Should Gaga retire "Paparazzi" from Live Performances?

[Dayman 6,063]

   Gotta address what I find to be the elephant in the room. Paparazzi is clearly a song that Gaga may not have a great relationship with. I don't want to dive too deep into speculation on recent matters Gaga has come to share - but I do have to address it partially at times to explain my point. All signs and facts we have been given over her career indicate a specific person - we will never know unless she decides to share that information one day though, so for the sake of this thread I will not mention them by name and I respectfully ask that they not be topic of discussion in the comments. But it is something I must address because it does unfortunately tie into why I think the song should be considered being put to rest.

   First lets talk about the music video briefly. Gaga is pushed off a balcony by her boyfriend and almost dies. At the end she however gets revenge and murders him with poison. Straight forward.

   So Paparazzi has pretty much always been performed in a manner that mimics violence, death or some other horrible situation. Just to go over the major ones.

1) VMAs 2009

Gaga starts the show "injured" by and accident and then ends the performance fully bleeding out and dying on stage.

2) Monster Ball 1.0

Gaga is chained by her hair to either dancers or a bar depending on the version, she then acts out her death at the end of the song.

3) Monster Ball 2.0

The most damning of them all if you ask me. "The Fame Monster" a giant anglerfish with tentacles is presented as a monster that is actively sexually assaulting Gaga - and this is not just speculation of what is supposed to be depicted, she actively and vocally expresses it as such in the performance. She then seemingly meets her demise when lowered down into the stage - however she comes back out with sparks firing from her bra and underwear and kills the monster herself.

4) BTWB

A face off Mother GOAT - the main antagonist of the show that also is played by her meets her demise to Gaga and bleeds out. In a weird way she is shown to be the one killing "herself" in this performance.

5) Joanne World Tour

She is "murdered" midway through the song and the song continues just with backing vocals as she then ascends to the ceiling.

6) Enigma

She has a "safety sphere" she performs the song from - only for it to go up in smoke and "crash"

   This song is a song written as a love song. There isn't anything in the lyrics that would lead to this constant idea of torture, assault, murder, death, fighting evil and so on. But the connection has remained strong. Given what we know it feels like there is a deeper pain for her personally in regards to this song. While she has always interpreted her pain through her art - never more does it come out so strong as it does in Paparazzi. The 2 things that I ultimately think make me think it should be up for retirement is that

1) I don't want to see her performing a song that may make her revisit trauma of some kind just because it was one of her biggest hits - she has so mnay other to offer.

2) If **speculation** is correct - than it could potentially mean that the person responsible for the trauma profits each time the song is performed.

So for those 2 main reasons, I would like to personally state that if Gaga chose to retire Paparazzi [and maybe a few other song] I would FULLY understand and support her in that decision. I know a lot of people expect it to be performed due to how popular and big of a song it was - but is it worth it?

[GAYHEMikey 7,662]

I get your Point but Maybe it's not that she revisits her Trauma, Maybe it's a way of dealing with her demons and healing. I think it’s her way to digest her past when she’s turning darkness into beauty

[Suspiria 10,683]

I would be happy to see it replaced by newer songs, but not because of the reasons you stated.

I think if it was traumatic for her to perform she would not have performed it on every tour. I don't think there's any point speculating that.

[domixwodix 3,406]

11 minutes ago, Dayman said:

This song is a song written as a love song. There isn't anything in the lyrics that would lead to this constant idea of torture, assault, murder, death, fighting evil and so on.

I don‘t agree

it‘s a song about the paparazzis assaulting the private live of a star

the performances actually always fit this song imo, it‘s the way how you interpret the lyrics

however your MBT description kinda terrified me i could imagine that she kept on performing the song so it‘s not too obvious who the guy was who did that, i‘m sure many people would ask why she doesn‘t perform one of her biggest hits

[Dayman 6,063]

2 minutes ago, M i K E Y said:

I get your Point but Maybe it's not that she revisits her Trauma, Maybe it's  a way of dealing with her demons and healing with her art

I 100% agree that is possible. But I just can't imagine it sits well with her that he could be profiting each time she performs the song.

 

3 minutes ago, Suspiria said:

I would be happy to see it replaced by newer songs, but not because of the reasons you stated.

