Full audio of this issue? Buddha 4: Taylor Swift vs Lady Gaga
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Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga can be regarded as the peerless twins of pop queens: the two debuted at almost the same period and became popular during the same period, but looking back at the growth trajectory of the two, it can be said that the reverse is complete:
Taylor Swift was a good girl when she debuted, and then she began to become more and more aggressive at a speed visible to the naked eye. From the time she debuted, Lady Gaga has been particularly blatant and aggressive, but as she grows up, Instead, she became more and more restrained and showed the calm temperament of an "old artist", so Chinese fans have called her "Bieguyi".
Common point 1: Singer-songwriter, write your own story
Impressive creations are (almost) based on their own real experience, because only true feelings can make people relate. Just as Lady Gaga said in her music documentary "5 foot 2": "Making music is like doing surgery. You have to explore your heart, and even get your heart out. Every time it’s a heart-wrenching experience. The pain."-The courage of singer-songwriters to show their wounds and hard-hearted experiences, and the talent of using their own wounds as the soil to inspire others, contains something more sincere than pop music.
So when they asked me to sing Paparazzi sexy on VMA, I had to bleed to death while singing, because I want you to remember how fame hurt Marilyn Monroe, who was Norma Jane, and Anna. Nicole Smith, and... do you know anyone else? …This paragraph is not allowed to be cut into the movie.
It can be seen that Gaga has different interpretations of "fame". The whole album of "The Fame" is discussing "fame", seeming to eulogize money, material, and luxurious life, and enjoy fame, but in fact she is insincere. There is even more infinite irony-and all of this is the pain of being squeezed most personally felt by Gaga while gaining fame and fortune.
Taylor's creation is also sincere, but her inspiration comes from her own emotional experience, which is the "write ex-boyfriend into the song" that everyone likes to ridicule. I believe many people have seen very detailed information in the process of eating melons. Popular science, I won't list them all here. I personally had some negative thoughts about Taylor because of her various scandals-the general public opinion is like this. Before I really thought it through, the impression of "mold" was already negative. .
After the "Kanye Incident" broke out, Taylor experienced a particularly serious network hack; chatting with friends that day, and was asked how he felt about mold, I blurted out: "There are a lot of ex-boyfriends." After this sentence, everyone laughed together, but I was particularly embarrassed and even ashamed in my own laughter, because after I said that sentence, a voice immediately appeared in my heart questioning myself: What happened to my ex-boyfriend? ?
When I saw Taylor’s dating photos and news headlines in the past, I thought that she had many ex-boyfriends, but after I actually lived in the United States for a while, I realized that this is actually part of American culture: it’s a good thing for a man. Good impression, when two people go on a date, this man can only be called date; after dating two or three times (or more) with date, if both parties want to establish a relationship, then they can be called "boyfriends"-American dating Culture actually has a customary and clear definition of these titles and identities, and those gossip newspapers just put Taylor’s dating under the spotlight, and exaggerated and stigmatized it—because I’m telling the truth, I’m dating too. After more than ten or twenty men, it's really no big deal.
Taylor is burdened with the joy, loss, and sadness of emotional relationships. On top of this, she also has to bear the pressure of public opinion brought by these emotional relationships. Under such feelings, she created songs such as "shake it off" and "reputation". , It is obviously the inspiration brought by the latter kind of emotional pressure. In fact, looking at Taylor's various albums and various songs, we can clearly see her growth trajectory, and we who have been able to relate to her are actually growing up with Taylor.
Common point 2: Equality at the pinnacle of popularity icon
Taylor Swift said in his documentary "Miss Americana" that female artists re-invent themselves more times than male artists, otherwise they will lose the audience. A male artist can sing a song for a lifetime, and there will still be people who will listen to and praise them for their loyalty, but if it is a female artist, it will inevitably be "tired" and have to wear the shackles of an "old woman".
As a fan of Taylor, I have gradually become aware of Taylor's anger as my feminist thinking has matured in recent years. In "Miss America", a very ordinary speech by Taylor made my neck numb and left tears. She said:
.... (I always) try to eliminate the misogyny in my mind, there is no slut, no bitch, no bossy in this world-I'm sorry I'm a little disappointed-God, why should I say sorry!
This paragraph is completely normal in my heart! I also often "fight" with myself in my thinking: many times I know that I will be disappointed when I suddenly become serious, but in fact most of the time I suddenly become serious because I am caught by those jokes that sound "funny" The offend is here; I will feel sorry for being offend, but at the same time I feel even more offend and angry because I need to apologize for being offend. Just as Taylor said in "Miss America": We (women) have been trained and learned to apologize (We are trained to say sorry).
However, Taylor has a big change in the past few years, that is, people can clearly see that she "figures", she began to care about how others look at her and evaluate her, she began to stop being noisy The voice changes oneself, so that oneself becomes "lovable". Taylor blurted out the lyrics when discussing the lyrics of "The Man" with the producer: what's like to brab about raking in dollars, and getting bitches and models... Then she said:
This is fun cuz that's how they call you. They called us all these.
When I saw this sentence, I remembered for a second the sentence Alan said in " East Palace West Palace ": I can be a fairy or a female prisoner-in fact, these are essentially the same as "slut shaming" because of you. Whether you are a slut, whether you are a fairy, whether you are a female prisoner, the right to decide/speak is not in you—what you (female) are, it is the patriarchal consciousness that has the final say, and it has nothing to do with what you are.
Taylor has reached the pinnacle of popular music, and she has begun to feel the oppression brought by more and more "misogynistic" from this society, so she becomes a feminist, and it is an inevitable result that she has a voice for women. The same thing happened to Gaga, but Gaga also suffered from another deeper pressure and pain-that is, Gaga is a survivor of sexual assault.
