A lot of people compare Madonna's work with Lady Gaga's, and in most cases the younger model has found ways to do it bigger, weirder, and more disturbingly than her predecessor. But there is one place where Gaga can't hold a candle to Madonna, and that's pissing off the Catholic Church.
Back in 1989, Madonna's "Like a Prayer" managed to get the Vatican to release a statement condemning the video as blasphemous. Down the line, it was voted the most groundbreaking music video of all time. Lady Gaga was trying to cash in on some of that controversy with her new song "Judas," but ultimately the video was too confusing to make anyone upset.
The narrative is pretty straightforward: Jesus is a Latin biker who goes clubbing with Mary Magdalene (Gaga). He and Judas get into a bar fight. It just doesn't have the same sacrilegious flavor of "Like a Prayer": in straight narrative terms it's more like one of those corny "updated" bible stories you'd hear in Sunday school. Catholic League president Bill Donahue wouldn't even deem to call the video "anti-Catholic":
In her “Judas” video, Lady Gaga plays fast and loose with Catholic iconography, and generates several untoward statements, but she typically dances on the line without going over it. Perhaps that is because the video is a mess. Incoherent, it leaves the viewer more perplexed than moved. The faux-baptismal scene is a curious inclusion, as is her apparent fondness for the Jesus character. But if anyone thinks the Catholic League is going to go ballistic over Lady Gaga’s latest contribution, they haven’t a clue about what really constitutes anti-Catholicism.
Lady Gaga probably had a whole statement prepared for when the Church condemned her, about the rights of artistic freedom or some such. Now she's going to have to save that until her next video, when she is forced to kiss a girl or promote condom use in order to really provoke a reaction.
And here I woke up this week thinking that we were going to have nothing to talk about after the royal wedding! Of course, with such a focus on international news -- with the death of Osama bin Laden and the Barack Obama's decision not to release the photos -- it's been kind of hard to focus on the fun stuff. That wasn't a problem for the ambivalent-natured Pop Torn, however, since it's hard to qualify this week's culture news as "fun."
1. Thinking that Situation Room photo is a meme: Because the most viewed photo on Flickr wasn't really captivating until we put a video game controller in Obama's hand.
2. Madonna's Kabbalah Centre is under investigation for taking people's money: Funny, churches have been doing this for centuries and haven't been caught yet.
3. Stuntpeople hired to play most of the characters in "The Hunger Games": An outrage. Hollywood needs to go back to only hiring models.
4. Kathryn Bigelow's "Kill bin Laden" is already in the works: Eerily similar to finding out every major newspaper has the obituary of A-list celebrities all ready to go before they die.
5. "The Voice's" Blake Shelton is a repentant homophobe: He tweeted earlier in the week, "Any man that tries Touching my behind He's gonna be a beaten, bleedin', heaving kind of guy," which is a rework of a Shania Twain song (and a very straight thing to do). He's since apologized, tweeting that he loves everyone. Aw?
6. James Middleton pretends to be a lawyer to get his naked pictures off of Fleshbot: The royal wedding present that just keeps giving and giving.
7. Jerry Seinfeld's new website: It just seems like an odd amount of text as background; it starts with the words "airplane food" and ends with "Jihad E."
8. The uproar over Lady Gaga's "Judas":
I've seen more sacrilegious iconography in 20-year-old Madonna videos.
9. Paris Hilton gets confused for Lindsay Lohan on her reality show: It's a pretty good zing, but it seems weird to make fun of someone if half the world can't tell you two apart.
10. The rebirth of Stevie Nicks: First there was a whole "Glee" episode devoted to Fleetwood Mac's "Rumours," and now she'll be appearing on the "American Idol" finale. Hey, it's not a comeback if you've never gone away. Stevie Nicks rules.
Lady Gaga performed on "American Idol" on May 5, 2010, in order to up the hype for the new video for "Judas." There were smoke machines, masks, and all the creepy stuff we've come to expect from the Madonna-alien hybrid. But Gaga's not happy: She took to Twitter to complain that Fox edited her version down from six and a half minutes. (She has since deleted her post.)
So what did we really miss in the performance? We compare the edited and unedited versions below.
Full version:
Edited version:
So what part of Lady Gaga's performance did we miss with the edits? The opening piano bars of "Bad Romance," which didn't sound like "Bad Romance" but something that Amy Winehouse would sing? Because otherwise the videos looks pretty much the same ... and pretty weird for an "Idol" performance. Then again, who expects Gaga to show up and give a straight performance?
Lady Gaga may have made amends with Weird Al, but she still has to answer for her politically incorrect remarks during a recent NME interview. When asked (for probably the umpteenth time) if she ripped off "Born This Way" from Madonna's "Express Yourself," the little monster got hot under the collar, claiming the only similarities were the chord progressions. Also this:
"I'm a songwriter. I’ve written loads of music. Why would I try to put out a song and think I’m getting one over on everybody? That’s retarded."
Whoops. For someone whose message is all about how it's OK to be different, this was definitely a quotable misstep, especially after NME decided to put her r-word comment in the headline of their piece. Gaga has since issued an apology via CNN:
"I consider it part of my life's work and music to push the boundaries of love and acceptance,” Gaga told CNN in a statement. "My apologies for not speaking thoughtfully. To anyone that was hurt, please know that it was furiously unintentional."
She continues, "An honest mistake, requires honesty to make. Whether life's disabilities, left you outcast bullied or teased, rejoice and love yourself today."
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