Postmodernism is Calling

After reading Welcome to the Postmodern World and The Precession of Simulacra, I thought of Lady Gaga as someone who displays a lot of postmodernism in her music videos and persona. When Lady Gaga first came to the music scene, she was definitely a spectacle with her odd outfits and her music challenging social norms. In her music video Telephone featuring Beyonce, Lady Gaga portrays postmodernism.

Lady Gaga's Telephone shows all three major processes as mentioned by Anderson. The first process is a "breakdown of old ways of belief." Gaga does this in Telephone especially well in the scene where she is in the kitchen making sandwiches. The scene first opens with text over the screen like an old-timey movie with the words "Lets Make A Sandwich" and Gaga in the center of a kitchen surrounded by male dancers. She then goes on dancing and making sandwiches, which is mocking the old belief that a woman's place is in the kitchen making meals for her husband and family. Gaga soon breaks down this old belief by adding poison to ingredients and handing the food out to Beyonce's table, where she is sitting with a man who wronged her and wants him dead. Gaga mocks old beliefs in her postmodern video by making the classic belief about women satirical and showing the worst side of a woman "in the kitchen."


The second process as mentioned by Anderson is the emergence of a new polarization, "joining old family favorites" like nationality. Gaga and Beyonce are seen toward the end of the music video wearing American themed outfits, but clearly mocking American values. The women have just gotten away with the murder of many people, and are wearing American outfits. This polarization about the view of America as home of the free versus the women getting away with murder makes Gaga's video a perfect representation of postmodernism. Gaga is polarizing old views of America with what she may truly think about America, being famous in America, or the American criminal justice system.

Finally. the third process Anderson mentions is "the birth of a global culture" with a view that is wordly. In this process, all belief systems become aware of one another and people struggle to find out who and what they are. This is portrayed in Telephone in the beginning of the music video. Gaga is seen walking into a prison, and there are women everywhere of all different kinds, struggling to find themselves. This represents exactly what Anderson is talking about. There are women of all different races, some women weight lifting, and some women scared of the situation they are in; all of them are trying to find out who they are between what is right in front of them.

Overall, Lady Gaga's Telephone is a perfect music video displaying the three process Anderson talks about when describing what postmodernism is. Gaga's video breaks down old beliefs, polarizes what "home of the free" really means, and displays people trying to find out who they are and where they fit into society.