Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, better known as Lady Gaga, is one of the most unconventional and best-selling artists of all time. He began his music career at 15, climbing the music charts faster than anyone else. He currently has several Guinness World Records, three Brit Awards and six Grammy Awards, among others. Her debut album The Fame with its chart-topping singles Just Dance and Poker Face helped her rise to prominence in 2008. The following year, 2009 – The Fame Monster, also her follow-up album with Bad Romance and Alejandro was successful. The music video for The Fame Monster's first single, Bad Romance, was released on November 24, 2009 and uploaded by LadyGagaVEVO to YouTube. In April 2010, the video became the most viewed on YouTube and helped Gaga win Video of the Year at the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards and Best Short Form Music Video at the Grammys. The director of the video was Francis Lawrence who worked alongside Gaga herself, Thomas Kloss, the director of photography and Gaga's creative team, Haus of Gaga, who handled the artistic direction. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Originally, the video was supposed to be shot in New York City, but due to Gaga's schedule, it was filmed in Los Angeles over a two-day period. Additionally, Gaga wanted more elaborate sets, including outdoor ones, but for budget reasons the idea was scrapped. To better understand the video and the story it describes, I will deconstruct it using both semiotic and narrative analysis. The general idea of ​​the music video is to portray the tough female spirit - for which she designed a pair of razor blade sunglasses she wears at the beginning of the video - but also to show how the entertainment industry it can simulate human trafficking, through selling products and perceiving women as commodities. In the initial situation, we are presented with Gaga sitting on a chair, surrounded by men and women. We can hear eerie music in the background, but everything and everyone seems inert until he presses the "play" button on a soundbar. The video continues with Gaga and 6 other women emerging from something that resembles a high-tech coffin. At first she appears unconscious, with her eyes, ears and nose covered. This type of deprivation is a technique used to torture prisoners or mind-controlled slaves in order to “break” them and facilitate their re-education. To us, this could mean that Gaga is an amateur, who doesn't really know what she's doing in the music industry. In the next image, she appears to be talking to herself in the mirror - reminiscent of the movie "Who's Tommy", in which a boy who becomes deaf, dumb and blind after a traumatic event becomes responsive only when staring into a mirror. The next scene shows a “wide-eyed” and innocent Gaga, while still high on drugs, trying to wash away her sins by taking a bath. Here everything is white, including the dress, the background and the bathtub, to express innocence and purity. Now we can easily say that Gaga is a victim, who seems to have difficulty understanding the context in which she wakes up. Two women appear next to her and begin to treat her brutally. Gaga tries to fight them at first, but when she realizes she can't, she accepts her condition and goes with the flow. She is then forced to drink what appears to be vodka, which is actually an MTV-friendly drug substitute. The idea behind this is that mind-controlled sex slaves are heavily drugged to numb their thoughts and make them easy to manipulate. The following two scenes depict Gaga intwo different states: the scene where she is in the shower could be the scene before the one where she wears her white dress, being so sure of herself. In the shower she appears as a shadow figure, slightly emaciated, visibly suffering, while in the next scene Gaga is stripped and forced to perform in front of a group of men. This is also the moment when our victim transforms into a princess, accepting that she cannot change her condition but realizing that she should stop complaining and take action. The men could represent the dark force that governs the music industry and the masks – their hidden nature. Every man is a record company, bidding higher to sign her. Our princess seems to be aware of the process and leaves shyness behind as she struggles to give men her best performance. So she heads for one man in particular, one she might like better, given the circumstances. She attracts him and the man falls for her charm and tries to win her for himself. In the next two scenes, Gaga seems to have changed her point of view towards men and also her clothes. One scene depicts her at the center of planetary orbits, while in the scene with the diamonds floating around her, she appears to have a cross on her “private parts” – which is definitely a sign of defiance, shown with disrespect. After that, our princess is required to fulfill her duties as the sex slave that she is and give herself to her winning bidder. She then enters a completely white room, wearing a white polar bear fur coat and confronts the man who bought it, dressed completely in black. The room is very symbolic, both visually and narratively. The two gazelle heads on each side of the bed refer to Baphomet, the horned idol of Western occultism, who represents the music industry. We then discover that Gaga offers herself not to her winning bidder, but to her idol: the music industry. She wants to be initiated and accepted among his disciples – she wants to be an insider and doesn't want to “be friends” with the music industry. The bed catching fire represents that his idol accepted his offer – and the man was just a means to get the fame he wanted. Another scene takes place at the same time as the arson scene: Gaga and her masked dancers are dressed in red, which is the color of sacrifice and initiation. The princess is no longer innocent: she has become her own heroine and her winning bidder's worst nightmare. Now she is initiated and accepted as a music industry insider: the virginal white garments she wore before being replaced by blood red are a visual confirmation of this. The final scene shows Gaga lying in bed with the burned skeleton of her winning bidder. We can see how in this scene everything caught fire and was burned, except for the two gazelle heads, showing that he finally got what he wanted, playing on his own terms. When you listen to the lyrics for the first time, you might get the impression that they're about her desire to have a relationship with some kind of psychopath. The video, however, reveals that the psychopath is the music industry. The song begins with what appears to be a chant that will repeat throughout the end: "Rah-rah-ah-ah-ah-ah!" could refer to the ancient Egyptian god of the sun (remember the sunglasses with razor blades? The lenses look like they have a bright sun on them), while "Roma-roma-mamaa!" it could be a reference to the Roman Catholic Church. The first two verses reveal the sickness and wrongness of what Gaga is seeking: “I want your ugly,/…your sickness,/…your drama,/…your skin-studded kiss in the sand." He knows everything.