Rah-rah-ah-ah-ah! Roma-Roma-ma-ah!
Since we started reading Levy’s book I have thought about any and every girl I know who take part in the Raunch Culture. All I had to do was log onto Facebook and take a look at some photo albums. Why do these girls dress the way they do? Why do they act the way they act? I actually came across a picture of three girls doing the whole peace sign below the mouth deal. Underneath the picture a comment from one of the girls saying… “wow drunk, classy, hoes…enough said. lol”. So why do girls do stuff like this? Why do they like showing off their tits and asses? For attention? For power? For sexual liberation? Christie Hefner would probably say something along the lines of they are just having fun and “taking control of how I look” instead of looking embarrassed. Levy of course would just call it pathetic. I kept searching though; I still wanted to find a girl in the Raunch Culture who Levy might actually think twice about whether she was indeed a Female Chauvinist Pig.Christina Aguilera, Pamela Anderson, Debbie Cope, and Jenna Jameson. All of these women are definitely in Ariel Levy’s eyes apart of the problematic Raunch Culture. Each have used the Raunch Culture for their benefit or pleasure. For power, liberation, whatever it may be they are all guilty. Recently however there has been a new name who has risen to the top of the so called Raunch Culture. Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta was born and raised in the Upper West Side of Manhattan in 1986. A very talented musician having learned piano by ear at the age of 4, she attended Tisch at the age of 17. After withdrawing to pursue her music career, she moved to the Lower East Side where she started performing in clubs. Shortly after, the artist now known as Lady Gaga had become the first artist to ever have four number one hits on a debut album. As all of you know Lady Gaga has used her appearance to gain success, or at least be noticed. However, while I would agree that she is similar to the women afore mentioned, I am reluctant to put her in the same category.When I first saw Lady Gaga she struck me as a very interesting character. She definitely fits the frame of a Female Chauvinist Pig embracing Raunch Culture. Extremely high heels, lots of skin and cleavage, she is pretty sexual to say the least in her music videos. She definitely doesn’t have hairy legs, I doubt she burns her bras, and after the Grammy’s the other night I would make an educated guess that she may have once or twice had a bikini wax. On the surface Lady Gaga is just another pop princess who knows how to strut her stuff and get any man’s, or woman’s for that matter undivided attention. However, Lady Gaga doesn’t just use her tits to be successful, I believe she uses her mind even more.I mainly focused on Lady Gaga’s music video for her song “Bad Romance”. If anyone has seen the video then they know how extremely bizarre it is. In the video Gaga wears a total of about 12 different outfits, all in six inch heels or bigger, ranging from total nudity to showing nothing but her mouth. If I had to describe the video I would probably say it was a strange mix between Britney Spears’ “Womanizer” video and Nine Inch Nails’ Closer music video. There are definitely pieces of choreography where she is doing the whole “take my clothes off and degrade my body”. But then there are others like as when she is doing the “Thriller” move with her entire body covered. The video has a pretty straight narrative and basically Gaga along with other women are slaves who perform for a group of men. Throughout the entire video we see her dancing, stripping, etc. for some weird looking dudes. We also hear in the song her saying the line “I’m a free bitch, baby”. And then of course the finale where she walks in wearing lingerie with a big polar bear fur thing over her and sets a guy on fire. At the very end she is smoking a cigarette on a burnt bed next to the skeleton. She is wearing some nice black lingerie with fire sparking out of her bra. Now I’m not sure if Levy would like all the outfits and sexual choreography, but I’m pretty sure she’d get a kick out of the outcome.Even the outfits that do show off some skin aren’t exactly the stereotypical pop princess slutty costumes. Everyone has seen videos or pictures of the stuff she wears to events such as the Grammy’s or the VMA’s. It isn’t something you see walking down the street even in New York City. Gaga has a unique style that while sometimes may show off her ass and tits, it always seems that she is making a statement. She has said in several interviews that her reasoning behind all the outlandish and controversial stuff she wears is to expand the standards for beauty . In high school Gaga felt like a freak and now she says she wants to help anyone who feels like she did.In Levy’s book she criticizes these women who put on a show and act differently for satisfaction or to impress a man. Gaga differs from that because she isn’t putting on an act. She is different and it shows in the way she dresses and performs. She isn’t acting like a man or dressing slutty for liberation and empowerment. Gaga does the things she does because she is an artist and it is who she is. I would like to think that Levy would appreciate this and see Gaga doing everything for her own pleasure and not for some guy’s.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrO4YZeyl0I