by Eddie McCaffray & Meghan Vicks
1. Military and Totalitarian Uniforms
Eddie McCaffray: Clearly this is one of the video's most immediately recognizable aesthetics. Dancers throughout sport leather trench-coats with wide lapels, peaked military-style caps, trousers, boots, and assault rifles. Even their hair color and physical appearance are uniform. The significances of this attire are two-fold and mutually-reinforcing. The men (and Lady Gaga) are part of a group - an army - united by bonds forged in conflict, and that results not only in a deep and powerful bond of brother(mostly)hood but also in an intensification of the alienation and ostrification such a militant union might originally have come together to oppose. By finding its voice, by forging a coherent identity, such an army perversely makes itself easier to target. Lady Gaga and her dancers came together to defend themselves and perhaps even fight against a world that rejected and victimized them, but the more effectively they strengthen themselves and their relationship to one another through mutual struggle and hardship (to say nothing of sexy uniforms or powerful weapons), the more they actually make themselves different - and easier to discriminate against.
2. Gay Army
Meghan Vicks: In a recent interview, Gaga explained that the "Alejandro" video is about the “purity of my friendships with my gay friends. And how I’ve been unable to find that with a straight man in my life. It’s a celebration and an admiration of gay love – it confesses my envy of the courage and bravery they require to be together. In the video I’m pining for the love of my gay friends – but they just don’t want me.” One of the main ways that the "gay love" is expressed in the video is through a hyperbolized brotherhood that closely resembles an army, even drawing from the stylings of 1920s Germany. "Gay Love" is therefore militarized, likely out of necessity: society is constantly blacklisting, condemning, and persecuting the gay community. The only way they can exist as a group is to band together and fight back. I think this is why Gaga represents this community as militaristic: they need to be brandishing semi-automatics if they intend to walk around with fishnets and stilettos. They need to be disciplined and trained as a fighting machine if they want to dance together and throw one another on the floor. So we see this in the video: their dancing is simultaneously erotic and combative, combining sexual advances with punches and throws. Their costuming is also both militaristic and feminine and/or sexual: combat boots or stilettos, studded helmets, skin-tight shorts.
However, I can't help but be worried by the implications of this concept, as the costuming and mise-en-scene of the video are highly reminiscent of Weimer Germany, and many films that represent it (think Cabaret, Metropolis). Which makes me wonder: is there something dark and sinister about this community that is born by a survival imperative, by the necessity to combat homophobia and gay discrimination and hatred? Gaga herself feels like they "just don't want me."
Eddie: There's something dark and sinister about every community because every community is driven - hell, even constituted - by its survival imperative. Every organization has bodies in the foundations, including both the contradictions which underlie all ideologies and literal mass graves. That's one of the most basic thrusts of modern and post-modern philosophy: that a society or organization's strength rests in its ability to other, and the application of the ability to other creates and then victimizes its object. Just as modern thinking teaches man that the essence of his humanity is his grammatical existence as a subject, it reveals the horror that comes to life whenever man is moved to the wrong side of the verb. That's what Lady Gaga is lamenting - that this power any society requires in the most fundamental way has created a rift between her and her gay friends. It has made that rift in two ways simultaneously: by othering these people into an enemy to attack and by forcing them to accept and advance that very project of othering in order to survive. That's the truly horrifying and perverse revelation: that even those organizations we admire and we love to be a part of, that give us a beautiful feeling of belonging and comrade-ship, that even those require sacrificial lambs. The Gay Army is a wonderful thing, a shield and a home to those who need one most of all. But like any coherent group, it carries inside its nature the potential for new discrimination.
Fascism gets its name from the Italian fasci, a bundle of sticks embodying how the strength of the whole can be greater than the sum of its parts. You'll find a very similar symbol on a US quarter.
3. Reflecting Madonna, but with a twist
Meghan: In many ways "Alejandro" reflects various Madonna videos from the 90s. There seem to be visual quotes and cues at least from "Vogue," "Express Yourself," "Human Nature," and Evita. Gaga's reflecting of Madonna is in keeping with her general aesthetic, which Kathryn Leedom beautifully discusses in the most recent article on Gaga Stigmata. Leedom argues that Gaga's aesthetic is a "reflective performance," and points out that, "Considering the reflective aspects of her fashion and music combined, a certain paradox begins to emerge in which Lady Gaga is extremely unique and yet reminiscent of many various people." In "Alejandro," Gaga resurrects and reflects the Madonna of the 90s, however with one important twist: Gaga doesn't actually bed any of these men. In Madonna's "Express Yourself," whose dance sequence with men push-up-ing and lunging seems to be the predecessor for the choreography in "Alejandro," one of those men leaves his comrades to bed Madonna. In contrast, Gaga can "fake bed" the men, but they won't actually give into her. She remains un-bedded, and they remain a closed group. It doesn't matter what position Gaga tries, and our lithe and acrobatic pop star indeed tries them all - she can't be included in their gay love, and the performance and enactment of them flipping and doggy-thrusting on the bed only enhances the image of them "faking, but not making it."
