A “Fame Hooker” Speaking in Future Tense: Prophets and Profit in “Judas”

By Keri Ferencz

The following piece is the third in our series on “Judas.” For the first piece, click here; the second, here.

Like “Born This Way” before it, “Judas” finds Lady Gaga caught “between two ultimate forces,” aware of the dangers yet attracted to both. Whereas in “Born This Way” Gaga, “herself split into two,” embodies both creation and destruction, in “Judas” the oppositional forces are externalized and personified, making explicit her attempt at serving both. Given the complexity of Gaga’s project, it is possible to theorize any number of oppositions she might be caught between; of particular interest to this reading of the “Judas” music video are Lady Gaga’s seemingly contradictory desires for fame and transcendence through art, and how “the pendulum of choice” dances between the two.

With its undeniable ties to commerce and capitalism, fame or commercial success is generally positioned as oppositional and base compared to transcendence or religious experience, though today’s practice of deifying celebrities does mark a tenuous connection between the two. Gaga has made no secret of her desire to be famous, and the iconography of earlier videos, most notably “Paparazzi,” firmly positions her as a woman attracted to the spoils of her fame, however destructive that fame might be. Simultaneously, Gaga goes out of her way to assert that her fame is irrelevant without the platform it affords her, telling Anderson Cooper “I don’t want to make money…I want to make a difference.” Ultimately she seems to understand that fame is merely the candy-coated shell of divinity; true icons need more than flashbulbs and fans to mark them as divine, not the least of which is a clear doctrine. Though Gaga alluded to such a manifesto in the Fame Monster era, with “Born This Way,” she presents her doctrine in no uncertain terms: be who you were born to become.

The “infinite birth” of the new race in “Born This Way” strikes to the heart of this doctrine and thus the religious or transcendent element of Lady Gaga’s project. In her Manifesto of Little Monsters, Gaga places special emphasis on the importance of “the spiritual hologram of who we…become,” which serves to remind that living is above all a process of becoming. French theorists Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari echo this notion, and suggest that becoming always begins by making a pact with an exceptional individual[i] – in the case of little monsters, that pact is with Lady Gaga herself. Gaga has, more than any entertainer that has come before, fashioned herself as a gateway to becoming (or self-realization) for her fans, hence her position as Mother Monster leading her children to salvation.

Once Gaga’s faithful have become self-actualized, confident in their individual monstrosities, there is little need for Gaga as guru unless she presents herself as a necessary, the one exceptional product that can offer passage to the plane of transcendence and becoming. In order to continue to make a difference – to “protect something so perfect” as her little monsters – Mother Monster must sell and re-sell herself as such, taking pieces of silver from her public as payment for being the one and only gateway to self-realization. Ultimately, she must therefore remain firmly attached to her fame, and thus her Judas, consumer culture.

Judas Iscariot’s betrayal of Jesus for 30 pieces of silver is undoubtedly familiar to most. The Gospel of John imagines Judas as a thief whose weakness was money, providing a scriptural basis for considering him as representative of consumer culture in Lady Gaga’s “Judas” music video. Whereas the video portrays Jesus as stoic, set above the violence and sex of the Electric Chapel, Judas is very much of the people, embracing multiple women (2:08) and gleefully engaging in a bar fight, at one point even disappearing into a group of writhing bodies (2:49), further aligning him with the mass often associated with contemporary consumer culture.

More explicit evidence for reading Lady Gaga’s imagining of Judas as an agent of consumer culture lies in the relationship between the two that is implied in the narrative. The pair’s mutual attraction is palpable, however there are two moments when it is clear that the Judas character sees Gaga/Mary Magdalene as an object to be possessed. First, with a glance, as Gaga and Jesus make their way through the crowd; Judas leers at Gaga with ravenous eyes as though she were a delicacy to be eaten rather than a human subject (2:38). The second instance occurs while Gaga is prostrate at the feet of both Jesus and Judas; Judas empties a can of beer onto her back (4:49) as though to baptise her with the holy water of mass culture.

