The Mistress was always there

[Helxig 44,949]

Well yeah because Mistress of Mayhem is the embodiment of her inner demons, her self-saboteur, the parts of her that torture her. She's been troubled ever since she shot to stardom so phnatoms of herself were bound to show up in her art through the years. I woulda argue that even though it doesn't fit the aesthetic, this is also her:

 

Although that figure at the end of MTN is supposed to actually represent an ethereal woman who has risen through the flames like a phoenix. Herself after she was destroyed by her first label and the abuse she faced etc, and then got up and started all over again and actually made it

[NashvilleGAGA 807]

3 hours ago, HotLikeMexico said:

This is cute and all, but a reach. I don’t think Gaga planned her career THAT far ahead. 

I agree in a way that it maybe wasn’t specifically. But also maybe it was always there just the same? Because the MoM is part of her and always has been and always will be.

[Electric Venom 267]

Yall shut up. She was already there since Beautiful, Dirty, Rich! 

[bxr 1,808]

38 minutes ago, Electric Venom said:

She was already there since Beautiful, Dirty, Rich! 

A quasi-capitalist villain origin story …

[River 125,244]

5 hours ago, zevthepaparazzo said:

Highway 10

Highway 10 is the Road To Love (track number 10 on btw)

[chathonnete 971]

She def invented the concept of mistress of mayhem last year, she just always loved dramatic/gothic/queen fashion and esthetism 

[warhol killah 8,957]

All this discourse about that reminds me of this video!

 

[Ladle Ghoulash 46,546]

9 hours ago, Starmie25 said:

I've always believed the JW video 

I have also always believed the JW video 

[Sepsami 20,457]

Wait y'all these theories are actually fun, keep em coming 

[celestiallove 104]

whoa holy shi you're right

[bxr 1,808]

11 hours ago, GAGA IS GROOVY said:

Gaga has been dancing with darkness since the start of her career, but I feel like Chromatica, despite all of its bright and colourful imagery, represented the darkest moment Gaga has ever reached. The raw lyrics expose the mental space she was in during the writing process, and even the album cover looks like Gaga has fallen to the bottom of a shadowy well, pinned down by the weight of her music and fame.

 

10 hours ago, Ultimecia said:

Just putting this right there. 

9 hours ago, Alxjcgn said:

The raw lyrics expose the mental space she was in during the writing process, and even the album cover looks like Gaga has fallen to the bottom of a shadowy well,

Omg this is such a cool way to see the album cover, especially in hindsight with knowing how much pain was in that album

 

Whew, a thread … something about this reminds me a bit of the Maria Metropolis swap … but, might be more of an abstract association …

Maria’s transformation from robot to human is undoubtedly iconic. Over the years, it has become synonymous with the science fiction genre. But before we dissect the scene, let’s remind ourselves of what’s happened so far. The film takes place in the futuristic realm of Metropolis, a city in which the affluent classes reside in lofty skyscrapers high above the murky underworld below, where workers and undesirables live a life of drudgery. When the son of Metropolis’ leader, Freder, discovers the plight of the workers, he befriends the rebellious Maria, putting him at odds with his father.

Spoiler

If it weren’t for the title cards, Metropolis would look as though it was made yesterday. The 1927 science-fiction film by German director Fritz Lang was released just over twenty years after the Lumiere Brothers presented the first moving pictures to the people of Paris. The film remains one of the most important foundational science fiction movies and is as haunting today as it was nearly a century ago. Here we’ll be looking at one of its most impressive scenes, the transformation of Maria.

Maria’s transformation from robot to human is undoubtedly iconic. Over the years, it has become synonymous with the science fiction genre. But before we dissect the scene, let’s remind ourselves of what’s happened so far. The film takes place in the futuristic realm of Metropolis, a city in which the affluent classes reside in lofty skyscrapers high above the murky underworld below, where workers and undesirables live a life of drudgery. When the son of Metropolis’ leader, Freder, discovers the plight of the workers, he befriends the rebellious Maria, putting him at odds with his father.

When Joh Fredersen learns of this forbidden romance, he instructs the scientist Rotwang to craft a seductive doppelganger of Maira. The gynoid (human on the outside, robot on the inside) is subsequently utilised by Rotwang to impress and seduce the aristocrats of Metropolis. Cue an extravagant cabaret dance sequence.

In the transformation scene, we see Rotwang in his laboratory. Surrounded by impressive-looking equipment, he connects Maria, who is being held in a coffin-like chamber, to her robot counterpart. Rotwang is highly evocative of Dr Frankenstein, the archetypal mad scientist from Mary Shelley’s proto-science fiction novella Frankenstein.

For this scene, Lang drew from another but equally gothic source: the 1920 adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde, which saw director John S. Robertson use a combination of prosthetics and slow-dissolve to depict the transformation of the respectable Mr Jekyll. Lang uses the same dissolve effect to portray Maria’s transmutation, concluding with one last reference to Frankenstein: the opening of Maria’s eyes, which conjures up that haunting line: “I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open.”

