Lady Gaga speaks with Larry Flick about fame and art:
"What I find makes people the most uncomfortable about me is that I find that I'm artistic at all. Or that I think I'm creative. Somehow we've arrived upon a space where as a popstar you're not supposed to have an opinion. You're supposed to be quiet and inconsequential—a hit song and a beautiful photo, but it is not at all what I've ever wanted to be and I would never allow anyone to push me in a box for fame and success."
She also uses the occasion to chastise the audience for not being more appreciative of artists. Her comments are made calmly, but it's clear they're rooted in a resentment toward the backlash she's been experiencing.
Some of her words ring true for me, but some of the comments do come off as rather unfortunately (and probably unintentionally) snobbish:
"They're not grateful anymore...It used to be a very unique and blessed experience to be able to experience theater and to go to see it and only the most highest-class people in Shakespearean times would be let into the theater and everyone else would have to watch it in the square. Nobody feels that way anymore. It's so easily accessible on the Internet it's treated like McDonald's, it's treated like trash...I'm not a French fry, I'm foie gras."
The idea that art should be reserved for elites rankles me, even though I appreciate the idea that a lot of people out there with access to art care nothing for it. How many times have people said to me, "I could do that!" when looking at a simple (but complex) work of art in a museum that they did not, in fact, do? But art is for everyone, and it seems to be in contrast with Gaga's oft-stated (including here) absorption with her fans.
It's an odd and intriguing and contradictory interview, at times articulate, at others awkward ("most highest-class?"), both elite (uh, foie gras is pretty disgusting an example to use as something elevated considering the cruel way in which it's made) and egalitarian, warm and chilly. And as for another famous popstar who cheekily said she wanted to rule the world back in 1985, Gaga says she just wants to be a part of it.
Does this interview make you respect her more or less? Does she come off as unaffected or a pretentious prat? I suspect the answers could be given before you even watch the video...
sauce