@theovercoat: I'm sorry. Are you saying people from Pennsylvania have a distinct look? Or just a certain part of Pennsylvania? That would make tons more sense.
@Samanthrax: I think it's a matter of growing up here and also that I just see it. It's not necessarily distinct and exact, but a certain vibe. But i could be just seeing something that isn't there.
And actually, I think I did specify the town by saying the people I grew up with.
That Harlem Renaissance editorial is fucking awesome, I think. And, I actually do like the composition of the Campbell photo with the elephant--kind of like a modern spin on that Avedon photo. The monkey thing.....I don't really know what to do with that.
I'm wondering whether successful, established models like Campbell have any input when it comes to creative direction. One would think that she could have declined to do this job if she found the primitivist tropes offensive, but do models have any say in how they are posed, what they wear, etc? Would it have been possible for her to compel the photographer to do a shoot that didn't marshal tired motifs of Black women as fetishized and animalistic? Perhaps someone with more knowledge of the modeling/fashion industry than I could shed some light on this.
Without the other images in the set, I kind of like the picture of Naomi Campbell on an elephant. She looks happy and like she's having a good time and elephants always make me smile. If it had been in a piece on, say, out of the way tourism and the other images had been in the English countryside and a Japanese fishing village it would be an absolutely adorable picture. In a spread that features her skipping rope with monkeys and racing a cheetah, it's absolutely loathsome.
@Dodai: I don't even get this. Are magazine editors and photographers seriously that unaware of the history of race and race relations? Do they exist in some sort of ahistorical vacuum where nothing is in context? How could someone possibly approve a photo like that?
@NellMood: well, as Jenna said, the photographer is the same one who put Grace Jones in a cage with the words "Do Not Feed The Animal." His book was called "Jungle Fever." So *he* knows what he's doing.
I like how all her music videos have an undercurrent that makes you truly uncomfortable. It's like her songs are the pretty cover and her videos always show the seedier underbelly of her subject. I don't think it's world-endingly awesome or anything, but I do think it's clever and well-done. And I don't get the people who smack on her sound but then pop in their Rhianna, Ciara, or Britaney cds. If she were any more unique she probably wouldn't sell, period.
Re: "And what if the "man" in the video is actually a stand-in for fame itself, and what it does to women?"
I think you might be right. Gaga has said in interviews that her album is called The Fame because it's about how anyone can be famous. So, maybe this song IS comment about how, yes, anyone can be famous but the consequences aren't always good?
I find songs about paparazzi so fascinating because there frankly are So Damn Many of them because it is something that celebrities deal with on the daily. However, I think these songs are so unrelateable to the majority of us non-famous people.
the video is interesting, though all the dead women make me very uncomfortable.
08/19/09
Also, I love to watch Cindy Crawford's Meaningful Beauty infomercial. It is so...over the top.
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08/20/09
And actually, I think I did specify the town by saying the people I grew up with.
In any case, she definitely has the accent.
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06/10/09
I think you might be right. Gaga has said in interviews that her album is called The Fame because it's about how anyone can be famous. So, maybe this song IS comment about how, yes, anyone can be famous but the consequences aren't always good?
Maybe I'm reading into it too much.
06/10/09
mmmm...skarsgard.
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06/10/09
the video is interesting, though all the dead women make me very uncomfortable.
06/10/09
I am *very* happy to be having a insightful discussion about a music video once again, though! Hello, late '80s-early '90s! How I missed you so!
06/10/09