(2010-04-25) Dery Vs Gaga

I think I agree with Mark Dery about Lady Gaga. Is she a rarified being who has more talent in her clitoral hood than you can even dream of, little man? Whose Art for Art’s Sake raptures us out of our stonewashed lives, into a disco ball-flecked Bubble World, a Studio 54 in the Sky where gay teens, scenery-chewing emo boys, and high-school weirdos are waved into the VIP lounge while all the Mean Girls and haters mill outside, crazed with envy? Or is she just some Tisch drop-out who watched Grease one too many times, pickled her brain in Britney, and now thinks she’s some cross between Madonna and Leigh Bowery, just because she forgets to wear pants and name-checks The Night Porter (Sontag’s “Fascinating Fascism” for people who don’t read)?... Reading a Deeply Silly commentary on the “Telephone” video by “Gaga blogger and doctoral student MeghanVicks,” who wheels out the obligatory reference to Foucault’s Discipline And Punish to Explain It All For Us, I’m reminded of a lazy afternoon in L.A., sometime in the ’80s, listening to a masseuse to the stars telling me she’d seen Madonna carrying a copy of Foucault’s book in her purse to certify her scandalousness. Apparently, my friend chuckled, the poor dear was under the impression—never having read the damned thing—that it was a bondage manual.