Both moments serve not only to confirm Judas as the roustabout the song’s lyrics suggest, but also to make explicit that Judas – as an agent of consumer culture – understands Gaga to be a thing. Regardless, Gaga, the self-confessed “fame hooker” is “in love with Judas, baby,” and is thus wilfully complicit with that which objectifies her. She paints the lips that, with a kiss, will symbolize the betrayal of Jesus and a turning away from what is purely sacred. In love with and necessarily clinging to fame and that which is necessary for fame, Gaga cannot do away with her Judas, even if that means her seeming duplicity is revealed for all to see.

Complicit in his betrayal or not, within the narrative of the video Gaga as Mary Magdalene is also fiercely protective of Jesus, who can be read as a personification of all that is deemed pure and sacred in Gaga’s project, including her art, her doctrine, and her little monsters. Gaga leads a Jesus who is very much not of this world through the Electric Chapel as would a bodyguard, and when strife erupts, it is Gaga who protects Jesus and not vice versa (3:19). This is reminiscent of Lady Gaga’s attitude towards her little monsters, specifically the way she has been known to shield her fans from “violent and dangerous” right-wing protesters. Lyrically, Gaga claims “Jesus is my virtue,” (4:26) further suggesting him as representative of the most pure elements of her project.

Although she may play a part his betrayal, there is a sense, as in the Gospels of John and Matthew, that her betrayal is understood and forgiven even before it has occurred. During the second chorus of the song, as Gaga sings “I’m in love with Judas,” the camera finds Jesus watching blankly, seemingly unsurprised by her confession (2:05). Later, when Gaga as Mary Magdalene has the opportunity to prevent Judas’ kiss, Jesus almost imperceptibly shakes his head no (3:27), allowing the betrayal to occur. This moment of self-sacrifice on the part of Jesus causes Gaga to fall to her knees, in both grief and relief. Jesus has turned the other cheek to Lady Gaga’s duplicity, accepting her willingness to sacrifice him and thus the purity of her work as necessary for the greater good, the creation of the new “race within the race of humanity…which bears no prejudice, no judgement, but boundless freedom.”

“I feel that if I can show my demise artistically to the public…I can show you so you’re not looking for it,” Lady Gaga told Elle magazine in January of 2010. Though Gaga was referring to the “Paparazzi” video, the quote is equally applicable to “Judas,” which ends with Gaga stoned to death by a crowd partially comprised of the apostles-cum-gang members. Hyper-aware of the pitfalls of fame, Gaga delivers “Judas” and “Paparazzi” – portrayals of those pitfalls and her downfall – so that we may not seek to destroy her ourselves, as we have done to so many icons before her. More to the point of this analysis, with “Judas,” Lady Gaga is laying herself bare, washing herself clean by admitting her duplicity and necessary attachment to consumer culture and her love of the fame that comes with it.

Far from being a selfish act and yet not entirely selfless, Gaga’s mediation of the oppositional forces of consumer culture and transcendence personified in “Judas” is a task worthy of Atlas. Crafting her art from both while simultaneously working to prevent the destructive collapse of one into the other, in remaining upright under the weight, Lady Gaga holds herself open as a channel towards self-realization for all her little monsters standing in the darkness.

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[i] Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. (London: Continuum, 1987), 244.

Author Bio:

Keri Ferencz is currently writing a thesis on the religious dimensions of pop music fandom as part of her M.A. in Popular Culture at Brock University in St. Catharines, Canada. Culture junkie, movie maniac, bookworm, and lover of all things Yacht Rock, Keri lives in Toronto where she tries to inhabit a life-size choose your own adventure novel. 

She can be found singing like a bird at http://www.twitter.com/keri_lotion.

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Betrayal/Forgiveness

By Eddie McCaffray

The following piece is the second in our series on “Judas.” For the first piece, click here.

