Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, better known as Lady Gaga, is one of the most unconventional and best-selling female artists of all time. She began her musical career at age 15, rising faster than anyone else on all music charts. She currently holds several Guinness World Records, three Brit Awards, and six Grammy Awards, among others. Her debut album The Fame with its singles Just Dance and Poker Face helped her gain recognition in 2008. The following year, 2009 – The Fame Monster, her follow-up album with Bad Romance and Alejandro also proved to be a success . The music video for The Fame Monster's first single, Bad Romance, was released on November 24, 2009 and uploaded by LadyGagaVEVO to YouTube. In April 2010, the video became the most viewed on YouTube and helped Gaga win Video of the Year at the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards and Best Short Form Music Video at the Grammy's. The video's director was Francis Lawrence who worked alongside Gaga herself, Thomas Kloss, the director of photography, and Gaga's creative team, Haus of Gaga who handled the art direction. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get the original essay Originally, the video was supposed to be filmed in New York, but due to Gaga's schedule, it was filmed in Los Angeles over a period of two days. Additionally, Gaga wanted more elaborate sets, including outdoors, but for budgetary reasons the idea was abandoned. In order to better understand the video and the story it tells, I will deconstruct it using both semiotic and narrative analysis. The general idea of ​​the music video is to portray the tough female spirit – for which she designed a pair of razor blade sunglasses that she wears at the start of the video – but also to show how the entertainment industry can simulate human trafficking, sell its products and view women as commodities. In the initial situation, we are presented with Gaga sitting on a chair, surrounded by men and women. We can hear creepy music playing in the background but everything and everyone seems inert until she presses the "play" button on a soundbar. The video continues with Gaga and 6 other women emerging from something that looks like a high-tech coffin. At first, she seems deprived of her senses, her eyes, ears and nose covered. This type of deprivation is a technique used to torture mentally controlled prisoners or slaves in order to "break" them and facilitate their rehabilitation. To us, this could mean that Gaga is an amateur, not really knowing what she's doing in the music industry. In the next image, she appears to be talking to herself in the mirror – this is reminiscent of the movie “Who's Tommy,” where a boy who becomes deaf, mute and blind after a traumatic event only becomes responsive by looking at a mirror. The next scene shows a "wide-eyed" and innocent Gaga who, although still drugged, attempts to wash away her sins by taking a bath. Everything is white here, including her outfit, background and bathtub to express innocence and purity. We can now easily say that Gaga is a victim, one who seems to have difficulty understanding the context in which she wakes up. Two women appear next to her and begin to handle her roughly. Gaga tries to fight them off at first, but when she realizes she can't, she accepts her condition and goes with the flow. She is then forced to drink what appears to be vodka, which is actually an MTV-friendly drug substitute. The underlying idea is that slavesMind-controlled sex are heavily drugged to numb their thoughts and make them easy to manipulate. The next two scenes depict Gaga in two different states: the scene where she is in the shower could be the scene before the scene. this one, she is in her white outfit, so sure of herself. In the shower, she appears as a shadow, slightly emaciated, visibly in pain, while in the next scene, Gaga is stripped naked and forced to perform in front of a group of men. This is also the moment where our victim transforms into a princess, accepting that she cannot change her condition but realizing that she should stop complaining and take action. The men could represent the dark force that rules the music industry and the masks – their hidden nature. Every man is a record label, offering the highest price to sign her. Our princess seems to be aware of the process and leaves her shyness behind, while struggling to give her best to men. She then heads towards a particular man, whom she might prefer, given the circumstances. She seduces him and the man falls under her spell and tries to win her for himself. In the next two scenes, Gaga seems to have changed the way she looks at men as well as her outfits. One scene depicts her at the center of the planetary orbits, while in the scene with the diamonds floating around her, she appears to have a cross on her "private parts" - which is definitely a sign of defiance, manifested by lack of respect. After that, our princess must fulfill her duties as the sex slave that she is and deliver herself to her winning bidder. She then enters an all-white room, wearing a white polar bear fur coat and faces the man who bought her, dressed entirely in black. The piece is very symbolic, both visually and narratively. The two gazelle heads on either side of the bed refer to Baphomet, the horned idol of Western occultism, representing the music industry. We then discover that Gaga is not offering herself to her bidder, but to her idol: the music industry. She wants to be initiated and accepted among her followers – she wants to be an insider and she doesn't want to "be friends" with the music industry. The bed catching fire means that her idol accepted her offering – and that the man was just a means to her to obtain the fame she desired. Another scene takes place simultaneously with the arson scene: Gaga and her masked dancers are dressed in red, the color of sacrifice and initiation. The princess is no longer innocent: she has become her own hero and her bidder's worst nightmare. She is now initiated and accepted as a music industry insider – the virginal white clothes she wore before being replaced with bloody red are visual confirmation of this. The final scene shows Gaga lying in bed with the burned skeleton of her winning bidder. We can notice that everything caught fire and burned in this scene, except for the two gazelle heads, proving that she ultimately got what she wanted, by playing the game on her own terms. When you first listen to the lyrics, one might get the impression that they seem to be about her wanting a relationship with some sort of psychopath. The video, however, reveals that the psychopath is the music industry. The song begins with what appears to be a chant that will repeat until the end: "Rah-rah-ah-ah-ah-ah!" ” could refer to the ancient Egyptian sun god (remember razor-bladed sunglasses? The lenses appear to have a sun shining on them), while “Roma-roma-mamaa!” could be a reference to the Church..