Essay written by Becci W
Like her, love her, or loath her very existence Lady Gaga is currently one of the world’s most powerful and influential people in the world: with her overly sexual lyrics, borderline pornographic videos and controversial fashion sense, is Lady Gaga the role model to her millions of ‘Little Monster’ fans she claims to be, or is she merely the best example of the worst sort of star? My personal opinion is no: to me Lady Gaga has very little to recommend her as a role model and here are my reasons why.
It is a well known fact amongst fans and critics alike that Lady Gaga has had problems with Cocaine and alcohol in the past, and that she wrote her debut album “The Fame” while high. In an interview with Q Magazine she admitted:
“Using drugs I really figured out the art I wanted to make and was inspired. Some people find inspiration in dark places. I guess I'm one of them. What always made me different is that if I was doing drugs I was also making music. I wasn't just doing drugs." (The Huffington Post, 2010)
To many people (and to myself) this seemed as if she was trying to justify her use of drugs as a means to be creative, that she had a good valid reason to be snorting Cocaine.
But ever since her rise to fame she has insisted that she had dealt with the problem and that those days were long behind her. Yet, in August 2010, in an interview with Vanity Fair the singer admitted she still takes Cocaine:
“I won't lie; it's occasional. And when I say occasional, I mean maybe a couple of times a year." (Vanity Fair, 2010)
This prevents her from being a role model in my opinion as the ‘occasional’ use of Cocaine is still usage, no matter how many times a year you take it. Also, after insisting that those times are over, in light of this declaration, she has lost all credibility, especially since a large majority of her fan base are impressionable pre-teens and young teenagers.
One of the many controversies surrounding Lady Gaga is her rapidly shrinking waist. If rumours from her ex-tour manager, David Ciemny, are to be believed, Lady Gaga goes on a binge/starve ‘diet’ to keep her size zero figure. According to her ex-tour manager she lost twenty pounds between fittings. But the real worry that she doesn’t look after herself stems from a line in an interview for The New York Times Magazine:
“It’s all about starvation: pop stars should not eat.” (Washuta, 2010 )
Also, many people from her past and old production team reveal that she would use diet pills and eat only one meal a day to stay slim.
Again, this is a very powerful, irresponsible message to her fans. And while some reports of this say that she said it in a mocking tone, it is impossible for people to pick that up while reading it on a page or computer screen.
My final main reason for my disapproval of Lady Gaga as a role model is her blunt use of sex and sexually explicit lyrics. I don’t just speak for myself when I say that Lady Gaga’s lyrics and videos can be seen as pressuring to have sex; what with the imitation of sexual intercourse in the lengthy “Alejandro” music video and the euphemistic phrase ‘disco stick’ in the song ‘LoveGame’. However, the most pressuring song from Lady Gaga is an unreleased track from 2008 called ‘Christmas Tree,’ containing the lyrics
“Ho ho ho, under the mistletoe,
yes everybody knows,
we will take off our clothes,” and
“The only place you want to be is
Underneath my Christmas tree,
light me up put me on top, let’s
fa-la-la-la-la la-la, la, la.”
You only have to analyse every song in Lady Gaga’s back catalogue with a critical eye for sexual innuendos and you’ll quickly see that sex is a large part of her music. While she may be trying to portray sex in a more positive light, some people and myself are of the opinion that she is focused too much on sex and highlighting it so sharply that it’s making some of her devoted Little Monsters feel uncomfortable and pressured, especially if they are not sexually active. I defiantly wouldn’t want that for a role model.
