Welcome to the age of Gaga
27 January 2010
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Unpredictable, spectacular, bold and contentious — Lady Gaga is the perfect pop star for the 21st century, says Luke Coppen
Lady Gaga is already being compared to two other women who rapidly colonised the popular imagination: Marilyn Monroe and Madonna. Unlike Monroe, Gaga is no conventional beauty (she’s no John Prescott either). And unlike the Material Girl, who celebrated conspicuous consumption in the Eighties, Gaga is pursuing something less tangible. She’s the immaterial girl: a shape-shifter who commands the attention of our distracted internet age with her ever-changing appearance.
Which brings us to that Rilke tattoo. What the poet was getting at was that all great art springs from necessity. It simply has to exist. In our era of austerity we need pop culture to transport us to another world. We need someone who performs in a giant bath, meets the Queen dressed as Elizabeth I and pops out for fish and chips in a neon leotard. And teenage girls need someone to lead the fight against face fascism. As Voltaire might have said: if Lady Gaga didn’t exist, it would be necessary for someone to invent her.
Luke Coppen is editor of the Catholic Herald.
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