The shadow of being sexually assaulted will never completely leave any survivor. The so-called survivor is someone who has to live for a long time with the result of being "injured." When she first debuted, Gaga didn't want music producers to treat her as a vase, so whenever the upper management asked her to be more sexy, she would add some weird elements to this sexy look.
If they want me to show off sexy, like a pop idol, I add some grotesque style to me so that I feel like I still have control.
I originally thought that the paradoxical styles of Gaga in the early days were for the attention of others. After watching the documentary edited for her by fans of "Five Feet Two Inches", I suddenly realized that Gaga, who was distorted in her early posture, was using this kind of uniqueness. The way is to vent her dissatisfaction to the pop music industry and express her resistance. This is so cool!
It is precisely because of this that when Gaga became more and more famous and possessed more and more autonomy, she chose to "return to basics" because she had more say and control in the appearance, and she no longer It is necessary to fight the commercialization of music in this weird and tortuous way; she is getting stronger and stronger, so she is becoming more and more free. After 10 years of debut, Gaga finally regained the right to fully express the ideas she wanted to express.
At the 2016 Oscars site, Gaga invited many survivors of sexual assault like her to stand on stage and sing "Till it happens to you"; under the spotlight, the survivors held each other's hands tightly, giving each other strength and symbolizing So they just want to live uprightly, because they shouldn't and can't be shamed!
"Till it happens to you" is an episode of the documentary "The Hunting Ground". This documentary tells about the rape of female college students on American campuses, but due to the school or national interests, the perpetrator cannot be brought to justice Tragic social reality. In a melody that is not too intense (compared to Gaga's other songs), Gaga's knuckles are knocking on the piano with his clearly defined hands, and his voice condenses with suppressed anger, and instead sings more powerfully:
Till it happens to you, you don't know how it feels. Till it happens to you, you won't know; it won't be real. (Unless it happens to you, you don't know how it feels. Feeling; unless it also happens to you, you won’t understand how real this pain is)
Common point 3: From singer to political and human rights activist
Many people actually have some resistance to celebrities’ participation in politics, believing that celebrities are abusing their influence, and many people hold outdated ideas like “how can an actor arbitrarily discuss state affairs”...
Taylor was born in Tennessee, a typical white state, and her image has always been a blonde American sweetheart. Many fans are willing to associate her with Trump, calling her "Miss America", and some even lust for her and her. Trump got married and had children; and country singers have always had a tradition of not expressing their political views clearly, so when Taylor clearly stood up against the Tennessee Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn, it actually took courage: because when you express your own one This tendency will inevitably lose fans who have all other tendencies.
As in the past, I want to continue to vote for political women, but I cannot support Blackburn. Her voting record in Congress shocked me. She voted against women’s equal pay for equal work, and against the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act that tries to protect women from domestic violence, stalking, and date rape. She believes that companies have the right to refuse to provide services to gay couples and that they should not have the right to marry. . This is incompatible with my Tennessee values... Please choose the candidate closest to your values when voting for your state.
Later, Taylor and the fans' efforts failed, and Marsha Blackburn finally won. So Taylor was frustrated and helpless, and created "the young", using singing to continue to encourage young people to join politics and "fight" for their own values. :,
Only the young can run; only the young should run.
Recently, because of Trump’s silly remarks and the chaos in the United States under his rule, Taylor once again advertised this "lowest US president" on Twitter at the midterm election stall: We will vote you out in November. Lose!
Contrary to Taylor, Gaga was a "resistor" from the beginning, from her rebellious image when she debuted, to her "born this way" written for the LGBT community, and "Till it happens to you" for survivors of sexual assault. "...Many fans of Gaga talked about the reasons why they liked Gaga, and they answered straightforwardly: Gaga saved my life.
In fact, Gaga is not so much speaking for sexual minorities as she is speaking for various minority groups that are not accepted by society. Her fans are called monsters, because many people—including Gaga—are really monsters in the (old) concept of this society: gays, transgenders, transgenders, bullied people, people who suffer People with mental illness, depression...
And Gaga’s voice for these minorities is not to appear as a weak image like Zhang Huimei’s "Rainbow". Gaga’s singing is almost a horn of charge in the hearts of minorities that are not accepted by the society. They have to shout loudly. Rush up to tear up the social norms that shackle the real human nature.
There's nothing wrong with loving who you are,"She said, "'Cause he made you perfect, babe" So hold your head up girl and you'll go far, listen to me when I say: I'm beautiful in my way , cause God makes no mistakes. I'm on the right track, baby I was born this way.
I often admire the artists in European and American countries who have political inclination that can stand up and shout for themselves, while the artists in our country are afraid to shun this political criterion. There must be many institutional and cultural factors, but what makes me even more angry and at a loss is the recent emergence of fans on the Internet that force stars to come out and participate in political squadrons. Fans (not even fans in many cases) will urge the stars to express their views on an event (mostly political events at the national level) under the star's Weibo. If they do not express their views, they will be regarded as "unpatriotic", which is undoubtedly even more suffocating. .
I appreciate that European and American stars make political statements according to their own wishes, but it does not mean that I "request" all stars to make statements-and in many cases, these statements only refer to standing in line according to the wishes of fans. Maybe before the domestic political and speech environment really opens up, we can only watch the icons of European and American countries burst into tears...
Full audio of this issue? Buddha 4: Taylor Swift vs Lady Gaga
Welcome everyone to search [Buddha 4] on Podcasts/Litchi/Small Universe to follow us~
View more about Gaga: Five Foot Two reviews
