She's worn costumes that recast childhood icons like Kermit the Frog and Hello Kitty into ingénue's pelts. (The Kermit dress was designed by Jean-Charles de Castelbajac, who'd previously adorned Madonna in teddy bears; the kitty couture was the brainchild of Gaga's main creative partner, Matthew "Matty Dada" Williams.) She's painted her eyes to look like an anime heroine. In the climactic dance sequence from Monster Ball, she adorns herself in the black feathers of a vulture and the yards-long blond braids of a victimized princess.
"I had a different vision for it in the beginning. Dada thought it should be braided, and I said, 'I never wear my hair braided.' He said, 'I know, but it's so Rapunzel, and it's something people deeply understand. And when you're wearing sunglasses on a scaffolding piece with a giant alien dancing behind you, I promise you it's not going to look like Rapunzel.' "
The hairpiece does look like something concocted by crafty kids in a basement; it reflects a key element of Gaga's aesthetic, the do-it-yourself spirit that contrasts with her taste for million-dollar couture. She works with major designers such as Alexander McQueen, who created many of the Monster Ball costumes, but also with newcomers like Gary Card, who made the skeletal headgear she and her dancers wore on the AMAs.
"The great thing about Gaga is she always want to push for the most extreme option," Card said. "She's brave enough to let herself be a canvas for a designer to go and really express themselves. Nothing is off limits! With Rihanna and Beyoncé there is an end result of desirability and unattainable sexiness, whereas Gaga is a really interesting bridge between the desirable and the grotesque. She's not at all worried about looking ridiculous or hideous; actually, I think she thrives off it."
If Gaga is to maintain her distinctiveness, she'll need to preserve her orientation toward art as kids putting on a show. It's what connects her performance of fame to Andy Warhol's vision instead of Simon Cowell's. She's been derided for constantly citing the Pop pioneer, but the connection is real.
Having gotten her start in the bohemian enclaves of downtown New York City, Gaga is deeply indebted to Warhol's "Superstar"-oriented Factory scene and its aftermath, which produced drag performers like Candy Darling, artists such as Robert Mapplethorpe and streetwise rock stars including Lou Reed and Patti Smith, who declared glamour accessible to anyone with a Polaroid camera, a glue gun or a cheap guitar.
"The idea is, you are your image, you are who you see yourself to be," she said. "It's iconography. Warhol and I both went to church when we were younger. That's how I see things. I don't want anyone to feel trapped by their own lives. That to me is more dangerous than anything."
On fantasy island
In Gaga's movie, she is both Andy and the Superstar. Warhol supported and exploited a coterie of outsiders who likely would never have emerged from their corners without his help. Gaga takes control but also shows herself losing it; she blurs the lines between self-realization and self-objectification, courting the dangers of full exposure for a generation of kids born with camcorders in their hands.
Though she talks nonstop about liberation, Gaga's work abounds with images of violation and entrapment. In the 1980s, Madonna employed bondage imagery, and it felt sexual. Gaga does it, and it looks like it hurts.
She says she wants her fans to feel safe in expressing their imperfections. "I want women -- and men -- to feel empowered by a deeper and more psychotic part of themselves. The part they're always trying desperately to hide. I want that to become something that they cherish."
But what is this freakishness, which she hopes to nurture? In songs like "Poker Face" and the new "Speechless," Gaga focuses on women as unreliable narrators, misunderstood or even unable to speak. When she presents herself as a cartoon character or a space alien, she explores old questions about gender, artifice and "reality" using the new language of social media, body modification and transgender sexuality.
These deep issues are her tools, as important to her art as the glitter and latex in which she shrouds herself. "If you're on an island, stranded, and all you have is sticks and leaves and pineapples, you're gonna make a boat out of sticks and leaves and pineapples," she said. "I view glamour and celebrity life and these plastic assumptions as the pineapples. And I spend my career harvesting pineapples, and making pies and outfits and lipsticks that will free my fans from their stranded islands."
ann.powers@latimes.com
