Lady Gaga/YMMV

Lady Gaga, being the person she is, is open to a lot of debate, among fans and others.
"Butch Prison Guard 1: I told you she didn't have a dick.
 * Alternative Character Interpretation: Subversive intellectual champion of gay/women's rights or gimmicky loathsome harlot churning out generic unoriginal pop tunes?
 * Talented piano-rocker who got dropped by her label and rose from the ashes as one of the most interesting entertainers in the last couple of decades, or a disillusioned girl who's spun into a spiral of self loathing investing all of her money into performances and pushing herself dangerously past her limits on stage as a product of feeling unworthy of her success because she feels she "sold out"?
 * Is she a talented singer with a quirky personality and fashion sense? Is she a talented singer who created her quirky personality and fashion sense to rise above the pool of unsigned talented musicians? Or is she just a generic singer/songwriter who created the quirky personality as a desperate grab for attention? Depending on how much the person making the analysis likes her and her music, she falls somewhere between all three.
 * Is she entertaining because she's an empowering example of women's rights? Or because she's an incredibly scary Humanoid Abomination?
 * How much does she really care about universal equality, this ranges from "She's just using the outcasts (Gays, misfits, anybody outside the norm) and putting them on" to "She is genuinely out to better the world, but thoroughly misunderstood in the way she chooses to do it."
 * Her calling freaks freaks, misfits misfits and calling her gays effeminate queens and pandering to that audience? Is that a good thing or a bad thing, is she alienating those she's trying to help fit in, or isolating them so she can use them for their money (For better or worst). Related to her character because either she's an evil genius manipulator or someone just trying to help the world be a better place...
 * Anvilicious/Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped:
 * "Born This Way." Is it possible to be less subtle?
 * Part of why it's so effective is that it's someone so audacious as Lady Gaga is telling the people listening "Hey, it's okay for you to Be Yourself. If people hate you for it, don't let it get to you. You're beautiful." and whatnot.
 * "Bad Kids" also qualifies: "You're still good to me if you're a bad kid, baby."
 * Hell, the opening rant, "ENOUGH IS ENOUGH WITH THIS HORSESHIT!!" Could be counted as a brilliant Take That at the sort of people who use the Think of the Children "arguments"...especially given her fandom.
 * Award Snub:
 * She lost the 2009 Breakthrough Artist Award at the 2009 American Music Awards... to Gloriana, a One-Hit Wonder Country Music group. In an awards show where country music artists almost never even get nominated in the all-genre awards.
 * "You are now witnessing the true birth of a supervillain."
 * Awesome Music:
 * Quite a few examples.
 * Love or hate her, you have to admit "Poker Face" has become one of the top dance songs of the past decade, and possibly one of the biggest since the 1980s.
 * Then "Bad Romance" came out and topped that.
 * "Born This Way" has already no. 1 on the Billboard 100.
 * "The Edge of Glory" is pretty damn awesome, too.
 * The epic "Hair" was released and topped that.
 * "Bad Kids." WE DON'T CARE WHAT PEOPLE SAY! WE KNOW THE TRUTH!
 * Three fan favorites from "Born This Way": "Marry The Night", "Americano", and "Bloody Mary". The last one is the current subject of a campaign by fans for it to be Gaga's next single.
 * The second one even made it into the end of a hit movie, Puss in Boots!
 * Also for fan favorites, "Scheiße" and "Heavy Metal Lover" were the top two songs suggested by her favorite fan site to be her next single (after "The Edge Of Glory").
 * Every track that showcases her piano-playing talents, like "Speechless" and "Again Again".
 * Big Lipped Alligator Moment:
 * The operatic opening to "Government Hooker" has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the song. It shows off her range, though.
 * Bloody Mary also has a classical opening
 * Broken Base:
 * Not extreme yet but it's getting there. It started with "Telephone" and extended to "Alejandro". Recently some fans have been saying that she is no fun anymore.
 * Since the release of the "Born This Way" single, fans seem to have been locked in an endless debate as to whether is was really as groundbreaking as Gaga promised or just a rehash of Madonna's "Express Yourself".
 * The cover for the Born This Way album. Which Gaga blamed on Nick Knight and the Haus of Gaga.
 * Fans of The Fame vs. fans of Born This Way. Fans of the former will say that Gaga is no fun anymore, while fans of the latter will dismiss The Fame as vapid and fake when compared to Born This Way.
 * Crazy Awesome: As evidenced by the main page.
 * If anything, the meat dress proves this.
 * Crosses the Line Twice: Most of what she does, except for "Telephone" which crossed it twice then looped around and crossed it twice again...repeatedly

Butch Prison Guard 2: Too bad."

