New Eggspectations

Pop culture’s new Empress of Eccentricity has topped herself again,but it is no longer shocking. With every public appearance — whether it’s a performance,a shopping spree or a visit to the gym — we expect the singer to do something over-the-top and she lives up to the reputation. The music is incidental. That’s what advertising professional Ankita Thapliyal thinks. “I’m not really into music,but I love Lady Gaga. She always ensures entertainment; of course,her music is funky but,mostly,we all love to watch her perform,” she says,adding that she rushed home on Monday evening to catch the prime-time re-run of the Grammy Awards ceremony.

Indians are enamoured of the cultural phenomenon called Lady Gaga. “I think she’s highly original in the way she thinks about her image,” says graphic designer Maya Shah,“she’s crazy like rockstars once used to be. She doesn’t care what anyone thinks of her.”

Emerging from an egg— the act was created by British-Turkish designer Hussein Chalaya—the provocative songstress sang her new single,Born This Way,from her second studio album which will release sometime this year. The performance was a promotional tool designed to grab eyeballs and it did that; just like every other move she’s made since she shot to the top of European dance charts with Just Dance.

Gaga’s craziness,which is channeled through her style — she wears leather and studs and shredded stockings and doesn’t care that she meets royalty in a red latex dress.

She’s dared to customise a classic Hermes Birkin bag with studs and got Armani Prive to design clothes for a Dali-esque nightmare. But she still manages to land a Vogue US cover and that,writer Avni Patel thinks,is because Gaga dares to subvert fashion norms. Each one of her outlandish costumes seems to have some thought behind it. “She’s really challenging the norms of what a woman should look like. She’s not at all attractive in the way she dresses up,she’s too provocative,bares too much flesh and isn’t afraid of talking about her sexuality. She’s encouraging women to accept themselves for who they are and not try and fit into any mould,” says Patel.

Some see it as gimmickry. Architect Arun Patkar says he enjoys Lady Gaga’s music but not her ‘persona’. “To me,it all seems too contrived. I think she has immense vocal abilities,but,to stand out,she created this whole new person who wears crazy costumes and is always trying too hard to look different,” he says. Writer Ravi Kamath is equally censorious. “Madonna was also outrageous in the 1980s. But I think it is too early to call Lady Gaga this generation’s Madonna. So far,I don’t see a point to her stunts. Arriving in an egg at an awards ceremony will,of course,get you headlines and that is exactly what she wanted.”

Her public persona—and the fact that she’s always Lady Gaga and never Stefanie Germanotta—is the subject of furious debate on both sides of the Atlantic. Is she commenting on animal rights when she wears a meat dress to the MTV Video Music Awards? Is she making a statement about female sexuality by wearing a flame-shooting bra to the Glastonbury Festival,or a chastity belt when she’s out shopping in Milan? Are her masks merely designed to hide the lack of genuine talent? Questions,but ones that cheerfully engage everyone.