Lady Gaga's Philosophy

Lady Gaga is a cultural and social icon. She embodies the idea of pop culture and society. Even more importantly, she has made multiple cameo appearances on this our Lit Crit blog. All things considered, she seems an appropriate organizing category for the theorists we've read thus far.

One of the few up-and-coming artists to create herself, she is continually breaking the bounds of music, and classifies herself as a 'performance artist.' As we have continually questioned the standard of art and considered both language and culture, I thought Gaga's use of all three would be a valuable way to understand our theorists. Not only does she break artistic norms, she utilizes pop culture heavily in her art, but also strives to create pop culture. In addition, Gaga places a strong emphasis on language, even in her music videos, and how that language can be interpreted.

I began by organizing the theorists according to "Pro" and "Con" (meaning, of course, those who would be pro Gaga and those who would be con). Because I also worked chronologically, I began by place the first few theorists on one side or the other of Gaga. I think it works best chronologically, because the theorists build off one another. From the basic pro/con list I worked with two basic subcategories, "Art," and "Language/Culture." The art category considers Lady Gaga's artistic ability, the manner in which she presents her art, and how she relates to her art. The language and culture category considers Gaga as a part of pop culture, as well as her manner of using language and culture within her work. In addition, I put small classifications next to each philosopher, denoting what about them was seriously considered when applying their theory to the issue of Gaga. This was partly for my benefit, in remembering why they were there, and partly for anyone interested in knowing why theorists are where they are. Finally, several theorists are in multiple places, because they just had to be.

In the end, Lady Gaga is a fascinating cultural phenomenon, worth seriously considering in terms of literary theory.