".....and tell Lady Gaga she can keep her job at the post office she's still a "male lady!""
 * Ear Worm:
 * Most of her songs, especially those released as singles and thus subjected to more airplay.
 * Ra-ra-ah-ah-ah, ruhma-ruh-ma-ma~
 * Let's have some fun, this beat is sick, I wanna take a ride on your disco stick...
 * I'll follow you until you love me, Papa - paparazzi . . .
 * Ale-ale-jandro, ale-ale-jandro...
 * Juu-DAS! Juu-da-AH-AH!
 * HOOOOO-ooooooo-kaaaah (Yeah you're my hooker.)
 * I'm gonna marry the night... I won't give up on my life...
 * I could be your girl/Girl, girl, girl, girl, girl/But would you love me/If I ruled the world, world, world?
 * I'll dance, dance, dance/With my hands, hands, hands/Above my head, head, head/Like Jesus said.
 * Never stop again and again/Again/Again/Again again/Never stop oh
 * Ensemble Darksong:
 * The Fame Monster gave us "Dance in the Dark", which was so universally loved by her fans, she actually posted on Facebook questioning whether she ought to make "Alejandro" a single or not. "Bad Kids" a la Born this Way is also getting the treatment on YouTube.
 * "Yoü And I", to the point of becoming a single!
 * "Bloody Mary", hands down. So many people on YouTube have campaigned for it to be the Lady's next single, it's insane.
 * Epic Riff: Poker Face, Paper Gangsta, Teeth and Bad Romance.
 * Fandom Rivalry:
 * Lady Gaga fans versus Taylor Swift fans. Any thread discussing the former will bring up the latter as a point of debate, and vice versa. Gaga fans scoff at Taylor Swift's Tastes Like Diabetes love songs and "antifeminist undertones", while Taylor Swift fans dislike Gaga's hypersexual/controversial image and prefer their pop to be sweet. For the record, Gaga has said that she loves Taylor Swift, and Swift said the same, so the whole thing is pathetic. It's just the fans, not the personalities.
 * Also, there seems to be a rivalry between the Little Monsters and the fans of every other diva. Fans of Christina Aguilera, Britney Spears, and Madonna are particularly aggressive in their hatred. Gaga fans are nasty and elitist to these woman too. It is a rivalry. It's just the fans, not the personalities.
 * Also, between Plague Rats of Emilie Autumn and Gaga's Little Monsters.
 * For actual friction between personalities, Katy Perry seems to have a distaste for her.
 * None of this relates to the actual women who all get along rather well minus Katy Perry. Gaga and Britney are fans of each other.
 * Fan Dumb:
 * Certain fans are already calling her the Queen of Pop when she's only been around 3 years and released 2.5 albums.
 * It's common to see Gaga fans pretending to be bisexual in an attempt to emulate their idol, much as they will try to imitate absolutely everything else she says, wears, or does.
 * A lot of her references and influences go right over the heads of some of her fans.
 * It's extremely difficult to air a negative opinion about Gaga without the more rabid elements of the Fan Dumb strawmanning said remarks.
 * Some Gaga fans have been known to go and bash other female musicians who have an eccentric image and say that they ripped off Gaga. Though some of said female artists have had a weird style long since before Gaga came along.
 * Some Gaga fans believe naively that Gaga is the one true artist in a world of true artists.
 * An inordinate amount of fans bashed Eminem after a line from "A Kiss:"

