Lady Gaga and Alter Egos

[PornoDanceFight 191]

I have been thinking about Gaga and Colbert's conversation on the nature of "Lady Gaga" as a persona, how she navigates her artistry and celebrity with Lady Gaga as a vehicle for it, and it got me thinking about alter egos in pop music more broadly. Pop stars have used alter egos for decades for various reasons: so they can express different sides of their artistry (Slim Shady, Roman Zolanski/Harujuku Barbie), generate discussion during album promotional cycles (Sasha Fierce, Bianca), and create personas for performance art pieces (Jo Calderone, Ziggy Stardust/the Thin White Duke, Madame X). 

 

Within the context of Gaga's recent conversation with Colbert, I'm wondering: if Stefani refers to herself as the artist and "Lady Gaga" as a creation, an extension of herself to survive in the industry, can we consider "Lady Gaga" Stefani's alter ego?

 

During this era and tour, she has been a lot more comfortable "taking Gaga off" this album cycle as evidenced by the amount of press devoted to her and Michael's relationship (integral to the album process, I know), battling the ultimate heightened Gaga in Mistress Mayhem, even the performance of HBDYWM at the MBT speaks thematically and lyrically as to how much we want the "real" her. I'm wondering if anyone else sees a clearer distinction between Stefani the artist and Gaga the persona, or if it's even more difficult to parse through than before? Maybe this is just my own Sunday funday mental gymnastic exercise, but I'm torn between making either distinction.

In a more tangentially related topic: is Jo Calderone Lady Gaga's only alter ego, or would we consider each Gaga "era" its own alter ego? And how much of Gaga's characters like Yuyi, Mistress Mayhem, Ally, and even to an extent, Lee, be considered "alter egos"? 

(I'm thinking way too much about this, I know, but I'm waiting on laundry to finish and my mind is wandering lol)

Edited 4 hours ago by PornoDanceFight

[Taumaturg0 671]

17 minutes ago, ****oDanceFight said:

Within the context of Gaga's recent conversation with Colbert, I'm wondering: if Stefani refers to herself as the artist and "Lady Gaga" as a creation, an extension of herself to survive in the industry, can we consider "Lady Gaga" Stefani's alter ego?

 

yes, I tought we all did tbh. The thing is that for the longest at the beggining of her career she was extremely private about... well, her pirvate life, so we only got glimpses at Stefani. But she's progressively shown more of that side of her in her career and we can contrast Stefani and Lady Gaga more easily. 

But she has always integrated her stage persona and her public off stage persona a lot, but now she's just sahring more of her private life

[PornoDanceFight 191]

17 minutes ago, Taumaturg0 said:

yes, I tought we all did tbh. The thing is that for the longest at the beggining of her career she was extremely private about... well, her pirvate life, so we only got glimpses at Stefani. But she's progressively shown more of that side of her in her career and we can contrast Stefani and Lady Gaga more easily. 

But she has always integrated her stage persona and her public off stage persona a lot, but now she's just sahring more of her private life

I guess, in my head, an alter-ego seems more of a concrete distinction between the actual self and the put-on persona. In the past, Gaga has maintained that she and Stefani are "one," and a lot of Gaga's art comes from trying to reconcile both sides of herself. Obviously, both Stefani and Gaga aren't the same, but I guess I always saw Lady Gaga as an authentic creation that just cranked Stefani's dial up to 100, for better and worse. This new interview had me wondering whether the difference is so much more distinguishable now that we, as fans and consumers of her art/product, can say they are absolutely different, or if it's an extension/evolution of the performance of Lady Gaga.

[elsamars 2,891]

Jo Calderone is a fever dream I want to forget.

[Decodekid 28,463]

It was only until after ARTPOP that she started stating that Lady Gaga and Stefani were two different things after claiming they were one. I remember clearly the first few comments about this were from an interview she did with Jamie Lee Curtis in 2015-2016 before Joanne. 
 

This was going to happen sooner or later anyway, ARTPOP just sped things up and that’s why the Joanne era felt so out place in certain situations. You had her constantly resisting this persona, and claiming to be this new thing, but every other week she’d put on her signature looks and attitude again. 
 

IMO this persona is too engraved in her personality to the point where it’s not just an alter ego. “Lady Gaga” has always felt genuine to me. 

[Kayi 2,709]

Lady Gaga is a persona that express different layer of her soul, her emotions...

It is also a way for her to play with various attitude, dress in an expressive way or just eccentric way, etc...

Yeah it's defo Stef's alter-ego. 

[MOT 3,196]

I think alter-ego is a bit strong. It has echoes of Jekyll and Hyde or two people inhabiting one body, and I don't think that's what's going on with Stefani. I think Lady Gaga was just adopted as a stage name, in the same way as Reg Dwight thought he might do better as Elton John and Bob Hope thought Tony Benedetto might do better as Tony Bennett. It's marketing/branding first and foremost - and they're not dirty words, they're things that help you to be successful. Stefani IS Gaga and Gaga IS Stefani in the same way as you might have a friend named Pete whose nickname is Bones : different names but same guy. Her artistry, her attitudes, her love of fashion and playing with her appearance, her struggle with fame, her difficulties as a young woman in a very male-dominated industry, I think they are all genuinely HER, regardless of whether we call her Stefani or Gaga.