Gina Brintnell Helene Vosters WMST 1510 10 / 27 / 1O

Review of Lady Gagas Telephone Lady Gaga must battle with the common archetypes of the Bimbo and the Bitch that plague female pop artist culture. It seems that female pop artists need to have a negative connotation for their success, and these labels/personas are either created by the media or adopted by the artists themselves. However Lady Gaga uses a compelling method of refusal to these stereotypes by appropriating them. Lady Gaga smashes these templates and reclaims several of these slurs and other sexist symbols. This resistance can be seen in the cultural text of her music video Telephone. Why is Lady Gaga a bitch? Her success? Her determination? Independence? Outspokenness? It seems the classification of the bitch is extremely accommodating and the criteria never ending. However the Guerilla Girls definition seems to fit, A strong, aggressive female who isnt afraid to speak her mind, suffers no fools, and takes no nonsense. The video opens with Lady Gagas arrest. Her crime? Not explicitly explained, however she is shepherded off to The Prison for Bitches. She is also referred to as a bitch by another inmate as soon as she enters, Were gonna make you swim out of here in your own blood, bitch!

The costume choices in the prison are telling. The inmates all have individualized outfits; they convey power, both aggressively violent and sexual. They suggest autonomy in their fashion. This is not their typical representation. It also must be mentioned that the female criminal is often over-looked. Girls are good by nature and follow the rules. In cultural texts prisoners are often

villianized and victimized. However in Lady Gagas video, these women are given identities outside these binaries. They are Prison Bitches who defy gender norms, so must be punished by patriarchal society. Gaga herself wears a striped high-shouldered couture dress. The outfit is an interesting juxtaposition, the stripes a simulacrum for prisoner, while the strong, exaggerated shoulders suggest authority. She is stripped of her garb by the prison guards and thrown into her cell naked. She exposes her (blurred) genitals to the camera. It rejects biological essentialism; Gagas identity is fluid (as seen through her many looks) and not reliant on her physical body. Gagas body is covered in yellow tape reading CAUTION and CRIME SCENE. This references the female body as a scene of violence; physical, sexual abuse, and femicide. It can seen as rendering the female body dangerous, especially Gagas, who is falsely rumoured as intersexed. She breaches hetereonormativity and hegemonic ideology.

The next scene we see a group of inmates exercising in the courtyard in heels and various kinds of dress. We see drag kings, butches and femmes doing male-type weight lifting. Gaga enters wearing chains and sunglasses constructed from cigarettes. Here she queers the narrative. Gaga is approached by a person of

ambiguous gender/sexual identity, with whom she suggestively kisses and necks with. The male gaze is reversed here. All of the womens bodies in the prison are for female enjoyment and are not othered. A helicopter hovers in the distance, a metaphor of patriarchy, trying to monitor this encounter. Lady Gaga is eventually released from jail by Beyonce, who picks her up in The Pussy Wagon - a well-known vehicle from Kill Bill. Here Beyonce and Lady Gaga reclaim this sexist icon (the previous driver a sexual predator of women) by using it as a means of mobility, independence and agency from the prison (patriarchy). They drive to a diner when Beyonce goes to meet her abusive boyfriend, who verbally and physically demeans women. Beyonce acts as the Bimbo, the camera focuses deliberately on her cleavage for several seconds and she plays innocent and dumb to her boyfriends interrogation. She uses this Bimbo image and is able to slip her boyfriend poison in his honey because of her assumed female stupidity. As her boyfriend dies Beyonce reproachfully tells him I knew youd take all my honey. This suggests the fight women endure for their own resources, which so often benefit men. Gaga helps plant the poison, while rewriting the traditional narrative of the woman in the kitchen. Gaga uses this stereotype as a safe haven to brew poison and her own agency. She elevates this position of oppression to one of political power; she appears in her own cooking show showcasing a recipe for death. Soon the whole diner is dead, murdered by the poisoned food, while Gaga and Beyonce gyrate among the dead in Americana costumes. This is a dangerous connection between consumerism (there are several product placements throughout the video) and the

death of agency. It also heavily critiques the violent nature of the American military and its patriotism.

The duo escape in the Pussy Wagon decked out in Western out law dresses. Police and news crews chase after them. Beyonce and Gaga fling off their Bitch and Bimbo exteriors promising to each other, to never, never come back, presumably to patriarchy. The scene ends in a handhold, within a heart to the female gender symbol. They reject their archetypes for ones of their own making, rendering this cultural text an uplifting one.