It's as if Gaga's rewritten "Express Yourself" and "Vogue," but it's not heterosexual sexuality that's fulfilled (as it is especially in "Express Yourself"), no matter how or what position Gaga tries.
4. Religious Imagery
Meghan: A lot of the religious imagery in the video employs the cross or the garments of a nun's habit in such a way that they actually enforce celibacy, or a physical hindering of the body. The cross literally covers Gaga's crotch, as a sort of chastity belt; her hands are tangled in the rosary similar to the way ropes tangle bodies on the bed; and whenever she's draped in a type of nun's habit, her body is mostly immobile. Think of Gaga lying completely still on the bed, standing motionless, or even being tossed around and lifted by the Gay Army as though she's a rag doll - when Gaga doesn't move, or is limp, she's wearing religious clothing. As if her body is literally restricted by the religious insignia. Probably the most beautiful image of this is Gaga swallowing the the rosary, which hinders her voice.
In contrast, Gaga is most mobile when the religious imagery is absent.
Eddie: The rosary not only stifles her voice but invades her body. The religious costume in the video definitely seems to contribute to the themes of totalitarianism. The Gay Army dances, marches, and trains around Gaga as she stands dressed like a nun or bishop. Behind her, images of war and violence play on a giant screen. The fanaticism inspired, extorted, or sought by totalitarian or fascist regimes is often linked to religious fervor. The evocation of such fanaticism emphases not only the militancy of Lady Gaga and her dancers, but the all-powerful influence of the masternarratives which have facilitated and actively created the rift Lady Gaga laments in this video.
6. Gaga's Frozen Heart on a Pillow & The Funeral Procession
Eddie: This is definitely a neat little icon. For a video that is explicitly intended as an expression of love, loss, and insurmountable difference, Lady Gaga being forced to carry her own frozen heart at the head of a funeral procession seems very appropriate. In a real way, this video is one of mourning for a lost, impossible closeness. It also reinforces the idea that man is an artificial, porous creation of his own imagining, sustained by his inventions and his pretense far more essentially than by anything "natural" or immanent. He might excise this or that problematic organ (I'm looking at you, the appendix*), modify himself with drugs, or even survive otherwise-mortal wounds.
Meghan: I think it's also significant that the shot of the frozen heart is filmed in such a way as to position the heart where Gaga's crotch should be. As if to reinforce that the type of love she's burying is sexual love for Alejandro.
7. Cyborgs
Eddie: There's a lot of cyborg imagery in the video, mainly puppet strings and gigantic metal frames attached to human bodies in disturbing fashion. It is possible to imagine optimistic - even beautiful - technological modifications to the human body. But the intersection of machines and bodies taking place in this video is intended to be as disturbing and worrisome as possible. Even beyond this basic pessimism, all the cyborg implants and machines revolve around control and restraint. This fear, that the progress of civilization and technology will only provide more and more powerful means to curb the freedoms it supposedly engenders, is embodied by the puppet strings attached to limbs and eye-lids and by huge metal braces bolted directly into human flesh. The effects of these devices are not left to the the imagination either: many scenes involve robotic dancing or marching, while Lady Gaga and others lie inert under their harsh nylon strings. This also serves to further reveal the powerful hand modern society and technology have in creating people on an individual and very real level. The connection that Lady Gaga feels is impossible for her to share with her gay friends - the subject of the video - is one that has been cut off by the strict genders created by modern discursive power, and this cyborg imagery is just another example of that. If man's inventions are artificial, than man is himself artificial. He makes himself.
