille, we are not going to go back to living in cabins in the woods, where the men were men and the women enjoyed their subjugation, and the government was a distant fort defending us from the occasionally rebellious heathens. The world is little more complex than that these days. Perhaps you should try to adjust.
What, ultimately, is the appeal of Paglia’s overwrought, nostalgia-fueled protestations? I think her real beef with the quite consciously manufactured Lady Gaga is that the performer derives much of her act from the European club scene, the gay scene, and postmodern art. This is stuff Paglia deems pretentious and un-American. She really should get out more–say to Amsterdam or Berlin. Maybe dabble in some of the locally grown herbal remedies while abroad. Those veins in her neck look ready to burst.
To Wes et al.: I am only just starting to listen to your podcasts and make my way through your blog (a pleasure not to be rushed), so bear with me. But I wonder whether you have specifically addressed the thinking (or lack thereof) that motivates reactionaries and “libertarians” (what an atrocious word) like Paglia. They seem to commit the very obvious error of picking and choosing elements of history to concoct an image of a golden past that never existed. Can you point me towards philosophers who have investigated this question at length?
Hi Miriam,
I know you directed this one at the actual philosphers, but this is a topic I have been giving some thought to of late. And, I find it difficult not to wade in with my two cents at the slightest opportunity.
I think we can broaden the scope of the question – For I don’t think we should simply limit our consideration to the ‘reactionaries’. We all work with a partial view of the world – both it’s present and its past – and we all, to greater or lesser extent, ‘concoct’ an image of the past to support our own personal biases. I find myself doing it all the time. I always find it more pleasurable to read and engage with ideas that confirm and support my own world view. It is always confronting and difficult to engage with contrary material.
I read and, sometimes participate, in online ‘dicussion’ hosted by a local media outlet. The range of views on any given subject are obvioulsy diverse, but quite often you read some posts and know, or can have a pretty good guess, who and what they are reading. And you know that any ‘facts’ offered to counter an argument will be met with a different set of facts – equally true and verifiable. Each side works with a partial set of facts, more often than not selected because they support a personal preference. I am sure Nietzsche had something to say on this…
@Miriam: Thanks for your response. I’m sorry, I can’t think of anyone who’s examined the whole golden age phenomenon. I’m sure there’s a lot written on this and the related subject of utopianism (which is psychologically significant as well as a social form of the manic defense). Let me know if you find something.
@Geoff — thanks for the reply here as well. At some point these political debates come down to a matter of values and basic intuitions. The facts part of things seems relatively clear and easily established, whatever people are reading — as in whether Obama has a birth certificate. It’s just that those engaged in battle don’t feel so beholden to the facts; they are to be modified as necessary to fit a certain narrative supporting a certain set of values. Some birthers may at some level suspect the weakness of their case, but the facts are less important than the conception of Obama’s foreignness. And the same goes for being a Muslim: there are interviews in which the same people who say he’s a Muslim reveal they know that technically he’s not. It is in a way a metaphor. (On the other hand, the fact that people complaining about taxes not being aware they’ve just been given a tax break seems not to fit with my description here, except to say — as I believe — that complaints about taxes are really complaints about culture and the ideas that minorities are taking something away, via welfare, from whites).
Back to values and intuitions: the best one can do is identify those intuitions and see if they’re consistent with other values and intuitions (dialectic). And be on the lookout for future experiences that seem to confirm or dis-confirm them. So while I try to offer some good arguments for my positions when engaged in political debates, I’m doing so mostly to clarify my thoughts to myself rather than convince an opponent. With the auxiliary goal of infuriating them. It becomes a battle, pure and simple, predicated on one’s loyalties, but to do battle honorably you have to do more than say “you suck”; and during down-time, examine those loyalties.
Your points are well taken. I am not sure about the “The facts part of things seems relatively clear and easily established”. I guess I should point out that I was not addressing this particular instance of whatever it is that Paglia is arguing. Being an Antipodean I can only say I have no idea who she is and though I started reading it, it was giving me a headache. I think I was more interested in the broader question of intellectual differences and in those cases where the sheer mass of facts means that what is the case is often neither generally clear or easily established.
I prefer not to think of those who willfully distort facts, ignore them, or simply lie to further their agenda, ignoring the little lies we engage in to keep our social lives ticking. It is a way of engaging that is so far from how I see normal people behave that it never ceases to shock me.
I think the last point (quoted) is where the brave new world of web 2.0 really gets me down. Especially the “you suck” bit. In any discussion of a semi-controversial issue seems to devolve rapidly into ‘us and them’ and the battle becomes bogged down and bitter. It seems that in many cases if you disagree then you are immediately assumed to be intellectually deficient, irrational, ideologically blinded and so on and so forth.
It is in trying to understand why people might consider my arguments – in my view obviously sensible and based upon the facts as I understood them – as the ravings of an irrational madman bent on the destruction of civilization as we know it. I think that my current preference for determinism over free will has helped me achieve a somewhat resigned inner peace. Our worldviews having been shaped by different learning and such. I am also resigned to the fact that if someone is entering an online discussion it is generally not to come to a new understanding but to make sure everyone knows that if we don’t do ‘x’ the world will surely end.
There are many no go zones on the web for the moderate and reflective. Mind you, when someone now calls me a ‘godless bleeding heart pinko lefty’ I feel a faint sense of pride.
@Geoff — good points as always. That peace from acceptance of determinism sounds very Spinozan, and it appeals to me as well.
and being a ‘godless bleeding heart pinko lefty’ these days just means being anything to the left of the edge of a cliff.
Nice: As you travel along life’s edge, try to keep the precipice to your right.
ha, very good
Much well-said here…but I’m not sure that there was any real discussion of what I assume is Paglia’s larger point, and one that I suppose has been made since the there were parents and children who were beings of self-reflection (13k years ago?): kids these days!
However, I think there is a very real question to be asked here that we can apply some thinking to (unless, as I read Geoff, we approach these things with determinism the wind in our sails): what difference does our human “world-changing” make in these generational arguments?
I am something of a technophobe and I need to make use of Geoff’s view to calm down at times. Gaga is nothing to me–I am not sure I’ve even heard a song–though I may have seen a video clip with that whole meat episode. But responses like Miriam’s above does a disservice to our ability to look backwards in an effort to try to understand what might have been a qualitatively better life for humans (and other beings).
We only marginally use our vast technological knowledge to aid human well-being; primarily it is used to manipulate and enslave consumers (and really, actually enslave non-Western populations) as well as control and dominate us militarily.
The niceties of our Western industrial living come about as commodified “afterthoughts” to the original purposes of these mechanical innovations.
Gaga exists in a technology-drenched consumer culture–and the point that he “power” comes from the machine of commerce creation that supports her as a commodity is a point well-made.
I think someone like Larry Lessig said somewhere that “sampling” was “creative” and deserved to be free of copyright. I don’t want to argue with that but simply to point out that our “experience” is only mediated by technology now and one can “make music” by simply manipulating digital files (the music is made by the machine)–perhaps we are now only “arrangers”. No one, save Linsenmayer, plays an instrument anymore. There are no porch musicians.
We don’t seem to enjoy an “original relation to the universe” any longer.
Better or worse–we each can decide.
This really requires us to answer the question–is the human the only thing that matters? Is technological “advance” an imperative to the detriment of all other life?
The arguments above are narrow and only contextually cultural. Are there deeper questions to answer?