Is Lady Gaga a feminist icon?
Is the meat-wearing Bad Romance singer more than just another derivative pop star? Two of our writers tackle the Lady Gaga question – have your say below
Kira Cochrane: 'Lady Gaga exposes femininity as a sham'
The anticipated highlight of the show was – depressingly enough – a reheated argument. Before the MTV Video Music awards this year, all the talk was of whether pop princess Taylor Swift would address the debacle of 2009, when Kanye West barged on stage, interrupted her acceptance speech, and suggested Beyoncé should have won her award. Would Swift refer to this lightly in song? (She would. Yawn.) Would Kanye refer to this lightly in rap? (Not directly. Sigh.) So far, so stultifying.
And then, there she was. Lady Gaga, the big winner of the night, striding on stage in a dress made of meat. Or what looked like meat. Either way, there was the impression of sinews, fat, of oozing, bloody discharge. The outfit shouldn't have been a surprise. Just last week the singer was pictured on the cover of Japanese Vogue, dressed in a meat bikini. But what raises a mere eyebrow at a photoshoot can raise the roof, blood pressure and an avalanche of questions when worn in public. What did the meat dress mean? Was it a comment on the treatment of women in the music industry? Was it another of Gaga's death references? Did it reflect the boundaries of the body – representing Gaga's own flesh, turned inside out and extending beyond all expected limitations? Was it a comment on mutability? Or was it just an outfit worn to grab the maximum share of the world's attention?
In an interview with Ellen DeGeneres after the show, Gaga offered her own interpretation. She had come to the awards ceremony with four former servicemen and women, all of whom had been forced to leave the US military because of the highly discriminatory, horribly dated "Don't ask, don't tell" policy (you can be gay, says this policy, so long as you never, ever reveal it). Gaga suggested her dress had been part of that statement. "If we don't stand up for what we believe in," she said, "if we don't fight for our rights, pretty soon we're going to have as many rights as the meat on our bones." Then, as if she couldn't quite bear to pin herself down to a single meaning, she picked up a copy of Japanese Vogue, and pointed at the cover. "I am not a piece of meat," she said, with feeling.
