Bad Romance

"Bad Romance" is a 2009 song by Lady Gaga. It was part of her album The Fame Monster and was released as a single in 2009. It's also got a (heavily spammed) view count of over 400 million on YouTube and is jam-packed with elements of Mind Screw taken Up to Eleven. Which is hardly unexpected, considering who sang it.

The music video has won 7 Video Music Awards (Video of the Year, Best Pop Video, Best Female Video, Best Dance Music Video, Best Choreography, Best Direction and Best Editing).

"I want your Psycho, your Vertigo shtick, Want you in my Rear Window, baby you're sick."
 * Ascetic Aesthetic
 * Bathe Her and Bring Her to Me: Implied.
 * Between My Legs
 * Black Bra and Panties
 * Celebrity Endorsement:
 * The video for "Bad Romance" features a man using a Wii remote to sell Lady Gaga as a prostitute.
 * Also, her "Heartbeats" headphones which are part of Dr Dre's "Beats" collection, as well as the Beats Edition HP Envy 15 laptops, both featured prominently in the same video.
 * The laptops were the scoreboard for the whore auction.
 * Creepy Cleanliness
 * Creepy Cool Crosses: One outfit in the video features a glass cross over her crotch; in the shot after the one that outfit appears in, she also stops dancing to do the sign of the cross.
 * Double Entendre: "Want you in my rear window", anyone?
 * Force Feeding: Gaga gets force-fed a glass of some beverage.
 * Gratuitous French
 * Light Is Not Good: White walls and furnishings, bright lighting, lots of white and/or sparkly costumes, and the plot involves slavery and murder.
 * Making a Spectacle of Yourself
 * Male Gaze: The video takes a lot of common uses of Male Gaze in music videos and puts them in a nightmarish context.
 * Woman on Fire
 * Mad Love: The theme of the song.
 * Mind Screw: Oh, God...
 * Out with a Bang: Implied by the ending, though it could be a case of Out With A Striptease.
 * Playing to The Fetishes: Watch the video and count the fetishes as they come up. Latex, non-con, white slavery...and the robot-fetishist crowd were very happy with a lot of her movements.
 * Refuge in Audacity
 * Right-Hand-Cat
 * She Cleans Up Nicely: Inverted, as she appears in some scenes without any elaborate outfits or makeup, and is still pleasing to the eye.
 * Shout-Out:
 * To Alfred Hitchcock, but...in a somewhat unusual way.


 * Apparently the Bad Romance-universe has adopted Pokedollars as their form of currency.
 * The symbol shown in the video is identical to an unofficial sign for the Russian rouble developed by a group of Russian graphic designers.
 * The opening shot of Gaga's Bathhaus is reminiscent of the scene in Aliens where the Marines awake from the pods.
 * And the body-bags from Firefly.
 * Or even the torpedo casings that Starfleet uses as coffins for fallen members.
 * Speaking of the opening, the pods themselves have red text over a white background and a gratuitous cross slapped on them. Anyone else thinking NGE?
 * The opening shot looks like a mash-up of Stanley Kubrick films. The bright glowing floors are highly reminiscent of the bedroom at the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey, the pose looks like an inversion of the opening shot of A Clockwork Orange and the masks almost look like the ones worn during the cult orgy in Eyes Wide Shut.
 * When watching the claw-handed Gaga groupies' crowned suits, is anyone else reminded of Max's costume and gestures from Where the Wild Things Are ?
 * The costumes were supposedly based on the pattern from the movie.
 * The dancers in white, with their covered faces and jerky movements are a Shout-Out to the Silent Hill nurses.
 * Signature Song
 * Single Tear: Cut aways during the music video show a surpisingly low-key (in terms of make-up, anyway) Gaga becoming increasingly more upset. The camera is close to her face, and a single tear slides down her cheek near the end of the video.
 * Smoking Hot Sex: Well, Smoking Hot sex-turned-fiery death..
 * Visual Pun: At the word "bitch" in the first "I'm a free bitch, baby", the camera cuts to the Right-Hand-Cat.
 * What Do You Mean Its Not Symbolic: A lot of it certainly looks like it could be symbolic of something, but it's too much of a Mind Screw to be sure.