Quick analysis of Disease MV

[hELXIG 41,770]

After sitting with the video for a couple days there are some things I've noticed that I wanted to share..

The video starts in the seemingly peaceful suburbs on a nice day, but she's lying there on the hood of a car, bloody, after being hit, and all the other cars are just driving past like they don't care. Which to me mirrors how when an artist is struggling in the public eye everyone just moves on by and nobody cares or offers any compassion. Also I like that the road says "STOP STOP" idk it makes me think of screaming at the negative inner voices to just shut up

Then we see Gaga in the fully black outfit, completely covered. I think this character represents her current self (I'll come back to this), her fully evolved form, and by slowly peeling back the layers throughout the video she's introducing the 'new her'

And I think the other versions of her represent herself in past stages of her life when she was struggling the most. The black figure has hit and is attacking and hunting down the old her, like she's trying to kill off the memories of the past. While all the other 'hers' are also fighting each other. I think we can all relate to our past memories conflicting with our current selves, and trying to repress and kill them off and run from them. This metaphor is pretty obvious but I think the distinction is that the black figure is the new her

Some lyrics from Chromatica, a very introspective album about her trauma, contain the same themes (the scars on my mind are on replay. Your monsters torture me. My biggest enemy is me. I stare at the girl in the mirror she talks to me too - you don't think I've pulled my weight, maybe it's time for us to say goodbye. She said these songs are her talking to her self)

When she she sings "scream it for me baby, like you're gonna die, I can be your antidote tonight" it's sung by the black figure to the 'old her',  implying her current self is confronting her trauma and healing herself. Also all the old 'hers' have blurry eyes like they're zombies. Black figure's eyes are bloody, but they're clear. She starts wearing a mask and covering one eye which could show how she's kind of.. looking but not ready to fully look, like she's ready to look back at her past but only peeking through her fingers. She's still protected by her mask

When one Gaga is standing on the back of another in the old building, holding her down, stepping on her face etc the black figure is watching from behind a glass wall, which makes me think of current Gaga viewing these scenes like memories

Then it's in the middle of the video that black figure is in a chaotic whirlwind using a walking cane, possibly symbolising the turmoil of having just confronted the past. This is also when she reveals her face for the first time like she's debuting the 'new her', and is fully ready to look at and face her trauma without a hiding behind a mask. Then there's a shot in a veil which makes me think of mourning the past in order to let it go. She pukes black goo (swine SXSW performance lmao.. no) like she's purging her past, the darkness etc. and another version of her falls to the ground. Idk it kinda looked like she was puking herself out lmao. Maybe this version of her is her purged negative feelings personified? Idk. But I believe this whole sequence is the turning point for her accepting her trauma

She then goes on to offer herself compassion instead of trying to destroy her, offering her hand to help her up and taking her into an embrace while she seems to writhe in pain

The walls closing in on her is an obvious and commonly used metaphor, and she fights it back

Then we end with the black figure strutting away confidently into the distance. Current Gaga, still in pain and walking with a stick, but healed, going back out into the world with a newfound confidence

Maybe the direct comparison between those two scenes represents the different places her past and present self are in

 

Now here are some parallels I noticed that may or may not be references. It could just be a case of Gaga wears a lot of looks and a little detective reading too far into things    but I also find it interesting that most of them are from the ARTPOP era

 

 

And this one is a huge stretch and probably not anything but it did make me feel nostalgic for this look and the rainbow motif she used a lot back then

 

 

But even if they aren't specific references I still think they're probably more just general references to her past

 

Okay I spent WAY WAY longer than I expected to on this so enjoy 

 

Edited November 1 by hELXIG

[Guest]

18 minutes ago, hELXIG said:

Now here are some parallels I noticed that may or may not be references. It could just be a case of Gaga wears a lot of looks and a little detective reading too far into things    but I also find it interesting that most of them are from the ARTPOP era

i thought the same, specially with the fight part, maybe is the final battle with her biggest enemy

[A Very Gaga Holida 20,956]

The black vomit is very ARTPOP/Fame too

Edited November 1 by A Very Gaga Holida

[MadArchitect 580]

I had a different reading, i think that the full black outfit doesn't represent her current self, but the shadow self, she darkest parts of herself she has been always had to face and has been pulling inspiration from. We cannot ignore the heavy resemblance of the outfit to the plague doctors attire, i think its very telling because although they were called doctors and sometimes they helped people, they were also mostly known as bringers of the toll of death, and this parallelism fits perfectly, that darkness can sometimes help us once we accept and integrate it and we can reach new levels of awareness that can make easier to get by everyday and also elevate our creativity and art, but also engaging too much in that darkness and chaos is a constant looming danger and fully immersing in it can lead to death, i think that character represents that duality. The blood inside the eye also resembles her VMA Paparazzi performance, which is the epitome of this concept, a performance depicting darkness, death and chaos, but also a creative achievement.

