Postmodernism

Definitions:

'Postmodernism is any of a number of trends or movements in the arts and literature developing in the 1970s in reaction to or rejection of the dogma, principles, or practices of established modernism,  especially a movement in architecture and the decorative arts running counter to the practice and influence of the International Style and encouraging the use of elements from historical vernacular styles and often playful illusion, decoration, and complexity'

'Postmodernism is a general and wide-ranging term which is applied to many disciplines, including literature, art, philosophy, architecture, fiction, and literary criticism. Postmodernism is largely a reaction to the assumed certainty of scientific or objective efforts to explain reality'

Lady Gaga Telephone Essay:

Lady Gaga uses parts of older materials and has her own take on things. For example, the video telephone uses a similar idea to Michael Jackson in the video ‘Bad’. It also uses the idea of a jail which Gwen Stefani used in the video ‘The Sweet Escape’. Intertextual references to films such as ‘Kill Bill’ as the car is very similar and is called ‘Pussy Wagon’, which is actually the name of another postmodern film.

Lady Gaga is conscious of how she looks as each outfit is different to the last, highlights that her appearance is everything. She goes beyond just being unique; she goes out of her way to break the stereotypes of female pop artists and gives a whole new take to it, which could be considered postmodern. It covers the issue of sexuality as the stereotype of women in jail is that they are lesbians. The video uses dark humour combined with the use of modern technology as the prison officer is on a dating website and calls herself ‘Miss Officer’.

Lady Gaga and Beyoncé break through the fourth wall by looking directly at the viewers when talking, especially when key lines are said such as ‘ You know what they say, once you kill a cow you’ve got to make a burger’.  She also looks directly at the camera when making certain hand gestures. At one point lady gaga turns the a-ok in front of her eye which represents the Illuminati’s ‘All seeing eye’ into a gun pointed towards the viewer, who are eating all of the ‘poison’ that is handed to them in the false sense of reality.

In the video, the telephone is a metaphor for lady Gaga’s brain and the fact that she is not answering that phone (her brain) means that she is disassociated from society. Disassociation is the ultimate goal of Monarch mind control. It is induced by traumatising events such as electro shock therapy or torture to force the victim to disassociate from society. This enables the handlers to create an alter ego or alternate personalities that can be programmed to do certain tasks such as perform an assassination. So therefore in the context of the video the telephone is lady Gaga’s mind and the club is her disassociated state of mind. The video includes lots of illuminati a sign, the a-ok sign is supposed to show a sign of their allegiance.               

Whilst inside the car after being bailed out of jail, Beyoncé and lady gaga engage in a highly disassociated conversation saying ‘trust is like a mirror. You can fix it if it’s broke, but you can still see the crack in that motherfucker’s reflection’. This particular quote can have several meanings, for example it could refer to a cheating boyfriend which fits in with the narrative of the video but it could also refer to the permanent damage caused by mind control.

Telephone acts as a sequel to lady Gaga’s previous video Paparazzi (in which she kills her boyfriend by poisoning him similar to how Beyoncé kills her boyfriend in telephone), as she continues to kill people whilst being in this disassociated mind control state. Whilst the customers in the diner are dying from the poison, Beyoncé puts on Minnie Mouse glasses which are the same as what lady Gaga wore in the paparazzi video when she kills her boyfriend.