Lady Gaga's Arrival outfit at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards

I’ve been a fan of Lady Gaga’s for at least a year and I started seeing her crazy outfits that I’m sure I have imagined in my head and dreams way before she became popular but never had the means or balls to create on my own. It’s hard for me to admit my love for Pop music sometimes. In the past, people seemed to have thought I was only a pop music person obsessed with bands like Savage Garden and subsequently artists like Darren Hayes. When I moved on to liking bands like Linkin Park in high school and (*gasp*) Nine Inch Nails, who is this new person? Surprisingly, in college some people only understand me to like metal and rock and industrial. My boyfriend can’t seem to understand this seeming duplicity.

How can someone love outrageous rock and stage shows and ALSO like POP?! How dare she!

Why do people even care who/what/when you like? I like people who put their all in their art, be it photography, music, or programming. When you create something for you and something that comes from you, you see imagination and spirit at work. I find that most art created that way is my favorite.

To be honest, I am a Music Video freak. When I was little the two stations I watched were VH1 and the Weather Channel (yes, I was a weird little kid and also one who wasn’t allowed to watch MTV so substituted it with VH1.) When I got older, I used to love watching the MTV Video Music Awards because it was one of my favorite things being showcased exclusively. Unfortunately, I grew up a bit and felt the VMAs, which used to be about making FUN of awards shows and people showing up in outrageous outfits (or sloppy because really, rockers didn’t care!) Soon it became just another fricken’ awards show with vapid people watching other vapid artists accepting awards for mediocre ideas.

I got a bit excited this year whenever I found out Lady Gaga would be performing. It seems like she has been preparing all year for this one moment. Starting with comparisons from last year’s VMA performance by Cristina Agulera to Lady Gaga’s well established unique style that was already hitting up New York City, Lady Gaga had accomplished what she set out to do – blow people’s minds away and kick everyone in the balls with her music and style.

In interviews, Lady Gaga proclaims that everything she does is carefully calculated and everything has meaning. In one short year she has been relatively unknown to a superstar. We can see through her music videos from Just Dance (the young teenager entering the party scene and “waking” everybody up to dance and let loose) through Paparazzi (a slave to fame willing to kill or be killed just to stay in the lime light) a transformation of her character that tells a story itself.

Lady Gaga performing "Paparazzi" at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards

I didn’t watch the VMAs when they happened because even though I was planning on watching it, I had gotten home around 8pm from a long day in New York City and just wanted to take a shower and chill out, which didn’t include watching douche bags like Kanye West crashing the stage while Taylor Swift attempts to accept her first Moon Man. Really, this is the second time he’s pulled this shit, can’t they put extra security on that guy and tackle him any time he tries to jump the stage? Anyway, after I saw the buzz last night, I tried in vain to find early footage of the performance but ultimately failed. Signing on this morning, GagaDaily saved me and had uploaded a lovely high quality video of Paparazzi in its full, wonderful glory.

The song starts with a crash of glass as a few men rush to see what went wrong. The drapes open as she begins to sing the first lines of the song and we find our heroine collapsed under an enormous glass chandelier. Her dutiful servants rush to her side and rescue her from the near death experience. Wide eyed from her close call, we see Lady Gaga in a beautiful white outfit fashioned with a small cape and a feathered white mask. Her right bosom and right boot, also white, are glittered with red gems, obviously a foreshadow of what’s to come.

She sings Paparazzi in a different key but still fits well with the original music which you can hear as background vocals. She dances across the stage with her backup dancers as if she is pleading to the audience and to an unseen force that controls her every move. During the chorus a frantic woman is wheeled out on to the stage in a wheel chair and clamors to be near Lady Gaga as Gaga herself is handed a crutch to walk upon (an homage to the successful “Paparazzi” music video) as she limps down the cat walk. As the bridge approaches, she returns to the neglected piano at stage right and while tossing her left leg onto the ivory keys, bangs out a reprise of a similar melody she usually performs for her acoustic shows and as she turns around to repeat the chorus one more time, we see that she hasn’t escaped the falling chandelier unscathed and is now bleeding from the chest. She clutches her wound with the palm of her hand and once again begins to plead.

Soon, as she begins to near the end of her song, the damsel staggers to the center of the stage to her waiting servants who catch her as she falls but they are unable to save her as she is strung up above them for all to see. The song ends and we are left with her hanging as paparazzi cameras shutter and flashes reflect off her body and the background of the stage.

I’m sure most won’t see the beauty and artistry in the performance as I do, in fact my friend texted me a mere minutes after the show and asked me what I thought. Since I didn’t see it when he did I told him I would have to get back to him on my thoughts, but he only replied that “she is messed up.” That may be, but so am I and perhaps why I enjoy her creations immensely. There is a place for all of us in this world, but sometimes we have to create that spot ourselves.

Lately, there have been many ludicrous accusations made by ignorant media and fans claiming that Lady Gaga is indeed a transvestite man. She responded with a comment that in this day and age if you are strong and competent, those traits could “only” be attributed to a man and women just aren’t allowed to be that way. Perhaps the rumors have some truth to them, because it sure seems Lady Gaga has more balls than most of the other “artists” out there today.