With a touch of Bob Fosse, Madonna, 1930s Berlin and perhaps even a little Joan of Arc, the music video for Lady Gaga’s “Alejandro” draws from the past to recreate a vision of the future. The video, featuring the music and performance of Lady Gaga and directed by American photographer Steven Klein, presents a series of images in odd juxtapositions, creating more visual beauty than meaning for the casual viewer. “Alejandro” does not tell a story in the chronological sense. Instead, much like a surrealist film, it reveals its meaning in the heightened emotions and drama of recollections and hopeful dreams.

The opening slow panning of the camera across an uninterested audience is the most neutral scene of the music video. It is neither fantastical nor glamorous (as memories and dreams often are)… it is simply the reality of the present.  The present-day for Lady Gaga is in what appears to be a cabaret bar of the Weimer Republic (circa 1930). Cabaret performances were a reflection of the unusually liberal period in Germany between 1918 and 1933. This reference introduces the two principle themes of “Alejandro”: the inherent relation between stage and reality and the simultaneous acceptance and rejection of Gaga’s relationship with the gay community. Like most of Lady Gaga’s work, “Alejandro” is both a personal meditation as well as a piece addressing the world at large. For example, the term itself, “Alejandro,” represents many things. It is the man who anchors Gaga’s life (in both positive and negative definitions). It is a manifestation of all men in the broadest and most unprejudiced sense. It is the girl within who holds onto ideas of fairytale endings and love above all other ambitions. It is both what Gaga has fought to overcome and what she desires above all else.

Cabaret, more than most forms of theatre, emphasizes the idea that art creates a world of duality. On the one hand, it is a place of make-believe, an escape from reality. On the other hand, in the safety of that assumption, it is the most vulnerable and honest place – a place that is inherently life and reality itself. The stage is where Gaga is most introspective and reflective. Here, she is a star, free to meditate on her politics and religions. She is free in the limelight to be the strong-minded woman she always wanted to be.

From the “present” of the stage, the viewer is swept away into Gaga’s stream of consciousness. The melding of past and future leaves an unclear train-of-thought, motivated more by emotion than an actual timeline. There is, however, a chronological order to the scenes of the music video. In general, innocence shifts to the hard truth and what is vulnerable and fearful becomes impenetrable and proud.

Lady Gaga’s recollections begin in the training room. There is no hierarchy here where the men are all with equal intention and respect. Gaga looks at this scene of masculinity with a sense of admiration and desire. There is a desire not only to be with the group of soldiers (who represent the gay men in Gaga’s life), but a desire to become one of the soldiers – perhaps seeking love with a heart maimed by former heterosexual relationships. In the privacy of their sleeping quarters, sexual fantasies become her reality as Gaga experiences a newfound love that seems so pure and honest in contrast to the love of her past. Even the men, in this shared trust, reveal their own repressed desires in their physical (note the high heels) and sexual expressions. As Gaga and the men break out in choreography, the viewer is reminded of the equality they are able to share in private intimacy.

But the fantasy is flawed. The dance is not as empowering as Gaga expected it to be. Instead, the scene reads as unsettling because they are both living a lie. The equality of this love is like the stage – both extremely true and also just a temporary illusion. This love, however passionate, is platonic, and cannot completely replace the love Gaga has denied in her desire for fame. Furthermore, once their hair is cut and their uniforms donned, her friends are no longer gay men – they are soldiers. At the end of the day, everyone is still filled with a longing to be free.

For both the soldiers and Gaga, this solution doesn’t bring so much victory as it does bring the sense of lost self-identity and pride. In this realization, Gaga and the men proceed to undergo a transformation. In the scene where Gaga is wearing the crème-colored robe, the soldiers handle her harshly, reflecting the pain she felt when they rejected her as a lover – but they also handle her with gingerly care, raising Gaga up to the truth she has to face. Ultimately, Gaga was left even more heartbroken by her gay friends, rejected even by the purest of friendships. What she wasn’t expecting, however, was the empowerment their relationship gave to her. They found friendship in the fact that they both grew up feeling misunderstood – Gaga with her impossible ambitions of fame, and the gays with their constant battle for equality and acceptance. They were able to admire each others’ struggles and finally found strength together. The same dance from before is renewed with a new fervor and passion. No longer are Gaga and the men slaves to repression, but finally free to conquer the world in Armani suits and machine-gun bras.

We come back again to the present-day Gaga at the cabaret. Here she is, much like the Gaga in real-life, fearlessly commanding a stage. We are reminded, however, of the lie of her art as she takes off her sunglasses and the camera cuts once again to the soldier in fishnets and heels. The theatre has always been considered a place of escapism – from the reality and scenes of riot and war that pervade outside. Lady Gaga (like cabaret) argues that theatricality is reality. It is what we most honestly fear and believe and what we most vulnerably hope to make true in the future. Lady Gaga utilizes her art to embody her Utopian dream – a place of equality and happy endings. A place where she is free, and not the caged freak she always felt like. Art is always created as a lie. Good art, however, is lived in the future.

Lady Gaga creates her future as one of both success and sadness. As seen in the wintery palace scenes towards the beginning of the video, she lives an undeniably glamorous life in the future. She is also decidedly distanced from love.  In her loneliness, there is always a reminder of the sacrifices she had to make. The funeral march is her renouncement from love and her promise for fame. Her heart, maimed and imprinted with the letter “A,” represents her new-found responsibilities. Fame is not all vanity and self-confidence. Lady Gaga has become something greater than just a celebrity – a leader of a new art movement, an icon and a role model – a privilege and a daunting lifelong responsibility. With a promise to never let the men in her life rule her self-worth again, Gaga can’t help but see her new life as one of celibacy… for what is more celibate than a nun in latex? To Gaga, love is never without strings attached. Alejandro is everything she must deny.

