What Should Lady Gaga's 'Born This Way' Video Have Been Like?

We're writing this post just after the release of Lady Gags' video release for her comeback single 'Born This Way', a Madonna-esque gay-power anthem which owes itself entirely to disco. The video can be seen below. Please watch it so you can draw your conclusions as to how effective it is as a piece of "art", which is almost certainly how Gags herself wants it to be seen. Well, it's B-Movie Art, in the sense that it's value as art is only due to it's camp value and exploitative themes being... well, exploited. But enough GCSE-Level Art analysis! (Talkin' bout a C Grade, y'all) Watch it now:

Isn't it a poor video? Not in the sense that it isn't well-directed and the dancing is poor, but in the sense that it pays no attention to the themes of the song itself. Gags' most popular video is by far Bad Romance, which featured a fluorescent sex-bunker in which she sold herself to a man in a half-mask for money and a polar-bear dress. The video ties in to the song, in at least the barest of ways (bearest of ways, heh). Her next video, Telephone, was about being distracted by her boyfriend when she's out having a drink. So she did a Tarantino tribute video about going on the run with Beyonce and killing a load of people. The shock value was what kept all that working. The song is so trivial and the video so over-the-top, that they worked together.

Then came Alejandro. Alejandro's video was at odds with the song once more, but this time the song itself was a somewhat sweet ballad about summer love... with three men. But still, summer love. The music was upbeat and optimistic, which is why Gags recreated the bra dance sequence she performed in Telephone, sang in front of a dark, dank backdrop, and generally looked moody and creepy. If the song had been "Dance in the Dark" or one of her genuinely off-beat tracks, this would've been all well and good. Against a relatively simple song melody like Alejandro, however, this seemed like a complete disconnect between music and video. It was, at the time, by far her weakest effort- and for a performer who pushes herself off the back of her creative output, that was a big blow.

As you can see above, Born This Way does much the same as telephone. Out goes the stalag camp of Alejandro, but the bra dancing is retained and lengthened, while the intro goes absolutely nowhere and leads only to one or two shots of Gaga giving birth to clones. There's some stuff with her and a male dancer grinding on each other while they have skeleton face-paint on, and at one point she fires a machine-gun leg lifted straight from Robert Rodriguez's Grindhouse movie. So her videos have become tame, that's all very well and good. A tame Gaga song is still leagues ahead of the wildest thing Pink could dream up, right? Well yes, that's true, but at the same time let's just point out again that the song is about empowerment.

We're meant to be seeing a display of gay-power so strong and terrifying that the US Government will immediately drop any remaining homophobic policies as they run screaming from the mob of bears and twinks led by their platinum-headed Goddess Gags. Considering we're meant to be seeing a video which is abotu empowerment, why has Gaga instead decided that a better tactic for her video would be to blather on about some kind of dull alien story when she could instead be directly addressing what her song is about... What's the point of shying away from her own song in order to hide in genre and alien cloning stories. It seems like a massively wasted opportunity. Instead, we here at Wilftonville believe that the new video should have gone something like this:

Now you're scared, right? NOTHING CAN STOP THE FORCES OF GAY. Maybe someone needs to reign Gags in a bit more, so she can start leading her audiences astray again.

Florence Welch's Guide To Culture

hi ,im Florence from Florence and the machine. i like to go to cultural fairs and learn from the magic womyn who make potteries and draw watercolours. When im not busy with all my projects such as Florence and the machine iI am a keen activist for such important cultural actives such as and including saving seals, helping fund canvases to struggling new york artisans, and buying tickets to the guggenheim for the homeless. As i know from my time being a fighter for art over crass comerciality there are many people out there who do not know about where they can go to find art and culture and be imaginative for making their minds expand with the knowledge of our forefathers and foremothyers. When i am halfwayup a trek in the andes ,i think about these people such as these and Iii feel so sad that the outdoors are not accessible to everyone. So i have been asked by my friend and guru in matters of life and forelife and afterlife and preternatural Spanish dancing called steve to help his followers on wilftonville to broaden they’re horizons and clean themselves from culture and immerse themselves in cultyre.