This essay examines four dualities surrounding “Judas” the song and Judas the video: (1) Gaga’s equation of forgiveness and betrayal in a recent interview, (2) the wordplay of “Biblical sense” and (3) of “conjugal sense” in the bridge verse of the song, and finally (4) that of Judas/Jesus themselves. What I suspect is interesting about each of these dualities is that, in the process of doubling or mirroring that takes place between the opposing poles, the emphasis is on the collapse of the duality into one (ambiguous?) unity. Though doubles may often operate as diametrically-opposed principles-in-conflict, or provide a better understanding of two concepts/characters through contrast, the doubles in Gaga’s “Judas” more often deal in reduction to a single principle or character, and the ensuing ambiguity of opposites becoming one and the same.

First, what of Gaga’s statement that betrayal and forgiveness “go hand in hand.” In the context of “Judas,” how are these two concepts, these two actions, similar, connected, even the same? How might this be understood? Betrayal can be thought of as abandoning or turning against a principle or person. For example, Judas betrayed Jesus in both senses; he abandoned, even attacked, Jesus by giving Jesus to his enemies. At the same time, he contravened and threw down the principle of Jesus’ teachings, to which as a disciple he had dedicated himself. He betrayed both Jesus and himself. Forgiveness, on the other hand, is purposeful, loving acceptance. A person can forgive another person or something more nebulous like fate or society. People even forgive themselves, either for something they’ve done to another or for some personal failing damaging or relevant only to themselves. In a more radical sense, forgiveness means to overlook or ignore something, as when God forgives the sins of men.

So what does it mean to say these two concepts “go hand in hand,” as Gaga does? What connection can they have? Over the course of her short career, Lady Gaga has espoused a message of self-acceptance and self-creation (or transformation) – isn’t this as much a paradox or contradiction as equating betrayal and forgiveness? These two uncertainties have the same answer: the self is fundamentally a continuing transformation; if it accepted what it was, forgave itself at some point, and thus abandoned that transformative nature, then it would have also betrayed itself. The self is not born that way, the way it was at some specific point, but born this way in an always-moving, always-changing present.

Lady Gaga, especially with the release of singles from and information about the upcoming Born This Way album, suggests that the true self is a kind of creative, transformative principle. It is artistic expression, rather than an artistic expression, and thus acceptance and embodiment of that true nature requires both change and artifice. The true self is art-ificial, something consciously made anew constantly.

In recently released HBO behind-the-scenes footage of the Monster Ball, Lady Gaga, in tears, says that she still sometimes feels like “a loser,” even when up on stage performing before thousands of screaming adorers. The Lady Gaga persona is not a comfortable expression of Stefani Germonatta’s true nature, it is not Stefani Germonatta’s essential self; rather, it is an act of will, carried out despite fear and weakness, a process of self-formation that is identical to the overcoming of fears and insecurities that are, of course, essential to her self in some way – the persona, her self, is a self-overcoming. In this sense, then, the transformative, performative aspect is united with the idea of an essence. Essence is self-overcoming. Continual transformation, despite and even for the sake of fear and danger, is what the self ideally is. Given this, forgiveness as an acceptance of what already exists in the self is also a betrayal, because it abandons the principle of that self as transformative.

Thus, when asked about “body modification” (her bone-horns) in a recent Bazaar interview, Gaga answered, “Well, first of all, they’re not prosthetics. They’re my bones . . . they’ve always been inside me, but I have been waiting for the right time to reveal to the universe who I truly am.” This quote simultaneously captures the extent to which artifice becomes natural in Gaga’s aesthetics or ethics of self (the prosthetics are real and are hers because she chooses them as such), and the way that essence is not a completed existence, but a living principle according to which the self is manifested, according to which it is continuously transformed into what it is. If Gaga had accepted her bone-horn-less self, forgiven that lack, she would have betrayed her self by abandoning its principle of change. Consider also her statement regarding Rico “Zombie Boy” Genest in the same interview: “In the video, we use Rico, who is tattooed head to toe. He was born that way. Although he wasn’t born with tattoos, it was his ultimate destiny to become to man he is today.” And his destiny to become the man he will be tomorrow.