Of course, part of the reason the scene is so effective is that it subverts Shelley’s original text. Unlike Frankenstein’s creature, Maria is beautiful, angelic and highly feminised. Where the monster is outwardly horrifying but inwardly pure, Maria is outwardly pure and inwardly psychopathic, eventually causing havoc when she goes AWOL in Metropolis. Lang’s transformation scene works because it is rooted in the foundationary texts of science fiction. Of course, it would be nothing without Lang’s incredible eye for design and control of filmic techniques. It was surely these strengths that have allowed Metropolis to endure as one of the most influential films of all time.

 

Spoiler

(Sort of random one off, but I think during the Nikki / Chromatica era Haus Labs tutorial video, maybe, there was the “can you blink with one eye?” Q&A show-and-tell moment)

Edited 16 hours ago by bxr

[BELLYACHE 1,761]

So basically every time she wears red got it haha, na yall are onto something. Her wearing red sumbolizes her other side, the demons of fame.

[Ladle Ghoulash 46,546]

37 minutes ago, bxr said:

 

 

Whew, a thread … something about this reminds me a bit of the Maria Metropolis swap … but, might be more of an abstract association …

Maria’s transformation from robot to human is undoubtedly iconic. Over the years, it has become synonymous with the science fiction genre. But before we dissect the scene, let’s remind ourselves of what’s happened so far. The film takes place in the futuristic realm of Metropolis, a city in which the affluent classes reside in lofty skyscrapers high above the murky underworld below, where workers and undesirables live a life of drudgery. When the son of Metropolis’ leader, Freder, discovers the plight of the workers, he befriends the rebellious Maria, putting him at odds with his father.

  Hide contents

If it weren’t for the title cards, Metropolis would look as though it was made yesterday. The 1927 science-fiction film by German director Fritz Lang was released just over twenty years after the Lumiere Brothers presented the first moving pictures to the people of Paris. The film remains one of the most important foundational science fiction movies and is as haunting today as it was nearly a century ago. Here we’ll be looking at one of its most impressive scenes, the transformation of Maria.

Maria’s transformation from robot to human is undoubtedly iconic. Over the years, it has become synonymous with the science fiction genre. But before we dissect the scene, let’s remind ourselves of what’s happened so far. The film takes place in the futuristic realm of Metropolis, a city in which the affluent classes reside in lofty skyscrapers high above the murky underworld below, where workers and undesirables live a life of drudgery. When the son of Metropolis’ leader, Freder, discovers the plight of the workers, he befriends the rebellious Maria, putting him at odds with his father.

When Joh Fredersen learns of this forbidden romance, he instructs the scientist Rotwang to craft a seductive doppelganger of Maira. The gynoid (human on the outside, robot on the inside) is subsequently utilised by Rotwang to impress and seduce the aristocrats of Metropolis. Cue an extravagant cabaret dance sequence.

In the transformation scene, we see Rotwang in his laboratory. Surrounded by impressive-looking equipment, he connects Maria, who is being held in a coffin-like chamber, to her robot counterpart. Rotwang is highly evocative of Dr Frankenstein, the archetypal mad scientist from Mary Shelley’s proto-science fiction novella Frankenstein.

For this scene, Lang drew from another but equally gothic source: the 1920 adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde, which saw director John S. Robertson use a combination of prosthetics and slow-dissolve to depict the transformation of the respectable Mr Jekyll. Lang uses the same dissolve effect to portray Maria’s transmutation, concluding with one last reference to Frankenstein: the opening of Maria’s eyes, which conjures up that haunting line: “I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open.”

Of course, part of the reason the scene is so effective is that it subverts Shelley’s original text. Unlike Frankenstein’s creature, Maria is beautiful, angelic and highly feminised. Where the monster is outwardly horrifying but inwardly pure, Maria is outwardly pure and inwardly psychopathic, eventually causing havoc when she goes AWOL in Metropolis. Lang’s transformation scene works because it is rooted in the foundationary texts of science fiction. Of course, it would be nothing without Lang’s incredible eye for design and control of filmic techniques. It was surely these strengths that have allowed Metropolis to endure as one of the most influential films of all time.

 

  Hide contents

(Sort of random one off, but I think during the Nikki / Chromatica era Haus Labs tutorial video, maybe, there was the “can you blink with one eye?” Q&A show-and-tell moment)

“Find my clone, she’s asleep on the ceiling…”

 

Obviously a tangential association, but interesting to think about how the Paper Magazine shoot explored the dualism of Gaga both as cyborg and fully human, especially in the context of Maria’s character in Metropolis: a warm hearted innocent with a deep sense of compassion and revolutionary potential cloned by the ruling class to stoke a rebellion to justify increased consolidation of power. Obviously not all of that maps onto Gaga’s persona on a meta level, but I think it does tie into something Gaga has discussed and explored frequently: self-objectification. In what way does the exploitative system of commercial capitalism encourage us to objectify ourselves in pursuit of success and self-actualization (a narrative which I think also maps pretty cleanly on the dynamic between EtherealGa and the Mistress as innocent Maria and ***** of Babylon Maria).

[Ultimecia 6,610]

52 minutes ago, bxr said:

 

The Chromatica Ball quotes a lot of that imagery, especially during the opening act, and first one's introduction interlude.

And obviously there's this Monster Ball fashion film.

 

[Starmie25 22,179]