“Applause” Series Recap

Gaga Pierrot: Something of a Devoted Jester
By Roland Betancourt

The first sustained analysis on the Pierrot imagery Gaga employs for the “Applause” cover art, and how this relates to her Manifesto of Little Monsters and its “devoted jester.”

CODA: Lady Gaga is Over
By Roland Betancourt

Roland analyzes Lady Gaga’s filming of her lyric video for “Applause,” where she films drag queens performing her. He also analyzes the new Haus video “Lady Gaga is Over” in relation to the queer art of failure.

A Pop Music Emergency: From Pallor to Applause
By Laurence Ross and Meghan Vicks

What happens when Lady Gaga declares a pop music emergency? (What is a pop music emergency, anyway?) The jester Gaga-Pierrot steps in, saying: You dismissed me as a joke again and again; now I’ve come to save you precisely as the joke you dismissed. How Gaga employs the trope of the fool in its various manifestations (e.g. Shakespearian, Holy Fool, Pierrot) in “Applause.”

Iconography in Motion: In Preparation for the Chromatomachy
By Roland Betancourt

On the connection between the “Applause” cover art and David Bowie.

The Chromatomachy: Demeter’s Salvation of Persephone, and other Chromatic Myths

By Roland Betancourt

Roland is the first to point out the similarities between “Applause” and Disney’s Fantasia and The Little Mermaid. He also analyzes the battle of colors – the chromatomachy – present in the video, as well as the video’s nods to Greek mythology and the work of Koons.

Gaga Apotheosis

By Edmund McCaffray

On the intersection of the “Applause” video and the “Marry the Night” video. Gaga wearing her own shadow. Gaga as Persephone.

THE SINGER AND THE SPECTACLE: Applause for Lady Gaga

By Devin O’Neill

Lady Gaga just clearly wants your attention…

“Transforming as Magic”: on Gaga’s GMA appearance and official video release for “Applause” (a partially ekphrastic set of working notes)

By Sarah Cook

On watching the launch of “Applause” on Good Morning America. Notes on the jester, failure, and the meaning of the mirrored eye.

Dance, Dance, Dance, With My Hands, Hands, Hands: Gaga-Pierrot, Repetition, and the Total Artwork in “Applause”

By Ayah Rifai

Musicologist Ayah Rifai analyzes how the music of “Applause” performs in sound the figure Pierrot, and how Gaga, once again, creates a “total artwork.”