1.
hey xxx have you ever been underwater?? there is not only a new world under there, but like in the Disney movie whichi have memorised to heart there are mermaids with tridents. i want to be a mermaid!iI would spend my time underwater looking at fascinating coral and learning about the history of starfish. if the starfish could talk back to me, that would be haven.

2.
when I can’t think of songs like my album track girl with/1 eye I relax with some bikram yoga performed on the roof of a mosque. the culture of the mosque people is so interesting to me ,I find that everytime t visit their place of worship there are new things to discover and enjoy. Walk in to yours sometime and try to comprehend the vastness of their belief system ,t donot book before i go in but wear a sarong so they will appreciate my effortsto blend in.

3.
fashion is a passion of mine which is obvious to all who have been seeing me on the streets of new york or paris in italy. i have found a shop which sells only tropical outfits designed by children and it is so sweet! They have smiles on they’re faces every time i walk in and order some coconuts anklets. it is an easy shop to find if you live near to martime fiji, which is my favourite place to go and realign my zen when I think the paparazzia are attacking me and my friends with their soul-stealers (cameras(

4.
bonjour is the local language of my favorite country which is of course alcase lorraine where they make cowbells that ring with passion. my next album is going to get rid of the harpsichord and replace it with organice cowbells and mushroom triangles, iam a firm belieber that we must respect and revere our livestock for they are humans too, eventhough they do not look like it. If i have 1 message to share with you all, machinists and fans of my spirituality, then it would be that you should go to paris and admire the pigs

5.
finally, and this is for the moment but i have to go and sunbathe in the ultraviolet glow of a pygmy sanctum in north waleshire, i recommend going to los angeles, where they have such amusing sights as people drawing characterisations of your face, usinga pen and sometimes a paintbrush. it always astonishes me how people can take art and make it into something that is less than art, but still art, and that makes it feel like it is more than art!! hehe that is obviously a joke, don’t take it seriously you guys. if you see some1 taking art from you and making into morethanart, please call me!! hehe love you all lots flo xx

Ten People You Must Never Play Hide And Seek With

1: Bono.
He started trying to find what he was looking for way back in 1987, and still hasn’t found it. He would be rubbish at Hide and Seek.

2: Barrack Obama.
It has been heavily suggested for the past few months that he is some sort of Messiah figure sent down to save us all from evil. However, further evidence would seem to suggest that Barrack Obama is actually Superman, and as such he would have the power to fly, thus saving him from the effort of having to physically search for you. Failing this, he would also have X-Ray vision, so trying to hide from him would prove futile.

3: Rupert Murdoch.
Why would you want to find him? If he goes into hiding, surely it will be to the benefit of our society.

4: Elvis.
Because he is dead, and will thusly be a poor player of the game.

5: Harry Houdini.
Do you have a friend who, when you play Hide and Seek, goes somewhere that nobody else can, so they are always last to be found? Say for example, they climb a really high tree, or know a secret gap in a fence they can crawl through so nobody else has any chance at all in following them, and finding them? Imagine if you will that you are chasing after someone who can survive being buried alive. You’ve got no chance.

6: Osama Bin Laden.
Guy’s a pro.

7: Hayden Christianson.
If you play the game indoors, you’ll be fine. However, if you go anywhere where there are trees present, then your game will be ruined by the way he wins all the time. There is, however, a trick to working out where he is, which is exclusive for all readers of Wilftonville: he will be the most wooden of all the trees you see.

8: Estelle.
No matter how well she tries to hide, you’ll be able to find her within seconds each time you play. This is because everywhere Estelle goes, she is followed by John Legend and Kanye West, whose inability to shut up for more than a minute at a time will prove devastating in a game of hide and seek.

9: Derren Brown.
He strikes me as a cheat. The moment you aren’t looking, he’ll fill the room with suggestive cards and phrases, and you’ll start crying because you think a monster is climbing all over your back. Or you’ll forget where you live. Most likely, he’ll make you believe that you are wildly in love with Derren Brown, which is not the way you would want a game of Hide and Seek to end.

10: Salvador Dali.
Never challenge a surrealist.