By Meghan Vicks
This is the final piece in our series on “The Edge of Glory.” Click here for our previous analyses of the video.
In his novel Pale Fire, Vladimir Nabokov delivers a poem written by the fictional John Shade, and commentary about the poem written by the apparently insane character, Charles Kinbote. In his “Foreword” to John Shade’s poem, Kinbote writes:
Let me state that without my notes Shade’s text simply has no human reality at all since the human reality of such a poem as his (being too skittish and reticent for an autobiographical work), with the omission of many pithy lines carelessly rejected by him, has to depend entirely on the reality of its author and his surroundings, attachments and so forth, a reality that only my notes can provide. To this statement my dear poet would probably not have subscribed, but, for better or worse, it is the commentator who has the last word. (29)
The point here is that “human reality,” as Kinbote puts it, does not take shape until the commentary – or, the imaginative patterning, interpretation – is made. Interpretation is essential if we want to enjoy any meaningful awareness of reality at all. What matters, more than anything, is the way we sense and intuit and read our wor(l)ds, because it is in that very reading that our worlds and our experiences come to exist in “meaningful” and “human” ways – whatever we interpret “meaningful” and “human” to be.
(A whispering parenthetical aside: Heidegger tells us, again and again, that Dasein is being that considers or questions its own being; only beings that question or interpret their own being actually exist – come into meaning, selfhood, freedom, wonder…)
Likewise, without interpretation, art loses its meaning. An artwork ceases to live once we no longer care to interpret it. Art (if it is to be art) should be continuously reborn through the stroke of interpretation, should endlessly evolve into new meanings, meanings not even thought up in the mind of its artist.
Art should be Born This Way, again and again, through interpretation. Just as Lady Gaga: infinite, transforming, surprising, beheading and beheaded.
But in recent weeks, Gaga’s been tweeting about the meaning of her songs, wielding her authorial intent, attempting to guide interpretation of her work – as if, I feel, she’s frantic about controlling her message, wary of others’ readings, fearful of what meaning they might find and/or create in her performance. As if she wants to guide and quiet interpretation, thereby confining her art to herself, crystallizing its meaning into a single, stable idea – which, to my mind, completely undermines the notion of “infinite birth” that lies at the heart of her Born This Way project.
Is Lady Gaga against interpretation? Trying to create uninterpretive art (what does that look/sound/read like; oxymoron)? What are we to make of her statements regarding the “meanings” of her songs? As a GS contributor pointed out via a Twitter conversation:
Is she purposely forcing us to question her authority by putting forward such “surface” and singular interpretations of songs? And, more importantly, what are we to make of her desire to make these statements? Why does she feel the need to control the meaning of her art?
These ideas had been percolating in my mind for a few weeks when I first watched the video for “The Edge of Glory.” I immediately thought this is a huge “Fuck You” to interpretation – Gaga’s daring us to interpret this one. Especially knowing that certain pomp and circumstance had been planned for the video then scrapped at the last minute (glory’s edge?), I watched “The Edge of Glory” as though I were staring at a huge zero – void of fish tails and story tales, lacking back-up dancers and choreography, absent Enrique look-alike, no set changes, no surgery, no mermaids, nothing, naught, none. She’s made an erased video, I thought, and has dared us to interpret it.
But not even nothing itself eschews interpretation. The cipher, after all, is both the zero/0/nonentity, and the secret message. To decipher the cipher (to interpret), you find yourself with zero in one hand and infinite meaning (cracked codes) in the other. Nothing turns out to be infinitely meaningful. It’s about the relationship between the star and her fans, pop time turning cheesiness into glory, Versace and circular creativity, Clarence Clemons’ death, 80s nostalgia and shrugging off expectations, bifurcated realities and the impact of nonexistent videos on existing ones, Laurie Anderson and the banal taking an epic turn, songs made flesh (and vice versa), and queer time and RENT. And now, it’s about interpretation.
Still, here are some reasons, mined from the Internet, why we can’t or shouldn’t interpret “The Edge of Glory” video, why we shouldn’t decipher its cipher:
It was thrown together at the last minute, after scrapping the video’s elaborate plans. (As if one may only interpret that which has been planned out, as if spontaneity cannot be interpreted.)
It’s cheaply made. (As if we should only interpret the richly made.)
It’s simple and sparse. (As if we can only interpret the extravagant, the busy, the symbol-laden.)
It was supposed to have a choreographed dance. (As if we can only interpret choreography, not Gaga’s impulsive and unstructured dancing by herself.)
It was supposed to have mermaids. (As if we can only interpret that which features mermaids [As if we can only interpret that which meets our expectations].)
This last complaint, which is grounded in the video’s failure to meet expectations, seems to be the main reason why we shouldn’t interpret it. Or why Gaga “let you down.” Or why “The Edge of Glory” is not glorious but ignominious.
Why are we wedded to expectations that take the joy out of an utterly joyful video like “The Edge of Glory,” or that numb the drive to interpret and seek meaning? Does it not scare you when your expectations silence and still your interpretations, thereby making you fall out of love? (Yes, interpretation breeds love.) This has become an urgent question for me, as co-editor of Gaga Stigmata: how do my expectations shape my experience and understanding of Lady Gaga? How does my desire for mermaids (or mirrored vaginas, dead dogs, lipstick guns) color and affect what Lady Gaga actually delivers? And, more broadly, how do my expectations control my experience and understanding of any piece of art or literature, not to mention my experience and understanding of my world?
I get the feeling that Gaga’s trying to control our interpretation of her work, whereas we’re trying to control Gaga through our expectations of her. Both are dead ends, not edges of glory. We’re both afraid that the other will let us down: Gaga fears she’ll be misunderstood by us, and we fear that Gaga will fail to match up to the way we see her, or, more specifically, the way we want to see her (think of all those cries on the Internet, clamoring for the Gaga of “Bad Romance” or “Poker Face,” pleading for the return of The Fame-era Gaga, or measuring Gaga up to other pop stars and finding her lacking).
Interpretation of art shouldn’t be about deciding whether it’s good or bad, but instead about figuring out how to understand it, and ultimately how to like it. Criticism that ranks art (be it music or literature, film or painting, etc.) on a scale (1-10, 0 to 5 stars, rotten or fresh tomatoes) is really just consumerism masquerading as art appreciation.
Interpretation shouldn’t be about controlling the meaning of art, but about allowing for and creating meaning(s), ad infinitum.
Interpretation is about love, learning how to love, and falling in love all over again. Interpretation is the mechanism whereby art is Born This Way, worthy of love and beloved.
And expectations? They’re the sonogram – the image created precisely for the expectant fans who have been put in the position of the expectant parents, always dreaming of Gaga’s next birth (boy or girl, twins or triplets, healthy or sick, under or overweight). Mother monster paradoxically becomes our expectant offspring. And the sonogram is the fuzzy, singular image that projects into the future, that attempts to confine and control Gaga before she even exists.
In Gaga’s world, expectations (like the sonogram in the video for “Born This Way”) are evil – the closeted image, the image defined by another’s conceptions (thanks, Roland!). Perhaps this is why she plays with our expectations so very often, in hopes that we give them up? Wouldn’t, then, she truly achieve artistic freedom, freedom to truly be Born This Way?
And what would we achieve? Interpretive freedom? Freedom to love Gaga unconditionally? Should we love our artists unconditionally? These are questions I encounter at the Edge.
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