subject: Lady Gaga - Bad Romance [print this page] Lady Gaga - Bad Romance Lady Gaga - Bad Romance
The visual concept of Lady Gaga's music video to her number 1 single Bad Romance presents her being auctioned off to the highest bidder, every of the people bidding are representations for record labels. For that reason, she is becoming auctioned off to the record firm that wants to sign her onto their label, it is visualised by Gaga undressing in front of these individuals and appearing to be sold as a sex slave. This idea is extended when Gaga charms one of the men into buying her, and then proceeds to have sex with the highest bidder.
So, the whole video may be interpreted as a metaphor for the music business and how they manipulate their artists. The video itself shows every step Gaga has to go via to grow to be a well-known star. This includes company deals, manipulation along with the idea of dark forces. So whilst the song Bad Romance is initially about the simple idea of loving somebody for who they and every thing about them very good and bad, it is also about the "bad romance" and relationship artists have with the music industry.
However, whilst the video follows this fairly simplistic "narrative" other elements and symbols are included throughout the video. The references to the devil and anti-Christianity are fairly frequent and obvious. The first reference to this is the use of the cross along with the word "Monster" written underneath; another is the image of the cross on Gaga's underwear and lastly, the phallic symbol of the triangle which is visually drawn during a dancing scene. Along with this, you can find a lot of references to the sun which includes a gold dress worn by Gaga, the golden sunlight streaming into the room along with the orbital outfit worn near the end of the video.As a result, the entire video is full of meaning and symbolic references to distinct things. All of this points towards the reality that the video whilst showing the bad and dark side to relationships also represents the dark forces in industry.The video ends with her sitting next to a smoldering skeleton, on leading of the messed up bed, covered in ashes. With soot smeared all over her body, she calmly smokes a cigarette, whilst her pyrotechnic bra activates.
The video obtained very good reviews for its artistic treatment and visual imagery; critics congratulated its provocative and symbolic plot. It was selected for ten awards at the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards, finally winning 7 of those, including the Video of the Year. The video additionally won a Grammy for Best Short Form Music Video.
