Dissecting Bad Romance (Video)

[NotMyFlop 1,979]

Note: I was very bored at work today and wrote an interpretation of Bad Romance. It's quite long. 

First and foremost, let us just establish that Bad Romance was that smash single from this millennium. I could make a separate thread on its impact/significance/relevancy, etc. 

Anyways, I want to focus on the video to Bad Romance. First off, timing: Gaga and her team knew the lead single off an EP had to smash. It had to up her antics of the previous year with Just Dance, Poker Face, Paparazzi, and LoveGame. They needed to elevate her sound, lyrics, videos. Gaga needed to literally become next-level for the record, single and any visuals. It's why Bad Romance, Alejandro, and Telephone were pop-culture events. 

Bad Romance is on The Fame Monster. It doesn't need to be stated that the record further explores the darker topics of fame and her fears of becoming famous. In several ways, I think this bled into her performances/videos/shows during this era. It naturally would make sense. 

At surface level, it appears that Bad Romance is about a sex ring or prostitution. The video follows her getting bathed, drinking, dancing all for this one particular man. At the end of the video, as she is stripping down for presumably sex, the bed lights on fire and she kills the man. In my opinion, the whole video is an allegory for her being famous, and the man in the video represents her fans, general public and quite literally anyone who is interested in her music, art, fashion, activism, etc. 

According to Wikipedia (), the context of the video is that "Gaga [is] getting kidnapped by a group of supermodels who drug her and then sell her off to the Russian mafia for a million rubles." This one is the furthest reach of all my points, I will admit, but I think this is supposed to represent Interscope. Gaga has discussed in Five Foot Two, that her crazy antics were often ways of making her feel as though she was still in control of her art. Interscope clearly manipulated her music/sound/image with how many unreleased songs and outtakes that have come from that era. I think the supermodels are the industry execs "kidnapping" her music or artistic style and then selling her image and music to the public, or the "Russian mafia." 

Throughout the video, several of her backup dancers are seen in costumes that cover her face. Since they are, too, performing for the public, I am assuming this is supposed to represent how she is not alone and several other artists are caught in this "Bad Romance" with fame.

Gaga is seen being forced to drink vodka and bathe in the video. In my opinion, this is to prepare her for the "performance" in the video. It displays how Gaga cleans or tweaks her image before she goes out for the fans (in the video, the mafia). The vodka part can be taken in several directions, honestly, but I view it as a way to control her even further -- to get her addicted to performing for her fans and being manipulated. 

We all know that iconic dance scene where she is performing for multiple men. In the metaphor, this would be for the general public. There, we see screens where people are bidding on her. In this case, that would be people who like Gaga enough to buy her albums or songs. Gaga straddles one particular man, who ends up becoming the highest bidder or the "biggest fan." 

I think the scene(s) where Gaga is seen with her spine out and extremely skinny is the just the standard "you need to be thin to be pretty" critique, and taking a dark twist on it, as she said she did with her art in Five Foot Two. 

At the end, Gaga is seen walking towards the man -- to give him what he wants (presumably sex) before she lights him on fire and kills him. I don't think this is negative as Gaga doesn't want fame, fortune or success. Metaphorically, I think she is about to give the fans and public the music they want (or made her successful). Instead, she lights us on fire and kills our expectations. This is a motif in her music. No one expected The Fame Monster to be so dark, Born This Way that eclectic and gay, ARTPOP to be so EDM (and underperform) and Joanne to be country-pop. 

Overall, I think Gaga creates the commentary of you can use me/manipulate me and my body of work as you want, you can buy my tickets/songs/albums, but you will never be able to control me and what I am going to do next. I think other parts of the video can be explained, so if you have questions, you can ask. 

Thoughts? Share your interpretation! 

 

[Andreu 37,216]

I agree but I wouldn't read to deep into the last scene. She kills it in order to get revenge and that's it imo

[Andreu 37,216]

Inb4 your boss is on GGD and tells you to go see her next morning lmao

[Didymus 34,379]

Well, I think you're right for the most part, though that's no surprise—the video is pretty straightforward. There's one thing I never really thought about though, which is the other masked dancers... you might be on to something there which I never noticed, thanks for that!

I have a love-hate relationship with the video because it's the first sign of her repetitiveness. As awesome as the visuals were, Paparazzi had almost the exact same storyline, and following it up with another "abuse & revenge" video (Telephone) was a definite mistake. That years later she repeated it again with G.U.Y. (and to some extent Marry the Night) was a major disappointment for me.

Still, it reveals some topics which seem to be always on her mind: her clinging to bad men (visible in a lot more video's than the one mentioned), her presentation of fame as oppressive, and her desire to find a way out. In a way she's been still presenting that same idea with Joanne. So yeah, it's epic, but it's also incredibly dull conceptually and the awful truth is there's almost nothing to dissect that wasn't already present in Paparazzi.

[JohnnyVersace 8,955]

I completely disagree about the man representing us. 

She doesn't give him sex, but instead disrobes, flaunts herself, and kills him. She's a cock tease. And he represents the money/sex hungry industry men that she's had to fight to get where she is. 

I think the whole thing is less about Gaga's performance for the fans, and our reception of her, but rather the dark, twisted aspects of a relationship, whether sexual or professional. She's drugged, treated as property, sold, forced to commit sexual acts, all by rich men who are in control. 

[Supersonic 49,376]

First off, timing: Gaga and her team knew the lead single off an EP had to smash. It had to up her antics of the previous year with Just Dance, Poker Face, Paparazzi, and LoveGame. They needed to elevate her sound, lyrics, videos. Gaga needed to literally become next-level for the record, single and any visuals. It's why Bad Romance, Alejandro, and Telephone were pop-culture events. 

 

I think that's questionable. It suggests that Gaga's team was fully aware of the cultural gravitas she accumlated and would accumulate in the near future. They 100% were not aware of that (as the TFM era full of messy promo & delayed events, nobody hardly every talks about it though because it was a commercial juggernaut despite the many many many flaws in its execution). They just made something together that they liked, receiving commercial and critical acclaim probably was not the main driving force in the creation of the EP and music videos.

[corvus albus 38,031]

It is sad that i have access to ggd only through my phone right now. If this would not be the case i would have written you an overly long and complicated essay on your comment were the basic gist is that i agree with you 

[NotMyFlop 1,979]

5 hours ago, Supersonic said:

I think that's questionable. It suggests that Gaga's team was fully aware of the cultural gravitas she accumlated and would accumulate in the near future. They 100% were not aware of that (as the TFM era full of messy promo & delayed events, nobody hardly every talks about it though because it was a commercial juggernaut despite the many many many flaws in its execution). They just made something together that they liked, receiving commercial and critical acclaim probably was not the main driving force in the creation of the EP and music videos.

3

Huh. Honestly, I never really looked into the promotional campaign of The Fame Monster. I was 14 when it was released, so I was too young into looking at that stuff. I loved the music, videos, concerts, etc. It wasn't until about the ARTPOP era I started looking into behind the scenes stuff. That's a really interesting point though.