The new version of herself is the one that she vomits near the end, she has also clear eyes and and this is the outfit that she presented to promote the single, so i think she conceived it to be her most recent and actualized version of herself, and she accepts and lets herself be comforted by the darkness, but once she is unmasked and looks her in the eye, she runs, realizing she has to also keep fighting it.

The Gagas on the wrestling room are interesting, cause i do think these are old versions of herself, but the way they have the joints like if they were dolls synthetically put together makes me think the plague doctor gaga manufactured them in some way making them current, and put them in this room so she can chain them and voyeuristically watch them wrestle, they seemed imprisoned, but they also seem to still want to be there and wrestle in a sort of sadomasochistic way, and i think this will be also the fate of the one we see being hit by the car at the beginning, she ran from it when she saw it, but once she gets hits and wakes up, we see both of them kinda seducing eachother.

Another interesting thing is that the Plague Doctor gaga has black hair when we see her out of the car, but inside the car we see her as blonde, not sure what would be the meaning or significance of it in the context, or if it has any...

I dont think these are all specific references to ARTPOP, but just references to past or alternative iterations of herself, seems similar because in ARTPOP she was doing this too, revisiting herself before fame, revisiting the iconography she build in TF, TFM and BTW and then merging them together, putting a current twist and ARTPOP perspective

Edited November 1 by MadArchitect

[Vicixs 3,319]

I feel like the all black outfit represents her PTSD/trauma. It breaks down her psyche but it’s where she draws her most inspiration. No matter what it’s constantly looming, always in the room, inescapable no matter what she does (IE in the room and chasing her).

the fighting herself bit is pretty obvious, but what I found most interesting was her stepping on herself while chained to a pole. I thoroughly believe it’s supposed to represent her killing herself on tour to the point it destroyed her joints, broke her hip, and caused the fibromyalgia.

8 minutes ago, MadArchitect said:

The new version of herself is the one that she vomits near the end, she has also clear eyes and and this is the outfit that she presented to promote the single, so i think she conceived it to be her most recent and actualized version of herself, and she accepts and lets herself be comforted by the darkness, but once she is unmasked and looks her in the eye, she runs, realizing she has to also keep fighting it.

Hugely agree with this part and I feel like it falls in line with my argument of her PTSD being her greatest destruction but also her biggest inspiration.

[The Ew from Judas 529]

I posted a theory here a few days back, but it got lost in the shuffle because the disease thread was so big lol.

I took more of a direct approach, speculating what the video was, for lack of a better term, in universe. We all know that the video is about her fighting versions of her past self so I tried to look for what the story was within its own world.

the concept I landed on was that the all black Gaga is some sort of creature creating clones of herself, creating other Gagas. I believe that the video follows the story of one of these out of order. We see her being born when black suit Gaga  vomits out black goo and she appears on the ground. 

she then approaches her creator, her mother figure, and unmasks her but is terrified of what she sees when she realizes that her creator looks just like her. She tries to escape, but the walls close in on her and she is captured, forced to fight another version of herself in chains while being watched over by the black suit Gaga. Eventually she runs away, and thinks she’s safe, but of course the black suit one is watching and hits her with her car. She runs away and is tackled by yet another Gaga. 
 

alternatively, and perhaps a bit more likely, is the concept that the one that gets hit by the car is separate from the one that’s born at the end, and the walls closing in represents that no matter what, even the new, reinvented Gaga will still have to face her demons. With some more thought, it’s possible they aren’t the same-not only is the hair different, but if you look closely, the Gaga at the end is the only version to have her tattoos. Perhaps this is a continuity error, but considering her tattoos were meticulously removed on ever other clone of her, I think this means something-this one at the end is the real her 

that’s the idea I’m still running with for what the plot within the video may be, but on a meta level, it’s certainly the “fighting past selves” concept. If these are actually supposed to be past versions of her, she was very clever choosing things that subtly reference them-I.e. specific hair colors/flannel shirts etc instead of just putting herself in past outfits. It lets the video stand on its own without making them feel like super specific Easter eggs only a super fan would get. 

 

 

 

Edited November 1 by The Ew from Judas

[The Ew from Judas 529]

2 hours ago, MadArchitect said:

The new version of herself is the one that she vomits near the end, she has also clear eyes and and this is the outfit that she presented to promote the single, so i think she conceived it to be her most recent and actualized version of herself, and she accepts and lets herself be comforted by the darkness, but once she is unmasked and looks her in the eye, she runs, realizing she has to also keep fighting it.
 

This is perfect-something I noticed was that this version of her was the only one to have her tattoos…the rest don’t. Not sure if that means something super deeply but I think it probably does