Lady Gaga and the Stealth Parody

[The Ew from Judas 1,436]

I’m currently working on a final essay for an English literature course I’m in, and I’m analyzing different common tropes in old writing and where and how they’re used today. One of the tropes I’m focusing on is the “stealth parody” which is the concept of a parody that is sort of secretive about the parody elements, and some people may not immediately identify that it’s a parody (one example I give is Alice in wonderland-while it seems like a lot of random nonsense, many of the characters and scenes are references and parodies of actual historical events going on at the time.) 

interestingly, I found that tv tropes lists Lady Gaga under singers who use stealth parody, and I’ve decided to explore that for my essay. I argue that Lady Gaga is someone who is so engrained in popular culture that large elements of her career operate under the rules of stealth parody-for example, almost all of her outfits actually have deeper meanings (such as the meat dress and Don’t Say Gay) and many of her sillier or more ridiculous lyrics are also about real or deeper things. These are things that work as well as they do because she has a great understanding of what the world expects pop singers to be, and is able to use that to her advantage and both pay tribute to it and sort of poke fun at it, all when often saying something more. Over the years a lot of critics have written off what she does as nonsense but there’s always something deeper there that they may be missing (just like with Alice in Wonderland)

Are there any strong examples you can think of of times where Gaga has prominently used this sort of trope? I’m looking for a couple of examples beyond the meat dress and telephone video. Beyond that, just thought this was something interesting to share lol

[TheFrenchGuy 1,626]

I think her strongest use of this trope is actually a kind of stealth parody of the self, if that makes sense. Marry the Night is the clearest example, in my opinion. Paparazzi also ended up functioning as a self-fulfilling prophecy. She tells her own life story in a way that feels genuinely raw and vulnerable, but it’s so heightened through camp, theatricality, and myth-making that it starts to feel closer to fantasy than straightforward autobiography. Perfect Celebrity fits into this reading as well, and even The Fame short film, as campy as it is, operates in a similar register.

Her work is so deeply shaped by camp as an expressive language that the line can be blurry. That raises a bunch of very interesting questions. Who defines sincerity? If a statement appears ridiculous to most people (like the meat dress), is it really stealth parody? Does it have to be subtle to count? I could talk about this for hours lol 

Edited 2 hours ago by TheFrenchGuy

[HeAteMyh3art 2,122]

At the top of my head is the entirety of How Bad Do U Want Me. I've yet to see anyone pick up on how the atypical bubblegum sound and the super obviously cliche lyrics are directly tied to the message of the song.
"How bad do u want ME FOR REAL". Do you want the perfect good girl pop star or bad girl Lady Gaga?
I mean come on half the userbase here just refers to it as le boring Taylor Swift durrrr. 

Edited 2 hours ago by HeAteMyh3art

[MOT 3,296]

I've only been a Gaga fan since 2019, and before that I only paid any attention to her back in the Poker Face/Bad Romance days (when you couldn't really ignore her). The impression I formed of her back then as a casual observer was that she was a Madonna parody, that she was doing the sexy pop girl thing but with her tongue firmly in her cheek. Knowing what I know now, I look back and I can appreciate the quality of her music, but at the time I didn't think that was her point. I thought the parody was the point. The closing frame of the Bad Romance video on the smouldeing bed ... that was Madonna looking back at me.