This performance is Gaga at the most honest level – a women who absolutely lives and breathes theatricality. She is futuristic, because she embodies what she would like to become one day. She screams that we are free, because she hopes that we all will be soon. There is no line between performer and audience member. There is simply humanity. What you take away from the art is ultimately your own. As the video comes to an end and the image burns away to nothingness, we are reminded that our reality is what we choose to make of it.

After all, life is a cabaret, old chum.

Analysis by: PROJECTHAUS

American pop artist Andy Warhol had a fascination with the telephone. Lady Gaga, coincidentally, has a recently released single based on that very form of communication.

Lady Gaga’s newest music video, “Telephone,” is a unique fusion of the artistic styles of Quentin Tarantino, David LaChapelle, Michael Jackson and Madonna in addition to several others. Thematically, however, I believe “Telephone” is most influenced by the philosophy of Andy Warhol.

Andy Warhol’s art is difficult to understand because so much of it is about imitation and repetition - often of the mundane. In many ways, “Telephone” is also about the mundane. Warhol and Gaga both aim to bring beauty back into moments where it has been lost or forgotten. With mass produced products, for example, we forget the artistry of Brillo pad packaging and the precise balance of Diet Coke cans. This is also Lady Gaga’s commentary on fame. Fame kills. The modern day celebrity is loved until that second they become overexposed. They are not intriguing anymore, and we become bored, and we forget the beauty of their presence. As seen by her cigarette sunglasses, we are literally blinded by habit. We do not notice that we kill the beauty through our addiction for more details, more pictures, more interviews, etc. Our aesthetics are essentially deteriorating with overuse. We no longer see what is beautiful. We only see what is “normal” or “abnormal.”

This obsession with defining what “normal” implies is the principle theme of “Telephone.” The “Prison for Bitches,” for example, is not simply a “women’s prison” - nor is it a “lesbian prison,” as so many people have referred to it as. It is the place in which we often imprison ourselves when we forget our self worth because we are not seen as “normal.” The inmates, although they seem confident and tough, are all incredibly self-conscious in actuality. They are constantly seeking for someone else (a man or significant other) to tell them of their own self worth (note the prison guard on the dating website). This high dependency on others to accept and define your beauty is ubiquitous in American culture. The constant fear of rejection has been accepted as an everyday experience. The inmates do not even seem eager to escape from the prison, as they have forgotten what freedom really is. Lady Gaga chooses to depict people who generally identify themselves as women, because women are so often, but certainly not always, guilty of letting themselves become second-rate to society’s opinion. If we are told that we are ugly and worthless enough times, we start to believe it. Through habitual action, we adapt and start to forget that we are beautiful and free. We condemn ourselves in fear of being abnormal.

It is important to note that within the prison, no one supports each other. “You’ll be back, honey,” says the prison guard to the recently freed Gaga. We struggle together and yet we do not believe in one another - we are in constant competition instead, wishing failure upon each other. By casting Beyoncé as her partner-in-crime, Lady Gaga is emphasizing the importance of supporting each other, not simply in the Thelma and Louise sense, but in the sense of defending individuality and self-worth for all.

In the diner scene, Gaga illustrates that we are all affected by over-exposure, even in our treatment of food. We eat so often in excess that we constantly require more – more honey, more sauce, more food.  Although Gaga and Beyoncé are the ones to physically poison the food, they are not the ones responsible for the deaths. In a broader sense, we live in excess in all aspects of life. It is normal to us that we live with too much money, too many commodities, and too much sex. This competition to always have more in quantity rather than quality has become habitual. We, in our inability to recognize the beauty of what we already have and our constant demand for more, are the causes of our own deaths.

As Gaga and Beyoncé make a run for it, Beyoncé asks, “You promise we’ll never come back?” to which Gaga answers, “I promise.” Gaga and Beyoncé represent those who have discovered their own beauty and have freed themselves from the judgment of others – they are the property of no one but themselves. “Telephone” is a reminder to viewers that they have the power to emancipate themselves from being victims of “normalcy.” Gaga and Beyoncé are the enlightened ones in this situation, but this exchange is also a reminder that they too are fallible. “Telephone” is a warning because it is easy to fall back into a place of low self-esteem where you allow yourself to be a puppet of opinions. Lady Gaga is admitted to the prison on the date February 11^th, 2010. I do not think it is coincidence that Gaga is imprisoned on the same date that one of the greatest artists of our time, Alexander McQueen, passed away. Days like those, when we lose an inspiration to redefine the beautiful, make us fall back to our old habits. Like Warhol, McQueen’s designs constantly challenged the viewer to question what they have been told is unsightly or inappropriate through media and censorship. McQueen’s designs were monstrous and otherworldly. It takes courage and humility to say, “I may not understand this, but this is art. This is weird, this is normal, this is beautiful.”

It’s easy to stay in the prison. It is, after all, glamorous and comfortable in prison.

Like Andy Warhol, Lady Gaga wants the viewer to remember that he or she has the power to break through the cigarette sunglasses. With determination and an open mind towards beauty, we must promise ourselves that we too will never come back.