This equation – forgiveness as a betrayal of oneself – takes on new meanings when refracted through the lenses of the other dualisms in the “Judas” song and video. I now move to the bridge verse of the song, which precedes immediately the central interlude of the music video: “In the most Biblical sense/I am beyond repentance/fame hooker prostitute wench vomits her mind/but in the conjugal sense/I just speak in future tense/Judas kiss me if offenced or wear ear condom next time.” In this verse, both “Biblical” and “conjugal” are each presented as having a singular “sense” – but both adjectives have fully-functioning double meanings. “Biblical” refers either to, of course, the Bible and Christian religion/theology in general, or to “knowing” someone “Biblically” – having sex with them. Likewise, “conjugal” may refer to both sex or marriage, and verb conjugation (“I just speak in future tense”). How do these senses relate to forgiveness, betrayal, and the self as an essential, transformative principle?

The two meanings of “Biblical sense” are brought out by the following lines: the reference to “repentance” indicates that Gaga is far beyond the betrayal of (asking for) forgiveness. Her revolutionary project – of self-fashioning, of artistic expression, of LGBT rights advocacy – is pure in its bravery, strength, and ferocity. In three senses, Lady Gaga is beyond repentance, is not afflicted by the doubt or hesitation with which acceptance of an imperfect world or self is to some extent synonymous. First, she does not risk caving to a fear that might prevent her continual self-overcoming. Second, her desire for fame is trumped by and cannot compromise her artistic drives. Third, she feels no desire to forgive an intolerant society its vices and thus temper her advocacy. But at the same time, the opposite of each of these propositions is true: she is only a “fame hooker,” prostituting herself for exactly what she claims to be beyond. The reflexive vomiting of her “mind,” her creativity, and even, perhaps, her advocacy, is all only a desperate ploy for acceptance.

“Conjugal sense” functions in the same Janus-faced fashion. Does the marriage suggested by “conjugal” indicate Gaga’s commitment to her revolutionary projects, or does it suggest her submission, her clinging to, fame and acceptance? Is she married to principle or to convenience? Is she a slatternly Eve (subservient wife and ancient damnation of Fallen Man), or is she the dedicated and pure nun betrothed to Jesus? Is her project all “future tense,” a continuously-evoked false promise? Or does it mean that she is truly committed to the future towards which she claims to work, the future of the “new race, free of prejudice”? Gaga is endlessly torn between two opposite poles (as suggested in the Manifesto of Mother Monster); Jesus, her virtue, calls her to self-overcoming, art, and the advocacy of social justice. At the same time, Judas, the demon she clings to, pulls her back to a betrayal of those principles – to an acceptance (forgiveness) of the world as it is now.

I believe that these paradoxes and ambiguities come to fruition in the final duality, that which is obviously the fundamental allegory of the song and video: Jesus and Judas. The intimate and fraught relationship of these two figures has suggested itself to many readers. Judas, in one sense the ultimate villain, is required for the success of the ultimate hero, Jesus. And who needs Jesus, who claimed to come for the sake of sinners, more than the ultimate sinner? Jesus requires Judas in order to be betrayed; Judas requires Jesus in order to be forgiven – both fundamentally need what the other represents. They make one another possible, not despite their diametrical opposition, but because of it. Would it be too extreme a stretch to regard them, like forgiveness and betrayal, like the unrepentant fame-hooker and the nun-whore, as two sides of the same coin?

This ambiguous unity of supposedly-opposed principles and identities is at the core of Gaga’s “Judas”: the collapse of distinctions is omnipresent in both song and video. The lyrics make it impossible to ever be sure who is singing to whom; indeed it is impossible to argue that there is a continual narrator or addressee at all. Take the first verse: “When he comes to me, I am ready/I’ll wash his feet with my hair if he needs/Forgive him when his tongue lies through his brain/Even after three times, he betrays me.” These lines include the possibilities of Jesus speaking about Judas (and about Peter), of Magdalene speaking about Jesus, and of the Gaga-character speaking about the Judas-character. They even suggest Jesus as a liar (or jealous lover), if the “he” of the foot-washing is the masculine owner of the lying tongue. What of the piercing, possibly furious, undoubtedly jealous gaze of Jesus in the video – who, it must be noted, lacks a name on his motorcycle jacket (another possible indicator that identity is ambiguous)? 

