Not intentional, but a good conversation starter

In a recent May 12 interview with popular British music magazine NME, musical artist M.I.A. finally broke the silence surrounding her controversial new “Born Free” music video. The video, which depicts the systematic rounding up and execution of a group of red-haired adolescents, has been a subject of debate since its release April 26. Some cite the video as explicit and gratuitous in its violence, while others champion it as an artistic expression of anti-genocide sentiment. M.I.A., for her part, did little to clarify her take on the video either way, using the interview instead as a jumping-off point for celebrity gossip-related humor.

Although relatively unimportant in itself, the shots taken in that interview by M.I.A. were largely reminiscent of her comments in the April 7 issue of the same magazine. In that interview, M.I.A. lashed out unprovoked against Lady Gaga. She claimed that Gaga was “not progressive, but…a good mimic” in an apparent attempt to dismiss the popular notion that Gaga is trying to reinvent, or at least reinterpret, Madonna. M.I.A. also noted Gaga’s largely commercial appeal as a negative aspect of her persona, suggesting it necessary to her success.

Not everyone, however, agrees entirely with M.I.A.’s ideas, and Duke’s fastidiously pro-Gaga campus is no exception. In fact, it seems as though her conclusions here actually serve as little more than a starting point for conversation on the subject.

Paula Rosine Long, Trinity ’09 and a 2010 Gates Cambridge scholar, claims M.I.A. and Gaga as two of her top three favorite musical artists, and takes issue with a number of the former’s allegations.

First of all, Long acknowledges Gaga’s mass commercialism, but considers it in a different light than M.I.A. does.

“Who is in charge?” Long asked me when I sought her opinion on the subject via e-mail. “Is the commercial/media world appropriating this weird girl for its own ends, or is she using that world to bring her weirdness to the masses?”

It’s certainly a difficult question to resolve from any perspective, and its answer most likely lies somewhere between the two poles: Gaga, on the one hand, embracing a consumerist branding in return for the dissemination of her image, and the industry on the other, promoting her eccentricity in exchange for returns on its investment. Or maybe it’s less of an either/or and more of a both/and, with the two possibilities being entirely valid, symbiotically coexistent and mutually inexclusive. Either way, Long’s reading presents a set of variable multiplicities that contrast sharply with M.I.A.’s single, damning assessment.

In terms of the Gaga-Madonna corollary, neither “progressive” nor “mimic” are entirely apt characterizations of Gaga according to Long; she opts instead for “homage,” explaining that Gaga “combines all these references”—to Madonna, Bowie, and Kubrick in her videos—“into a collage that is ultimately HER work of art (or that of her team).” For Long, then, her works are more of a modern reference point against early influences than a rip-off of the past, and it’s the specific combinations of those references that give them a unique presence in contemporary society.

Katherine Buse, a rising Trinity senior, recognizes as well Gaga’s “pop-ified reworking of everything from science fiction to Madonna to 1970’s gay culture” and adds her own tint to the amalgamation. Buse suggests, in a 2009 paper written for English professor Tom Ferraro’s Bravura in American Writing class, that such a consistent and wide-reaching channeling of everything under the sun is to a certain extent self-aware, and that its obvious excess becomes its purpose. To Buse, Gaga and her catalog are representative of our time: excessive, insatiable and out of control. If that’s the case, then most of M.I.A.’s comments about Lady Gaga couldn’t be more true, even if it would be unintentionally so. As far as that whole spat goes, though, Buse attributes it to nothing more than attention-seeking on the part of M.I.A.

M.I.A., then, seems to be missing the point. This isn’t necessarily shocking; after all, in that same April 7th NME interview she complains of Gaga’s “Telephone” video that, “Dude, she even plugs a burger!” mistaking the obvious Tarantino reference for the pure vapidity of a one-dimensional dollar-grab. Whether or not M.I.A. intended to touch so keenly on the aforementioned red herrings, however, is also kind of beside the point she may or may not be missing: in the end the inaccuracy of her charges pales next to the diverse conversation they inspire, giving all of us something to talk about for a little while. As for her, she’s a part of the something about which we’re all talking and, as we all know, the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.