Half, And Yet Whole: The Ins Of Jo Calderone

[lady_tavington]

Comments

[shiro01]

I think you have some valid points (although I think you take it a little too literally), I think Lady Gaga has some unusual means of expressing herself, and I think some of this is just a ploy (by Gaga) to garner attention. No one draws attention to herself quite like Lady Gaga.

[lady_tavington]

You're right about that - she does garner a lot of attention. But I don't think she does any of it deliberately as a cry for attention, but of course she knows she gets attention, and what kind of pretentious person would she have to be to turn that attention away, right? I don't think anyone would act or dress or sell their work the way she does and then go, "No, stop, don't pay attention to me, go away." That would just be stupid. She wants the attention enough to know that it can sell her work. Certainly though, it's been an evolution. "Lady Gaga" was created in the clubs she used to play in with her partner Lady Starlight, and she was already kind of Bowie-esque at that point, and it wasn't until she became really famous that she took on more, as you rightly call it, unusual means to sell her work, so you would be partly right in saying that some of it is a ploy for attention

[shiro01]

The celebrity conundrum isn't new and some people handle it poorly - ie. Kristen Stewart. Then again some handle it quite well. Jo Calderon almost seems narcissitic to some extent; a shout out that she's so famous she needs to create another version of herself to find some sort of mental peace. I don't know, it doesn't really seem as sincere as it should.

[lady_tavington]

Well, you could argue that, and you would have basis for that, because Jo would be the 3rd or 4th character she's created within the Born This Way era alone, so that argument actually holds some water. I think it's really more to do with who sees it in what way, and because it's all perception, there's really no right or wrong answer. Personally, I see Jo as another lesson, or another statement in her mission to teach her Little Monsters to love themselves, and she's doing it in a that walk-the-talk kind of way. But at the same time, your perception of Jo being a manifestation of her narcissism would also be right, and for pretty much the same argument.