Does “king with no crown” refer unproblematically to Jesus, or does his crown of thorns, made not only explicit but positively gaudy in the video, disqualify him? Could Judas be the king with no crown? And given this uncertainty, is the Gaga of the lyrics “I’ll bring him down, bring him down-down” a weapon directed against Jesus or, as the video shows, a weapon directed by Jesus against Judas? Are the clung-to Judas and virtuous Jesus of the lyrics the same characters as those who bear their signifiers in the video? What does all this ambiguity suggest about that for which Gaga is struggling, and what is impeding, endangering, or opposing her struggle?

Nietzsche suggested, in a long-lost line from his posthumous-patchwork The Will to Power, the idea of “duality as too weak a unity.” I wonder if a similar thought is far from Gaga’s mind regarding the Judas project: she is clearly desperate to accomplish something, and at the same time desperately afraid of the forces (internal as much as external) that threaten that accomplishing. But in a song and video that set up an opposition so often treated as the ultimate black-and-white – Jesus and Judas – and then profoundly blurs the distinctions and identities involved, might she not be suggesting that, regarding her project and its impediments, her perception of duality is a weakness or a misunderstanding? Are her demons and her virtues, her weaknesses and her strengths, her fears and her hopes, really one and the same?

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JudasGaGa: The Double Kiss

By Meghan Vicks

This is the first in a series of pieces that analyzes the video for “Judas.” Each day for the next week, we'll be posting an essay that explores a specific aspect of the video.

Lady Gaga’s project has long dealt with doubles. During the Fame era, her performance was often reflective; much like Warhol, she positioned herself as a mirror upon which to imitate her interviewer (e.g. Barbara Walters, Larry King), her audience (e.g. The Queen, little monsters), cultural narratives about the female body (the Meat Dress) and about the pop star (VMA “Paparazzi” performance). She was accompanied, in a way, by doubles (and triples, and quadruples…) wherever she went, reflecting her fans and thereby embodying their “spiritual hologram,” becoming their double. Her first album, The Fame, was really a double album, soon attended by its dark underbelly, The Fame Monster. Whatever pop lightness and fierceness The Fame presented, it did so while casting shadows whose shape revealed a grotesque monster. Similarly, the video for “Born This Way” witnessed two miraculous births – one good, the other evil. Mother monster split into two, embodied both a prejudice-free heavenly being, and a violently hellish one. If Gaga was herself a mirror during The Fame/Monster, then she now looks into her own mirror during the era of Born This Way. Warhol said to himself, “People are always calling me a mirror and if a mirror looks into a mirror, what is there to see?” His answer was “nothing”; Gaga’s answer appears to be another mirror. Think of Gaga’s birthing vagina in “Born This Way,” composed of two mirrors that reflect one another infinitely, thereby generating the infinite birth of Lady Gaga. Another mirroring: Gaga costumed and made up to reflect Rico’s skeleton tattoos and Mugler suit, but in a feminine form. Gaga mimicking Michael Jackson and then Madonna at the end of “Born This Way,” enacting their zombied doubles. Finally, I’m reminded of the recent photo shoot for Bazaar, not one but eleven Gagas, copied or cloned – the mitosis of now.

The video for “Judas” is also highly invested in the notion of the double, a double whose synthesis is Lady Gaga herself. Quite straightforwardly, both the video and the song present Jesus as Gaga’s light and Judas as her darkness – both are intimately a part of Gaga, part and parcel to her own being. As Gaga has said of the video, “If you have no shadows then you’re not standing in the light,” indicating that good and evil are symbiotically connected. The video for “Judas” thus synthesizes the double into a unified figure, demonstrates how this seemingly opposing pair comprises a whole, collapses oppositions into a single expression or being – Mary Magdalene/Lady Gaga is the synthesis of Judas/Dark and Jesus/Light.

