Whether we are fans of her or not, we all have heard of Lady Gaga. Her claim to fame started at the age of 22 with her 2008 debut album The Fame bopping all around the globe. Quickly being regarded as a flashy and eccentric female popstar, her first album exemplified Gaga being absorbed and empowered by the famous life. As she traveled around the world on tour for two years, however, she stated to the press that she “encountered several monsters, each represented by a different song on the new record” (Lady Gaga). This new record is The Fame Monster, released in 2009. She describes it as her ying-yang album as it is the completion to The Fame, but also brings up opposite themes. The two albums go hand in hand, where The Fame Monster reflects on her celebrity life discussed in The Fame, and the fears, or monsters, that go along with it. This paper will analyze the intro song, Bad Romance, in the album The Fame Monster and discuss how Lady Gaga displays the “fear of love monster” in her music video. It will describe how the song portrays symbolism relating to gender, multiple stereotypes about gender, its representation of hegemonic masculinity, and how it relates to greater political and social issues.
The Bad Romance music video has an incredible amount of symbolism. The designs and props represent the essence of a bad romance and the fears of love. It starts off with Lady Gaga wearing a gold dress, posing on a white throne with a crew of women and men surrounding her. The colors worn throughout the video, especially in this first scene, are quite symbolic. The women are wearing white, and the men are wearing black. This can be inferred that the women represent purity and life, while the men represent sin and death. Lady Gaga’s first dress is gold and may symbolize her being like royalty or a goddess. She is also wearing custom made razor-blade sunglasses and in an interview describes them as a projection of her “tough female spirit. It’s meant to be ‘this is my shield, this is my weapon, this is my inner sense of fame. This is my monster.” After this a group of women in white suits come out of white pods. These pods are shaped like a coffin and the center one had a red cross with the word “monster” above it. The futuristic coffin like pods may symbolize love or romance being rooted in death. This juxtaposition continues throughout the music video—the tension of death and love, or pain and obsession. These are just a few examples where the outfits and props symbolize things relating to Lady Gaga’s fears about love.
The music video’s use of symbolism also displays stereotypes about gender through iconography and the lyrics. According to the article Stereotyping by Richard Dyer, stereotyping through iconography is when it “places a character quickly and economically” (358, Dyer). In other words, it uses pictures, icons, and symbols to present deeper meanings that often generalize things like gender, race, social classes, etc. Lady Gaga’s lyrics stereotype women as obsessive over men, especially “I want your ugly, I want your disease. I want your everything as long as it’s free. I want your love.” Gaga may have intended this to mean that when you’re in love with someone, you don’t just love their good and pretty side but the way the women are looking for trouble the moment they come out of the coffins give another perspective. The overall concept of the video seems to be showing a story of a group of men attempting to drug and sex traffic Lady Gaga. Two women (presumably ordered by the men) forced Gaga to drink Vodka in a bathtub. The scene then changes with her being auctioned off wearing a beaded showpiece and ends up giving the boss a lap dance. Gaga gets sold to the head man and takes her revenge by burning him to a crisp on the bed, leaving her posing with his skeleton. It can be inferred that the story generalizes and glamorizes sex trafficking. It also stereotypes that men are dominant and forceful to women while women are obsessive and naïve.
The stereotypes about men in this video portray hegemonic masculinity. In the article Hegemonic Masculinity: Rethinking the Concept by R.W. Connell, it describes the concept of hegemonic masculinity as being ambiguous and having a range of meaning. Generally, is when men are put in positions of dominance and power over women in society. The article talks about the social embodiment of hegemonic masculinity stating that it is “related to particular ways of representing and using men’s bodies has been recognized from the earliest formulations of the concept… Bodies participate in social action by delineating courses of social conduct—the body is a participant in generating social practice. It is important not only that masculinities be understood as embodied but also that the interweaving of embodiment and social context be addressed” (851, Connell). Interestingly, the head man who buys Gaga is wearing a long sleeve shirt and pants. The lack of skin revealed may be making a statement that his body is superior to a woman’s and doesn’t need it to be on display. Ironically, in the end when his flesh is burned to his skeleton, it revealed his body to its core. It can be inferred that Lady Gaga is attempting to overcome hegemonic masculinity and instead take power and dominance. This is represented in the beginning when she is on the throne, and again in the end when she is posing next to the skeleton on the bed, pointing out that she won and got her revenge. Gaga also sings her song with a powerful and masculine voice. The deep richness exudes confidence and makes a statement that she is boss, even when she has the fear of becoming a slave to someone else.
In addition to this, it seems that the music video represents her biggest fear of being a slave to someone else and letting lust and obsession get the better of her. The story of being sex trafficked does not necessarily go along with her lyrics word for word, but I believe it represents the fears behind the lyrics she is proclaiming in Bad Romance.
Overall, the music video Bad Romance, by Lady Gaga represents the toxicity of love and the fears of becoming obsessive and manipulated by it. It also portrays the battle to overcome hegemonic masculinity with Lady Gaga fighting to stand against the man and get her revenge in the end. This song and music video reveal the harsh reality of being a woman surrounded by a system of reinforced ideologies.