Meghan Vicks: In a recent interview, Gaga explained that the "Alejandro" video is about the “purity of my friendships with my gay friends. And how I’ve been unable to find that with a straight man in my life. It’s a celebration and an admiration of gay love – it confesses my envy of the courage and bravery they require to be together. In the video I’m pining for the love of my gay friends – but they just don’t want me.” One of the main ways that the "gay love" is expressed in the video is through a hyperbolized brotherhood that closely resembles an army, even drawing from the stylings of 1920s Germany. "Gay Love" is therefore militarized, likely out of necessity: society is constantly blacklisting, condemning, and persecuting the gay community. The only way they can exist as a group is to band together and fight back. I think this is why Gaga represents this community as militaristic: they need to be brandishing semi-automatics if they intend to walk around with fishnets and stilettos. They need to be disciplined and trained as a fighting machine if they want to dance together and throw one another on the floor. So we see this in the video: their dancing is simultaneously erotic and combative, combining sexual advances with punches and throws. Their costuming is also both militaristic and feminine and/or sexual: combat boots or stilettos, studded helmets, skin-tight shorts.
However, I can't help but be worried by the implications of this concept, as the costuming and mise-en-scene of the video are highly reminiscent of Weimer Germany, and many films that represent it (think Cabaret, Metropolis). Which makes me wonder: is there something dark and sinister about this community that is born by a survival imperative, by the necessity to combat homophobia and gay discrimination and hatred? Gaga herself feels like they "just don't want me."
Eddie: There's something dark and sinister about every community because every community is driven - hell, even constituted - by its survival imperative. Every organization has bodies in the foundations, including both the contradictions which underlie all ideologies and literal mass graves. That's one of the most basic thrusts of modern and post-modern philosophy: that a society or organization's strength rests in its ability to other, and the application of the ability to other creates and then victimizes its object. Just as modern thinking teaches man that the essence of his humanity is his grammatical existence as a subject, it reveals the horror that comes to life whenever man is moved to the wrong side of the verb. That's what Lady Gaga is lamenting - that this power any society requires in the most fundamental way has created a rift between her and her gay friends. It has made that rift in two ways simultaneously: by othering these people into an enemy to attack and by forcing them to accept and advance that very project of othering in order to survive. That's the truly horrifying and perverse revelation: that even those organizations we admire and we love to be a part of, that give us a beautiful feeling of belonging and comrade-ship, that even those require sacrificial lambs. The Gay Army is a wonderful thing, a shield and a home to those who need one most of all. But like any coherent group, it carries inside its nature the potential for new discrimination.
Fascism gets its name from the Italian fasci, a bundle of sticks embodying how the strength of the whole can be greater than the sum of its parts. You'll find a very similar symbol on a US quarter.
3. Reflecting Madonna, but with a twist
Meghan: In many ways "Alejandro" reflects various Madonna videos from the 90s. There seem to be visual quotes and cues at least from "Vogue," "Express Yourself," "Human Nature," and Evita. Gaga's reflecting of Madonna is in keeping with her general aesthetic, which Kathryn Leedom beautifully discusses in the most recent article on Gaga Stigmata. Leedom argues that Gaga's aesthetic is a "reflective performance," and points out that, "Considering the reflective aspects of her fashion and music combined, a certain paradox begins to emerge in which Lady Gaga is extremely unique and yet reminiscent of many various people." In "Alejandro," Gaga resurrects and reflects the Madonna of the 90s, however with one important twist: Gaga doesn't actually bed any of these men. In Madonna's "Express Yourself," whose dance sequence with men push-up-ing and lunging seems to be the predecessor for the choreography in "Alejandro," one of those men leaves his comrades to bed Madonna. In contrast, Gaga can "fake bed" the men, but they won't actually give into her. She remains un-bedded, and they remain a closed group. It doesn't matter what position Gaga tries, and our lithe and acrobatic pop star indeed tries them all - she can't be included in their gay love, and the performance and enactment of them flipping and doggy-thrusting on the bed only enhances the image of them "faking, but not making it."
It's as if Gaga's rewritten "Express Yourself" and "Vogue," but it's not heterosexual sexuality that's fulfilled (as it is especially in "Express Yourself"), no matter how or what position Gaga tries.
4. Religious Imagery
Meghan: A lot of the religious imagery in the video employs the cross or the garments of a nun's habit in such a way that they actually enforce celibacy, or a physical hindering of the body. The cross literally covers Gaga's crotch, as a sort of chastity belt; her hands are tangled in the rosary similar to the way ropes tangle bodies on the bed; and whenever she's draped in a type of nun's habit, her body is mostly immobile. Think of Gaga lying completely still on the bed, standing motionless, or even being tossed around and lifted by the Gay Army as though she's a rag doll - when Gaga doesn't move, or is limp, she's wearing religious clothing. As if her body is literally restricted by the religious insignia. Probably the most beautiful image of this is Gaga swallowing the the rosary, which hinders her voice.