Many elements of the video enact a doubling that is ultimately reconciled. The choreography, for example, is graphed along a kind of Hegelian thesis, anti-thesis, synthesis. More than any of her previous choreography, the dancing for “Judas” is very even-sided: movement on the right (thesis) is followed by the reflected movement on the left (anti-thesis), finally punctuated by a third movement that synthesizes the previous two. Especially during the chorus, this seems to be the schematic design behind the choreography. Significant, too, is the heart-shaped gesture Gaga and her dancers make with their hands, which is often the synthesizing sign; love, (it has been rumored), has the power to reconcile opposites, and it does so as a gesture in Gaga’s dance.

Think, also, of the dancing when Gaga sings, “Judas Juda-a-a, Judas Juda-a-a, Judas Juda-a-a, Judas GaGa” (2:09-2:16) – this thesis/anti-thesis/synthesis is reenacted four times during this short segment, finally punctuating Gaga herself as the body of reconciliation. During the first three “Judas Juda-a-a”, she punches upward to her right then to her left for “Judas”, and then combines these opposing punches into a symmetrical two-fists for “Juda-a-a”. The final “Judas GaGa” ends with a defiant singular fist on the “GaGa”, which brings together the opposing movements, significantly upon the utterance of Gaga’s name. Gaga is thus both named and gestured as the site of reconciliation between oppositions, which enacts a third reconciliation: that of the word (the spiritual) with the world (the flesh, the material).

This synthesis of the word with the world – wor(l)d – ties in with the extensive religious imagery and narrative that the video employs. Unlike mundane objects, religious objects automatically carry with them both a material and a spiritual reality. In essence, the religious object is a kind of oxymoron – spiritual material, esoteric physicality, tangible God. The religious sacraments, too, are defined according to this same paradox: “an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace given unto us.” The video for “Judas” employs the epistemology of the religious object in its narrative, its imagery, its costuming, and even in its formal filmic composition of Gaga. She is repeatedly composed according to the techniques of icon painting, and becomes, in effect, a kind of living icon. Icon painting is itself a spiritual process wherein the artist perceives himself as a vessel through which to channel God’s inspiration, and often fasts and prays for days to ready himself to paint. The noted characteristics of icon painting include two-dimensionality and purposefully unrealistic dimensions (to emphasize that what is visualized is not of our three-dimensional world, but rather of the spiritual otherworld), religious figures drawn with extremely large, almost-disproportional eyes (considered windows into the soul), and colors that are gilded to emphasize a heavenly glow. Often, icons are decorated with jewels and gold, left as offerings by worshipers.

In “Judas,” the headshots of Gaga are composed according to many of these characteristics of the icon.

Like iconic representations, Gaga’s eyes are emphasized, she seemingly glows (illuminated by a background light), her makeup is done in such a way as to flatten out her features and further elongate her nose (again, like noses in icons), and her nails – encrusted with jewels – recall the rich decoration with which worshipers adorn icons. The costume she wears during the scene of the “Judas Kiss” is also, perhaps not coincidentally, highly reminiscent of the blue robe and head covering Mary is often seen wearing in many icons (see the second and third icon, above; thanks to Roland Betancourt for drawing this to my attention).

Thus, Gaga paints herself as an icon in “Judas”; even her creative process is akin to the methodology of the icon painter – inspiration is understood to come from a spiritual source (e.g. God, a muse), and flows forth (in Gaga’s case, more of a vomiting forth). One then honors and worships that which is produced during those moments of spiritual inspiration. Gaga’s visual self-composition as a living icon positions herself as both a corporeal and a spiritual figure, the painting made flesh (or the biblical narrative/word made flesh), a site both literal and metaphorical at once, incorporating into one being traditional oppositions between the sacred and the profane – which are the oxymoronic qualities of all religious objects.

The scene of the Judas kiss brings to a beautiful crescendo both the idea of the double and the notion of corporeal spirituality. Indeed, we can argue that the kiss itself is doubled, split into two. The first kiss involves Gaga, the lipstick gun, and Judas, whereas the second kiss reenacts the biblical scene where Judas kisses Jesus. This doubled kiss frames the interjectory scene where the music pauses (3:44-4:19) and Gaga is seen, her arms outstretched to mimic a cross, with waves crashing into and over her, and also bathing Jesus’ feet (with Judas present as well). In the space between these two kisses, Gaga is both baptized by and sacrificed to the waves.

