you know what this post is about, my title is unnecessary

So! The Alejandro video! Did you watch it? Of course you watched it. Did you read all the articles and blog posts and tweets and comments about it? Of course you did. Even if you didn't mean to. Because this video is EVERYWHERE, so there's no way you AVOIDED all this talk, and the Internet EXPLODED when it came out, and EVERYONE talked about it, and the Internet EXPLODED, and then you watched it and you, if your name is ME, were like, "Oh. Hmmm. Kay then."

See, I'd been on the fence about Gaga for forever. And then Bad Romance happened, and I read more of her interviews, and I looked at more of her hats, and I went from "maybe you sometimes have something interesting to say" to "maybe you're pretty good" to "WHY ARE WE NOT THE BEST OF FRIENDS?" So I do love Gaga, but I've never been ready to write a solidarity declaration of a post about her that is totally YEAH I'M A LITTLE MONSTER, because every once in a while she does something that is so pseudo-"edgy" that I am convinced she is just going through the same art school phase James Franco was probably in the French cinema-infested, beret-obsessed, life-philosophizing middle of when he wrote that [awful] [I'M SORRY DESARIO] story for Esquire.

But other than a few things she's said that sound all ~deep~ and ~inspirational~ because they touch on the subject of love and hate but don't actually, um, make any sense, I do like her. Lady Gaga is refreshing in a culture that has been whitewashed over with purity rings, and purity rings made out of Jesus unicorns, and purity rings that wear tiny ring-sized glasses because they're so weird and alienated, cough, TAYLOR SWIFT. Lady Gaga usually seems to know what she's talking about in interviews. Lady Gaga's videos are visually appealing. Lady Gaga's concerts are crazy and fun. And Lady Gaga's outfits, duh.

And, probably my favorite thing about Lady Gaga -- she's controversial. She makes people discuss things. Sex, sexism, females, feminism. She's interesting.

So you'd think that this interesting person would be interesting with taking on religious themes in her new video. But you know, NOT REALLY. Because this video reminds me of a certain someone named Madonna. And it reminded a lot of other people of Madonna. And maybe the worst thing you can do when everyone is just starting to stop with the "she thinks she's Madonna!" stuff is make a video that is BASICALLY MADONNA.
Now, I'm not saying Madonna invented Christianity. Wow, let me rephrase that in a way that doesn't read as though she's literally Jesus -- I know Madonna wasn't the first to make religion a theme in her videos and match it up with sex and all that. But the other similarities and circumstances are too canny. I know no one is original anymore, and I think Lady Gaga is normally pretty original with her unoriginality, but in this case, there wasn't a connection for me to be convinced it was an homage. It was just kind of like...BLACK LEATHER S&M CONE BRA. Was there no one on the set of this video that was kind of like, "Hmm, don't you guys think this is all a bit too familiar?" Or WAS there, but then he or she was just silenced by an attack of angry young men with bowl cuts and Borat swimsuits?

Anyway, I'm not really adding anything to the discussion since everyone has already called attention to the Madonna-ness but I just wrote all that so I'm leaving it there, dammit. A few other observations:

-The song started at 2:30, which is slightly better than Telephone's 3:00, but it still felt too slow at times.
-It was directed by Steven Klein! Which makes my Dolce ad campaign-loving heart happy. Or, it would if I actually liked the video. Sadface.
-The song itself reminds me of questions on state tests that try to be all diverse. "Alejandro, Fernando, Roberto, Stereotypical Asian-Sounding Name, and Rabbi Goldsteinovitz all went to the store to buy apples."
-That last second where her face disintegrates reminded me of some kind of emo kid MySpace from 2006. Nightmare Before Christmas icons, Green Day layout, etc.
-My favorite costume item was what looked like a lace monocle. The cross on the crotch was kind of too trying-to-be-dangerous, and the other outfits were just like...underwear? I do like a latex nun's habit, however.

And that's that. A celebrity has already called it out for being offensive to their religion, a million people have already compared it to Madonna, and I will crawl back under a blanket and continue watching Daria and stuffing myself with pretzel Goldfish. Goodnight.