> And, God, is she ugly. I mean Janis Joplin was no beauty, but she was
> full of life and lust and unforgivable music. "Ball and Chain" still
> gives me goosebumps.
> Gaga is ugly from every possible direction.
Well, she's "ugly" in the way that attractive white women are sometimes permitted to be ugly; but isn't that itself, if only in a limited way, kind of interesting? She's a hugely popular pop musician at the same time as she presents a really quite grotesque performance.
This is also somewhere where I think she's clearly different from Madonna; while they share an interest in fashion and an unapologetic presentation of female sexuality, for Madonna these were always celebrated in a fairly uncomplicated way as means of women's empowerment, whereas Gaga is much more ambivalent.
--
"I had never understood why Socialism need imply the arraying
of oneself in a green curtain or a terra-cotta rug, or the
cultivation of flowing locks, blue shirts, and a peculiar cut
of clothes." -- Isabel Meredith, _A Girl Among the Anarchists_ Voyou Desoeuvre <http://blog.voyou.org/>