Baptism and sacrifice are two sides of the same coin, reconciled in the figure of Gaga at this moment. Likewise, the scene in which Gaga washes Jesus’ feet also contains within it a doubling: it recalls both Mary Magdalene’s washing of Jesus’ feet with her hair, as well as Jesus’ washing of his apostles’ feet, (a rite that is still practiced on Holy Thursday when the priest washes the feet of his congregation). When Gaga washes Jesus’ feet, she both embodies the position of Mary Magdalene, and mirrors the position of Jesus washing the feet of his apostles. With Jesus before her, she reflects him, serves as a prophesy for what is to come. As such, during the space of the music’s pause, suspended between the two kisses, Gaga performs a synthesized doubling of baptism/sacrifice, as well as a synthesized doubling of Mary Magdalene/Jesus. The effect is to embody in a single figure what is traditionally at odds: whore with God, material with spiritual, salvation with destruction, feminine with masculine.

The first kiss – composed of the lipstick gun, Judas, and Gaga – makes literal the idea of a killer kiss in the object of a gun that shoots lipstick. It is the kiss of betrayal: Gaga does not want to give it, and collapses after having done so. The second kiss – between Judas and Jesus – is a kiss of forgiveness and acceptance: Jesus smiles slightly as Judas calmly kisses his cheek.

Taken together, these two kisses reconcile betrayal and forgiveness in the same gesture (as Gaga has claimed, “forgiveness and betrayal are hand in hand”), again uniting opposites.

With the Judas Kiss, Jesus is both betrayed and grants forgiveness; Gaga, too, is both forgiven and betrayed. If Judas is also to be considered a sacrificial figure (his betrayal prophesied and necessary for the crucifixion, and thus the resurrection, to come to pass), so Gaga, as the site of synthesis of light and dark, Jesus and Judas, depicts this sacrifice. In the final scene, dressed in a white wedding dress and accessorized with dyed-black hair and painted-black nails, she represents the marriage of light (Jesus) and darkness (Judas) into a unified sacrificial figure – assumedly stoned to death for the sake of forgiveness and resurrection. Mary Magdalene/Gaga is the marriage of Jesus and Judas, light and darkness, into a single sacrificial being.

It is also a stoning prophesied. Look at the final headshot of Gaga, which features another doubling: a crystallized tear on the right side of her face, and a living tear falling from her left eye. The crystallized tear prophesies the living tear that we witness come.

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11 PM, May 6, 2011 - Edited to add:
Re-watching the video after posting this analysis, I noticed something I'd completely overlooked: the first dance during the chorus ("I'm just a holy fool ...") inside the Electric Chapel (between 1:38 and 2:16) is first done by a company of female dancers, and then, with the shot's cut, the dancers switch to a company of all male dancers.

Feminine Dance Company

Masculine Dance Company

The switch between male and female back-up dancers occurs with every cut during this scene – as if enacting a Hegelian thesis and anti-thesis through the composition of opposing masculine and feminine dance companies. Significantly, after the synthesis has occurred (discussed above, upon Gaga's singing of "Judas GaGa") the dance company seen thereafter during the second refrain of the chorus is a blend of all genders. Gaga's synthesis unites opposing genders into one dance company. 

Synthesized-Gendered Dance Company

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The Manifesto of Little Scholars

In a recent episode of the television comedy *Community*, a disgruntled professor, having been challenged by Abed on his reading of the 1984-92 series *Who's the Boss?", exclaimed, "I am not a fan, I am not a groupie; I am an academic!"  This is a sentiment that many of us who study Lady Gaga can relate to and it is a question we must constantly struggle with. We spend time watching YouTube videos, collecting information, and writing articles on our findings in a timely manner. Our work happens in the interstices of other projects, be it Russian literature or Byzantine icons. Our interest is seen as an obsession by most. Our colleagues and advisors suggest we purge such interests from our professional lives so as to be taken seriously -- and in a tight job market this is not to be taken lightly. Our work therefore takes place in the in-betweens: on trains, weekends, vacations, or dissertation-writing breaks.