In contrast, Gaga is most mobile when the religious imagery is absent.
Eddie: The rosary not only stifles her voice but invades her body. The religious costume in the video definitely seems to contribute to the themes of totalitarianism. The Gay Army dances, marches, and trains around Gaga as she stands dressed like a nun or bishop. Behind her, images of war and violence play on a giant screen. The fanaticism inspired, extorted, or sought by totalitarian or fascist regimes is often linked to religious fervor. The evocation of such fanaticism emphases not only the militancy of Lady Gaga and her dancers, but the all-powerful influence of the masternarratives which have facilitated and actively created the rift Lady Gaga laments in this video.
6. Gaga's Frozen Heart on a Pillow & The Funeral Procession
Eddie: This is definitely a neat little icon. For a video that is explicitly intended as an expression of love, loss, and insurmountable difference, Lady Gaga being forced to carry her own frozen heart at the head of a funeral procession seems very appropriate. In a real way, this video is one of mourning for a lost, impossible closeness. It also reinforces the idea that man is an artificial, porous creation of his own imagining, sustained by his inventions and his pretense far more essentially than by anything "natural" or immanent. He might excise this or that problematic organ (I'm looking at you, the appendix*), modify himself with drugs, or even survive otherwise-mortal wounds.
Meghan: I think it's also significant that the shot of the frozen heart is filmed in such a way as to position the heart where Gaga's crotch should be. As if to reinforce that the type of love she's burying is sexual love for Alejandro.
7. Cyborgs
Eddie: There's a lot of cyborg imagery in the video, mainly puppet strings and gigantic metal frames attached to human bodies in disturbing fashion. It is possible to imagine optimistic - even beautiful - technological modifications to the human body. But the intersection of machines and bodies taking place in this video is intended to be as disturbing and worrisome as possible. Even beyond this basic pessimism, all the cyborg implants and machines revolve around control and restraint. This fear, that the progress of civilization and technology will only provide more and more powerful means to curb the freedoms it supposedly engenders, is embodied by the puppet strings attached to limbs and eye-lids and by huge metal braces bolted directly into human flesh. The effects of these devices are not left to the the imagination either: many scenes involve robotic dancing or marching, while Lady Gaga and others lie inert under their harsh nylon strings. This also serves to further reveal the powerful hand modern society and technology have in creating people on an individual and very real level. The connection that Lady Gaga feels is impossible for her to share with her gay friends - the subject of the video - is one that has been cut off by the strict genders created by modern discursive power, and this cyborg imagery is just another example of that. If man's inventions are artificial, than man is himself artificial. He makes himself.
8. Gun Bra
Meghan: Gaga's bra that not only lifts, but also functions as two guns, is a fashionable declaration of Gaga's enlisting in the gay army as a woman; she's not fighting for her own rights, but for the rights of the gay community. She turns her feminine assets into a weapon for their cause. This multitasking brassiere is moreover a descendant of Madonna's famous cone bra, which was widely understood as an "in-your-face" (literally!) symbol of her feminine pride and power. Gaga adopts Madonna's famous symbol of feminine pride, and refashions it into a feminine weapon fighting alongside the gay community.
Eddie: Also, to get a little symbolic with it, Lady Gaga is playing with androgyny again. She stuck big phalluses on her breasts. Bam.
Meghan: So her boobs are now two dicks. Upside-down, trickster aesthetic again. To put it crudely, it's like finding an ass where a mouth should be - very carnivalesque. Gaga is once again challenging strict binary oppositions, confusing the borders that construct our knowable world.
Other things to discuss:
- Snow Imagery: What's the point of putting snow in the video? A sort of cold war, or dystopian aesthetic?
- Gaga's face melts away at the end - Why?
- Contrast between the song (very summery, warm, fun, sun-soaked Mexico) and the video (incredibly dark, cold, dreary, perhaps German).
- Stonewall Riots? Any connection?
- Connections to earlier videos? Or important contrasts? Comparisons?
*This article's appendix has been removed.
Dear Readers! Please leave your comments and your own interpretations, thoughts about the video, questions, things we left out, etc. Feel free to leave links to your own reviews of the video as well. Let's make a discussion, Little Monsters!