by Rose Calder

Created on: July 22, 2010

When Lady Gaga released her latest music video, Alejandro, she had to have known it was going to cause waves.  The juxtaposition of homosexuality and religion alone - two things that go about as well together as methane gas and fire - is enough to make anyone clutch the pearls upon the first viewing.  It's definitely controversial in its depictions, but is it blasphemous?  I would have to say "no".

 During the video's nearly nine-minute running time, Lady Gaga carries a bejeweled Sacred Heart on a pillow, wears a crimson latex nun's habit, changes into a latex cloak bearing upside-down crosses (with matching hot pants, no less) and engages at one point in swallowing a rosary whole.  The appropriation of these symbols of the church could simply be considered heretical in and of themselves, but the fact that these instances are either interspersed or happening directly in conjunction with the depictions of homosexuality - a practice the Catholic Church roundly does not approve of - just ratchets the shock value up to eleven.  But is it blasphemous?

As any dictionary will show you, for something to be blasphemous it must be irreverent towards religious beliefs, customs, holy personages or religious artifacts.  By that token, one could easily denounce Lady Gaga as a blasphemer, but to do so would be overly simplistic.  Things are not as cut and dry as that.

First of all, the video makes no secret of the fact that it was heavily inspired by Bob Fosse's take on the 1960s musical, Cabaret; the stylized choreography, the costuming, even the setting (World War II-era Europe) all let that cat out of the bag within the first few seconds.  However, instead of the video being set somewhere removed from the ugliness of Nazi Germany, the video instead plunges headlong into the concentration camps, as evidenced by the symbolic costuming/props being held/worn by the dancers during the first dance sequence; the Star of David and inverted triangle, badges forced to be worn by Jewish and homosexual inmates of the camps.

As an outspoken advocate for gay rights, it comes as no surprise that Lady Gaga's video focuses mainly upon the repression of homosexuality by the government.  By setting the video in fascist Germany, Lady Gaga and director Steven Klein were able to play with Nazi imagery in both historically-correct manner as well as using it to draw allusions towards the modern-day treatment of homosexuals. 

So why the inclusion of the Catholic Church in the video?  Because homosexuals and Jews were not the only groups being attacked by the Nazi Party; nuns and priests were, too.  

In Nazi-occupied Europe, thousands of members of the Catholic clergy - both men and women - were imprisoned and/or murdered.  By Lady Gaga portraying a nun being guarded by an armed man or dressed as martyr and being attacked by a group of men, she is not only adding a layer of historical texture to the video but is actually calling the Catholic Church out for its doctrine of intolerance towards homosexuality by reminding it of what it once suffered at the hands of oppression and hate, albeit in a far more dramatic fashion.  

As Lady Gaga has often said, art is about provoking a strong response; as to whether that response is positive or negative is up to the viewer.  In that respect, her video for Alejandro definitely qualifies as art and not blasphemy.   At best, you could charge her with impiety, but as far as I'm concerned, the only thing offensive about that video were those hideously severe bowl cuts the male dancers had.  Seriously; those were just wrong.

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