Our work happens always on the go, researching and collaborating via social media. We must follow @LadyGaga, @formichetti, @ladystarlightny, etc on Twitter for research purposes, and watch YouTube videos on our iPhones. Our discussions necessarily exist somewhere between gossip and scholarship. The cover for Born This Way album is a perfect metaphor for our methods; it exists outside the studio, in the DIY world of photoshop and blogs. Just as Gaga designed the "Judas" record cover on Word and took a picture of it on her Blackberry, we craft our understandings on Facebook and write introductions on our iPhones. Why? Because, pop-culture will never be lowbrow, because we were born this way.

Roland

Sent from my iPhone

* * * 

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Donate to Japan Earthquake Relief with Gaga

LADY GAGA DONATES $1.5 MILLION IN TOTAL TO ZYNGA’S JAPAN EARTHQUAKE RELIEF CAMPAIGN AND THE AMERICAN RED CROSS

Pop Icon Partners with Zynga’s Fundraising Initiative for Save the Children’s Japan Earthquake Tsunami Children in Emergency Fund and The American Red Cross

SAN FRANCISCO – March 28, 2011 – Zynga Inc. today announced that Lady Gaga has donated $1.5 million total, through the sales of her Japan Prayer Bracelets, to Zynga’s fundraising initiative with Save the Children as well as to the American Red Cross to support relief efforts following the devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Today's donation comes on the heels of Zynga players raising more than $2.5 million in the last two weeks for Save the Children’s Japan Earthquake Tsunami Children in Emergency Fund and other causes, bringing the grand total raised to more than $3 million. 

“I’m inspired that my little monsters banded together to help those affected by the terrible tragedy,” said Lady Gaga. “What Zynga’s players have done for the cause is equally inspiring, and I’m thrilled to partner with them to raise money that will go to Save the Children and the American Red Cross.”

Through Zynga games including CityVille, FrontierVille, FarmVille, Words With Friends,Vampire Wars, YoVille and Zynga Poker, more than 250 million players had the opportunity to donate 100 percent of the purchase price of newly created virtual items to the fundraising efforts. Via Credits, Facebook donated money generated through the purchases to support the initiative.

"We've seen our players show tremendous generosity when presented with opportunities to give back," said Mark Pincus, CEO and Founder of Zynga. "We're very happy that Lady Gaga has chosen to donate to our fundraising efforts and hope our players take pride in what they've accomplished."

Lady Gaga is also announcing a contest where she will fly one lucky fan who purchased a Japan Prayer Bracelet to a show on The Monster Ball Tour to meet the superstar. Visit http://www.LadyGaga.com to learn more. Zynga.org is committed to transforming the world through the power of virtual social goods with campaigns in Zynga games. Since its inception in October 2009, hundreds of thousands of players have raised more than $10 million dollars for international nonprofits through Zynga.org. Visit the following link directly to help provide disaster relief and support children affected by the disaster in Japan: http://www.savethechildren.org/japanzynga.

About Zynga Inc.

Zynga Inc. is the world’s largest social game developer with more than 250 million monthly active users playing their games which include FarmVille, FrontierVille, Mafia Wars, Zynga Poker, Café World, Treasure Isle and CityVille. Zynga Inc. games are available on a number of global platforms including Facebook, MySpace, Yahoo, the iPad and iPhone. Through Zynga.org, Zynga players have raised more than $10 million for world social causes. Zynga Inc. is headquartered in San Francisco. For more information, visit www.zynga.com orwww.zynga.org.

About Save the Children

Save the Children is the leading, independent organization that creates lasting change for children in need in the United States and 120 countries around the world. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

About The American Red Cross

The American Red Cross shelters, feeds and provides emotional support to victims of disasters; supplies nearly half of the nation's blood; teaches lifesaving skills; provides international humanitarian aid; and supports military members and their families. The Red Cross is a charitable organization — not a government agency — and depends on volunteers and the generosity of the American public to perform its mission. For more information, please visit www.redcross.org or join our blog at http://blog.redcross.org.

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