I think if it was traumatic for her to perform she would not have performed it on every tour. I don't think there's any point speculating that.

It was a #1 global hit that really launched her career past just being another pop star. It remains a fan favorite and general audience pleaser. It's really not impossible to imagine it is still performed out of the idea that removing it would somehow not give audiences what they want. Especially with a show like Enigma where people are coming for the hits specifically. It's these things that complicate it and make it sticky potentially.

[AVeryGagaHolyDick 22,605]

Tbh I've been thinking about this for years but Paparazzi is nearly everyone's favorite Gaga song and I think she wants to be remembered for it. And I also think that (IF the assumptions are real, which I believe they are) it is her choice to include the song in every other show, because it's her decision, she has the choice to do it and she's the one who controls the situation, which can be healing. 

She didn't include it in the SB51 set list though. It sh/c.ould've taken Just Dance's useless segment

[Illuminati 15,886]

She was still performing Beautiful Dirty Rich up until 2020 which was also produced by the same person so I don't think she is forced to do that just because Paparazzi was a hit. Her career often included commentary on pop culture and Paparazzi seems to be the perfect song to incorporate into that.

I believe in her ability to change what her songs mean to her otherwise it won't matter if she performs Paparazzi or not if all of her other hits take her back to the hard times as well.

[BlondeQueenOfGGD 25,454]

No

[A MESS 3,938]

//TW it's not that nice to talk about r*pe and to point fingers. first of all, it's intrusive in Gaga's life, in A PART that she doesn't wanna share (the person responsible); second, y'all jumping through hoops to not say THAT name but pointing the finger at the same time. //TW

that being said, i think gaga has a pretty great control of the setlist so I think if she wasn't comfortable with the song or the performance part she could change it to fit the paparazzi narrative or she could change it to make it more abstract or remove the song altogether.

[boyerased 2,856]

Paparazzi is too much a part of Gaga’s narrative that I’d argue that she can remove Just Dance first like how Madonna removes Like a Virgin sometimes. In some ways it’s the song that made her. Everyone loves it and I believe the negatives to a certain extent, the dark side of her narrative should always be present. 

[FentyGa 14,340]

paparazzi is way too good of a song, and i believe it’s gaga’s favourite from the fame album

[flyaway 15,350]

Well, as some members have said before, I think she's been able to separate the art from the character. Even if some of these songs are attached to a traumatic period of her life, I think her regard to them is more of HER craft that people get to love and admire.

It's like Kesha when she performs any song that came before her Rainbow album. Those hits defined her career and she was also responsible for their creation. She won't just throw them away and pretend they never happened.

I don't want to comment beyond that as that belongs to Gaga's personal life.

[Lextyr97 19,395]

Telephone and Alejandro need to be retired and I’d be okay if she never ever performed Teeth again. Honestly the cursed Sheisse gotta go too. She has such a great deep cut catalogue. Idk why she doesn’t do more from it. 

[MaryJaneHolland 77,348]

No, but You And I and LoveGame should, now that with the next tour she will have a whole untoured album.

[Dayman 6,063]

7 minutes ago, milam said:

//TW it's not that nice to talk about r*pe and to point fingers. first of all, it's intrusive in Gaga's life, in A PART that she doesn't wanna share (the person responsible); second, y'all jumping through hoops to not say THAT name but pointing the finger at the same time. //TW

that being said, i think gaga has a pretty great control of the setlist so I think if she wasn't comfortable with the song or the performance part she could change it to fit the paparazzi narrative or she could change it to make it more abstract or remove the song altogether.

Trust me I agree. But it's a weird topic to discuss because the way Gaga herself has also publicly discussed it over the last decade. She has opened up many times and even has said as much that it is not hard to figure out if you know her career when she was on Stern in 2014 - which during that interview she gave other details too that just really narrowed it down further. That being said even if she has given every indication of who it is and assumes people can figure it out easily - she has not publicly named him. Whether it is out of fear of legal issues or just by choice of not to name him, I am just discussing based off what she has made public and not naming in the same way she has. Hence why I tried to keep it very limited what was needed to be discussed on that matter rather than go into every last detail she has ever shared and every quote about it - as the intent is to discuss support in the situation that maybe this is a song that has a certain emotional weight to it rather than analyze that specific event itself.