"''I want your love LAAV LAAV LAAV""
 * These fans have called Eminem everything from homophobic, misogynistic (nothing new), to unfunny and desperately trying to remain relevant by mentioning her, which is especially jarring considering Em is one of the best selling rappers of the century and has received critical acclaim for his most recent projects, and has been poking fun at his contemporaries since the beginning of his career. Also "he's about three years too late" is popular (Gaga's debut was released in 2008), as if nonfans are obligated to have been aware of her and commented on her before she became as big as she is today.
 * On the flipside, some view the lyric as transphobic and consider the hatred towards it entirely warranted.
 * The fans who support her and her message, yet call out and hate on other artists, who are very different despite her message of celebrating differences.
 * The elitism some fans show, which ruins it for other potential fans.
 * At least one fan here on this very wiki regularly erases any edits that dare question the awesomeness and majesty that is Lady Gaga and is prone to rewriting neutral edits so they read as enthusiastic fanwank.
 * Then there are the very vocal fans who actually, honestly refer to her as their "god." Make of that what you will.
 * The Monsters can often be very harsh when they hear someone insulting their Mother. A recent example is after Kelly Osbourne very kindly and calmly remarked that it was "disrespectful" of Lady Gaga to not walk the red carpet when she was up for a nomination, Twitter and message boards blew up, throwing death threats at Osbourne and calling her every name in the book. Osbourne's original complaint wasn't without knowledge though, as many other actors and musicians who have failed to walk the carpet in the past have gotten some flak for it as well.
 * It's ironic because that's the sort of stuff that Lady Gaga is against in the first place.
 * Hypocritical Fandom would go here to some Monsters will be here for Gaga's unusual and special be yourself message/fun dance music written by a pianoplayer and hate on her peers who do at least one or all of these things above, if not to the extent she preaches it, but do DO it, but because they are not Gaga they somehow don't count.
 * Faux Symbolism: Sometimes there are so many visuals in her day to day life, her music videos, her shows, her outfits, some of them seem meaningless or don't make sense or directly conflict with the idea she says they are for, see Don't Ask Don't Tell Clueless Aesop in the Music tab.
 * Fetish Retardant: Invoked. Though some have noted that she has the oddest habit of wearing makeup that makes her look like a man in drag, Lady Gaga has confirmed that she does indeed that she does this on purpose for whatever reason this may be.
 * Hate Dumb:
 * Haters believe that Gaga ripped off of a ridiculous amount of female musicians, from Peaches to Kate Bush to Bjork.
 * Some people claimed that Lady Gaga copied her style from Irish singer Roisin Murphy. Roisin herself has said that's not true.
 * Also Madonna fans will say that Lady Gaga is a rip off of Madonna but forget that Madonna has a laundry list of homages/rip-offs too.
 * It's gotten so bad at this point that if you say anything about liking Gaga to a Madonna fan they'll verbally assault you.
 * Madonna fans seem to forget Gaga & Madonna's real-life friendship.
 * Haters take it upon themselves to always say something along the lines of "Gaga has nothing on this" on videos that have absolutely nothing to do with Lady Gaga.
 * Also, Christina Aguilera fans seem to feel the need to troll Gaga's pages and say how Christina Aguilera is better just because Christina has been accused of copying Gaga.
 * Hilarious in Hindsight:
 * "I'm gonna change the world with my lips."
 * Anyone else remember the "Just Dance" lyric 'control your poison babe'? Well it didn't seem important at the time, but then came the video for "Telephone"...
 * Internet Backdraft: Lady Gaga's hatedom is just as passionate as Little Monsters.
 * Memetic Mutation:
 * YES! THIS PLEASES GAGA!
 * There are some inside jokes within the fandom:
 * Troll Gaga/Mother Troll.
 * It is common for Little Monsters to use 'ü' instead of 'you' or 'u', due to Lady Gaga saying "this album [Born This Way] is for ü [Little Monsters]."
 * Laurieann Gibson, Gaga's choreographer, becoming a laughing stock in the Little Monster community after she went on an unintentionally hilarious Twitter rampage. Two tweets that went memetic were "listen u disrespectful fuck they had an issue on set I don’t lie!!!!!" and "ignorance breeds all this bad tweeting about someone u don’t know.", which morphed into just "you disrespectful fuk" and "ignorant breeds" respectively.
 * Some people are fond of photoshopping a certain face Gaga made into everything. This blog is dedicated to the meme.
 * Parodies of Born This Way, which include Bathe This Way and Disrespect This Way.
 * Troll gifs of Gaga bashing her contemporaries. Then the meme broke out of the fandom and people started believing them.
 * Fans like to photoshop this face into everything as well.
 * Narm Charm:
 * And we don't want it any other way.

"Beyoncé: You've been a very bad girl. A very, very bad, bad girl, Gaga."
 * In the Bad Romance video, towards the end, we get a shot of her draped in a polar bear rug, pulling an epic pose with fire in the background. It's hilarious, jarring and it's one of the best moments in the entire video.
 * So much of "Telephone", but especially the dialogue.

"LET'S MAKE A SANDWICH"
 * Another "Telephone" example:


 * The Gagacycle on the cover of Born This Way is arguably this.
 * Speaking of Born This Way, "Hair" qualifies. It's about comparing her desire for individuality with... um, her hair. Somehow, it works.
 * "Work it, Black Jesus."
 * Gaga's ham-tastic speech at the beginning of "Bad Kids."
 * "Dirty pony I, can't wait to hose you down."
 * I could be your girl/Girl, girl, girl, girl, girl/But would you love me/If I ruled the world, world, world?
 * I'll dance, dance, dance/With my hands, hands, hands/Above my head, head, head/Like Jesus said.
 * We could say a lot of her lyrics fall into this.
 * Nightmare Fuel:
 * The video for "Bad Romance".
 * This puts her in the category of Nightmare Fetish Fuel Station Attendant.
 * The parts of the video where you notice her eyes have been unsettlingly enlarged by CGI.
 * Although that could be looked at in another way.
 * "Paparazzi".
 * There's a reason they call it the Monster Ball.
 * The part in the "Telephone" video where her head moves... oddly. You'll know the scene when you see it.
 * The whole "Alejandro" video.
 * The official cover art for Born This Way. Not only is she a demon from hell, she's also a Transformers from the Uncanny Valley.
 * From the Born This Way album: "Government Hooker" and "Bloody Mary" are a touch unsettling. The latter mainly because of the warped effects on her voice, not to mention the random screams.
 * The cover for "Bad Romance" is just incredibly creepy looking.
 * For a non-Monster could even her metal yells in her live shows and calling her own fans motherfuckers and that she'll kick their asses and they better get their guns out are very scary if you're not part of her Monster pack.
 * Three words: Judas Goldfrapp Remix.
 * So Bad It's Good:
 * Many of her outfits. The infamous meat dress comes to mind.
 * Stupid Sexy Flanders: Jo Colderone, her image in You + I clip both bring out these feelings.
 * Spiritual Successor: To Britney Spears as far as fun happy pop music goes and work ethic goes and career choices (Be Yourself based second album),
 * Christina Aguilera as far as eccentric preaching against sexist and anti gay social reforms as well as unusual clothing choices and career decisions.
 * True Art Is Angsty: "Brown Eyes" and "Speechless."...and her various piano based pre-Gaga demo's.
 * True Art Is Incomprehensible
 * She's offended quite a few people and organizations. While many are strict conservative groups, a surprising amount of race and gay right activists don't appreciate her having appointed herself their spokesperson (words taken from a magazine article). While her methods are...somewhat unorthodox, she did play a part in getting the U.S military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy reversed, but public opinion of her has been (and more than likely will be) divided for some time.
 * Her influence on DADT is open to interpretation, some think she just jumped the band wagon, some think she caused it to change, some think it was just going to happen and she just helped it happen faster.
 * Uncanny Valley: Wears incredibly thick makeup, impossible hair, and ridiculously high shoes.
 * Unfortunate Implications:
 * Not Lady Gaga, but with Colby in the song "Just Dance". After Lady Gaga sings about being so drunk she forgets where she is, Colby sees "no reason" why she can't go home with him. What?!
 * "Born This Way" uses terms such as "chola" and "Orient", which are...frowned upon.
 * Another Born this Way example. She refers to accepting those with disabilities however during an interview she referred to the accusation that she was copying Madonna as retarded which is a derogatory slang for the mentally handicapped. She later withdrew the comment.

Telephone

 * Complete Monster:
 * Gaga and Beyonce, who casually murder an entire diner full of people for no reason whatsoever.
 * Though, given the fact that they immediately start dancing in American Apparel afterwards, you're not as likely to hate them as much as you might other Complete Monster.
 * Everybody Remembers the Stripper: Inverted. There's so much in terms of Fan Service and Fetish Fuel that Everyone Remembers The Sandwich instead.
 * Les Yay: The scenes between Beyonce and Gaga seem to reflect this.

Alejandro

 * Faux Symbolism: On top of her usual incredibly dense (and somewhat confusing) symbolism, this one is packed full of red skintight nun habits, Knight Templar robes (though the trope itself doesn't quite apply), and EATING rosary beads.
 * She told Larry King before it premiered there was a central theme about Don't Ask, Don't Tell. While it might be hard to pick that up on its own, knowing about it in advance and applying the context could result in a Tear Jerker.
 * Or perhaps another indication may be you shouldn't be so quick to accept her metaphors too literally. Out-of-context visual allegory inconsistent with the writing and that requires her yelling "SPOILERS!!" into a megaphone to understand should be a tip-off.
 * Other sources, like the director, have said that it's about moving on after losing your love, and that the Rosary eating was symbolic of wanting to take holiness into one's self. The video is...layered.

Born This Way

 * Internet Backdraft:
 * She's recently taken a hit for refusing to let Weird Al release a parody of "Born This Way" after insisting to hear a finished song before she gives it any further consideration (something Al took time off of his family vacation to do). While refusing the parody is understandable (Al's been turned down by other artists before with no genuine hard feelings) the fact that all proceeds from the sale of the song and its video would go to the Human Rights Campaign (a LGBT group that Gaga would presumably support) is where the real controversy starts to kick in. She later claimed that she never got to hear the song and her manager owned up to not even bothering to show her the song, which she gave full approval when she did get to hear it.
 * Here it is.
 * Les Yay
 * Nausea Fuel: The "birthing" sequences.
 * Nightmare Fuel: Bucketloads of it. Mainly, Gaga dancing while looking like a skeleton and the Gaga-factory.
 * What Do You Mean It Wasn't Made on Drugs?: The intro and the kaleidoscope effects and everything in between look like a bizzare 80's video.

Judas

 * Faux Symbolism: The number of Biblical/Christian allegories in the music video (and the song itself) is astounding, see Theme Naming in the Music tab.

Marry the Night

 * Les Yay: Gaga mentions the nurses who are wheeling her bed - "You see that nurse on the right? She has a great ass." *nurse bends over* "Bam."