Judas — A music video by Lady Gaga
by Nouha Abu-Ghazaleh
The Lady Gaga phenomenon extends itself into many categories of popular culture, which all intersect with each other, and usually, equally serve as a juxtaposition of its elements.
The music video demonstrates the artist’s ability to merge her works with multiple aspects of popular culture. The contentious nature of the song and its visuals strongly demonstrate the intersection of the main elements of popular culture that are continuously in conflict: religion, sexuality, and narcissism (Iddon).
“Judas” is the most theological song Gaga has ever released, surpassing her other songs with religious and theological nuances such as “Paparazzi”, “Bloody Mary”, and others. Having been labeled as both blasphemous, as well as a masterpiece, the song as well as its music video demonstrate the clashes between the facets that exist at the intersection of Religion and Popular Culture (Roberts).
Many of Gaga’s works include religious symbolism, and typically cause controversy amongst Catholic and Christian groups. Her song “Judas’, with its heavily nuanced religious references in its lyrics, as well as its controversial music video, sparked outrage when it was released only days before Easter of that year (2011).
Catholic League President Bill Donohue told HollywoodLife.com “She is trying to rip off Christian idolatry to shore up her talentless, mundane and boring performances. Maybe if she had more talent we’d be more offended. She has gone to the well too many times” (Everett.)
The opening scene of the “Judas” music video, which can be seen above, depicts a group of seemingly identical people riding on motorcycles. All members of the group are wearing identical jackets, following the motorcycle at the very front, which Gaga is riding on the back of as Judas (her love interest) drives. This scene depicts a form of implicit religion as the motorcycle riders are all conditioned to be the same way and are following a group leader. The video then goes on to depict a blend of sexuality, narcissism, wealth, deviance and of course, religion.
Gaga makes explicit as well as implicit references to Judas and to the bible in the lyrics and music video of her song. A very clear juxtaposition can be seen as she discusses the bible as well as sexuality, which are commonly two very conflicting aspects of popular culture.
Gaga has reached a level of mastery in demonstrating multiple aspects of popular culture through her music and her works, giving her an advantage over other artists in popular culture. She achieved this by merging her medium with different symbolic messages, which are in this case, religious symbols, in order to create one whole product (Gellel). In the music video, Gaga falls in love with a black religious figure. This further examines Gaga’s ability to portray the intersectionality of popular culture with religion, race, as well as sexuality through her catchy and widely popular music.
The producer and consumer of popular music are closely related to each other. Both personal and community issues are explored and depicted through music. A small portion of popular music directly tackles or discusses religious symbols, yet popular culture remains a language where “spiritual and meaning making discourse is inevitable” (Gellel.)
Above is a photograph of Gaga dressed as a rather sexualized nun in 2011. Gaga, who had previously attended the MTV awards in a dress made of raw meat, was no stranger to fashion critique and backlash. Once again, the 9 time grammy winner enraged people of the catholic faith. “Lady Gaga tries to continue to shock Catholics and Christians in general: she dresses as a nun … she swallows the rosary. She has now morphed into a caricature of herself,” said Bill Donohue (Everett.)
It can be seen in the photo above that “Judas” was not the only song with religious references. This photo was taken from a scene in Lady Gaga’s music video for her 2009 hit song “Alejandro.” The big red cross on her arm is a reference to the christian faith and she seems to be dressed as a religious figure. Along with the religious attire Gaga is wearing in this photograph, the rest of the scenes in the video depict Gaga as extremely sexualized. She is wearing much more revealing outfits and she is surrounded by other semi-nude bodies. As a result of the backlash which the video received from catholic groups, the director of the video, Steven Klein, responded by stating that “The religious symbolism is not meant to denote anything negative, but represents the character’s battle between the dark forces of this world and the spiritual salvation of the Soul,” he said. “Thus at the end of the film, she chooses to be a nun, and the reason her mouth and eyes disappear is because she is withdrawing her senses from the world of evil and going inward towards prayer and contemplation” (Volsky.)
Overall, Lady Gaga is able to create content in which she experiments with her multiple identities, and some may say she has reached a level of mastery by doing so. Although her juxtaposition of different popular and cultural elements received some negative reviews from the media and from various religious groups, she is nonetheless one of the most influential and successful women in the history of popular music.
Works Cited
(Iddon, Martin. Lady Gaga and Popular Music: Performing Gender, Fashion, and Culture. Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2017)
(Roberts, Stephen B. Beyond the Classic: Lady Gaga and Theology in the Wild Public Sphere. 2 June 2017)
(Gellel, Adrian-Mario. “Gellel, A. M. (2013). Popular Music as a Resource for the Religious Education Classroom: A Study through Lady Gaga’s “Judas.” 2013.)
(Everett, Cristina. “Lady Gaga’s ‘Judas’ Song and Music Video Deemed Blasphemous, Sparks Outrage from Catholic League.” Nydailynews.com, New York Daily News, 13 Jan. 2019.)
(Volsky, Igor. “Catholic League On Lady Gaga’s ‘Alejandro’ Video: Gaga Should Treat Christians ‘Like Muslims’.” ThinkProgress, 9 June 2010.)
