Lady Gaga and Post feminism

Introduction

Lady Gaga has been a powerful force in recent popular culture, often challenging the position of women in the music industry and images of female sexuality. She draws on longstanding feminist arguments to call out the double standard placed on female performers who are expected to be sexual but only up to a certain point, while male rock stars are given free license to being complex sexual agents. And she's right - the sexual double standard continues to constrain both female pop stars and women alike. (Browne, 226)

Lady Gaga and Post feminism

Lady Gaga's sexual rhetoric appears progressive and refreshing, Gaga's stance on feminism itself raises questions about the nature of empowerment that she promotes. While adopting the language of feminism and acknowledging the inequality women continue to face in popular culture, Gaga's insistence that she is not a feminist is worthy of discussion. Media scholars Angela McRobbie and Rosalind Gill call these contradictory gender politics indicative of a "postfeminist" media culture, where feminism is acknowledged, yet dismissed as unnecessary to today's young women. Empowerment then becomes more about a stylized performance, often through the display of sexy clothing coupled with the language of feminism, rather than actual social change. (Browne, 226) Is Lady Gaga then the quintessential postfeminist star? Lady Gaga benefits from feminism, which has arguably opened doors for her to become a successful businesswoman, and has allowed her to play with ideas of gender and queerness in her performances. But while Gaga offers up the image of a supposedly liberated woman, few of Lady Gaga's markers of empowerment really challenge the status quo, such as normative beauty standards.

He anticipated highlight of the show was - depressingly enough - a reheated argument. Before the MTV Video Music awards this year, all the talk was of whether pop princess Taylor Swift would address the debacle of 2009, when Kanye West barged on stage, interrupted her acceptance speech, and suggested Beyoncé should have won her award. Would Swift refer to this lightly in song?

And then, there she was. Lady Gaga, the big winner of the night, striding on stage in a dress made of meat. Or what looked like meat. Either way, there was the impression of sinews, fat, of oozing, bloody discharge. The outfit shouldn't have been a surprise. Just last week the singer was pictured on the cover of Japanese Vogue, dressed in a meat bikini. But what raises a mere eyebrow at a photoshoot can raise the roof, blood pressure and an avalanche of questions when worn in public. What did the meat dress mean? Was it a comment on the treatment of women in the music industry? Was it another of Gaga's death references? Did it reflect the boundaries of the body - representing Gaga's own flesh, turned inside out and extending beyond all expected limitations? Was it a comment on mutability? Or was it just an outfit worn to grab the maximum share of the world's attention? (Hiatt, 43)

In an interview ...