14 DAY TRIAL // She has often insisted that there was no fakery and no play-pretend to her outrageous onstage persona, that she is and will always be Lady Gaga no matter if the makeup and crazy outfits are on or not. With all this, the question of where Gaga the singer ends and art begins has not ceased to fascinate many. More importantly, does one really end for the other to begin, or are they one and the same? Out Magazine is the latest to try to decipher Gaga’s message and peek behind her poker face.
From what she says, there is no boundary to set apart her as a singer and her as an object of art. Gaga, the magazine says, has moved past the traditional concept of pop artist, taking her music, breathing it in through every pore on her skin and, in the end, becoming it, like few other artists before have done. Gaga doesn’t just DO art, she IS a work of art herself – and she is quick to admit to it, as also are music critics who think they see in her and her career so far the advent of the new and modern Madonna, who makes the original pale by comparison with everything she does.
“I believe in living a glamorous life and I believe in a glamorous lifestyle. What that means is not money or fame or prestige. It’s a sense of vanity and glamour and subculture that is rooted in a sense of self. I am completely 100,000% devoted to a life of glamour. There’s an art to fame. Even in the most humiliating and defaming moment of your life, you’re still ready for the camera.” Lady Gaga reveals for the magazine. She then adds with the most shameless lack of modesty: “I’m a method actress.”
However, making herself into something that she’s clearly not doesn’t necessarily make of her a hypocrite or a phony, the magazine points out. What Gaga does with her countless controversial appearances, shocking speeches and more than potentially offending lyrics (yet which somehow manage to stick around even after the song is done playing) reflects an image of what audiences want to see. In this sense, this pop star is truly a product of her environment, consumerism at its best but, at the same time, also escapism for breathing life into fantasies most of us would never dare bring to life.
“What I want to deliver, as a message about fame, is that anyone can have it. My fame lives in my friendships, in my convictions about the power of art and love – you could have 500 pairs of shoes that cost 10 cents and still be famous. This isn’t the Lady Gaga newscast. Nobody gives a [expletive] what is really going on – everyone wants me to tell them a story. Art is a lie, and every day I kill to make it true.” Lady Gaga adds.
For the full interview with Out Magazine, as well as a stunning horror-themed photo spread, please see here.