Product Placement

A few posts ago I reviewed Lady Gaga's newest video "Telephone," staring herself and Beyonce. At first I was fairly surprised at the overt lesbian motif of the video, as most people probably were, but I recently re watched the video to attempt to see if there as anything I might have missed the first time I watched it. Of course, there was. Upon re watching the video, massive product placement becomes obvious and while it doesn't detract from the message of the video, it does put it in new light. There were eight products that I was able to find, and there could have been more, I thought the eight main ones would be more than enough. Throughout the video Virgin Mobile appeared twice, Diet Coke and Channel once, Miracle Whip and Wonder Bread once, Coors Light once, Chevrolet three times and Polaroid three times. While it might be a stretch to use Coors Light and Chevrolet because they were mostly in passing, the others were very direct and obvious. In terms of Virgin Mobile, they clearly sponsored the video because whenever a character used a cell phone, Virgin Mobile was clearly displayed on the screen, as was when pictures were being taken with a Polaroid camera, a Polaroid vending machine was clearly marked and placed outside the diner. The wonder Bread and Miracle Whip were probably (I hope) not product placement, I would hope they were used to call attention to the roles of women and mothers in society whose only jobs are to feed their kids and make sandwiches, but with the track record of the video, one can only speculate. The Chanel specifically is hopefully a reference to the high fashion she so commonly espouses, but as with Miracle Whip and Wonder Bread, it is hard to determine what's been placed and what hasn't. Lastly, the Diet Coke is covertly included in her costume while shes in prison and are being used as rollers in her hair. Whether that was intentional or not, it is unclear but the cans could be clearly distinguished as Diet Coke.

What does this all mean for Lady Gaga? While she is trying to get across a very important message, women's roles in society and in relationships, is she undermining her credibility and the credibility of her message by blatantly including products from companies that have paid her a large sums of money? In my opinion, no. Its no different from an athlete or an actor being paid to be a spokesmen for a product or appear in advertisements for that product. They are still free to say what they believe, no they get paid to do it. Good for her.

Celibacy?

Lady Gaga is best known for her wild onstage costumes and chart topping singles, but recently has made headlines for something else; her celibacy. In a culture where our celebrities are expected to produce a sex tape or engage in other "extra curricular" activities in order to remain relevant, she is doing the opposite. As her previous behavior has demonstrated, taking societies norms and turning them upside down is her specialty. In the past, her actions had immediate benefits to further her career, if nothing more than to gain notoriety. One the surface this one seems different, the only person who it applies to her, and her justification (she doesn't have the time to get to know anybody) is good. However, on a cynical level, this opens up a huge new demographic of a fan base. People that were previously turned away from her music because of her outfits or her outspoken nature might give her a second chance because of they share the same sentiments on celibacy. By doing this, she doesn't risk losing fans, nobody is going to stop listening to her music because they want her to be sexually active, but she will gain fans because this is such a huge issue for so many people. In the end, Lady Gaga has proved that she is the consummate celebrity, and a very astute self promoter.

Telephone

After watching Lady Gaga and Beyonce Knowles in their music video "Telephone," I couldn't help but notice some the similarities between her video, and the video "Like a Prayer," by Madonna. Both women have something to say about the current state of affairs, Madonna commenting on racial injustice and Lady Gaga commenting on women's roles. Lady Gaga, like Madonna before her used shock value and startling imagery to hammer her point home. Where Madonna used burning crosses, Gaga used a women's prison and next to naked female back up dancers, rat poison and the "Pussy Wagon" from Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill I and II. At this point, the shock value with Gaga is to be expected, it's what she has built her career off of, so to see it in this video was not surprising. What worked the best was that she used the shock value in a satirical way, going so over the top that one couldn't help but notice that gender roles she his highlighting. Once thing that did bother me was the add placement. Periodically she would pull out her cell phone, and would clearly flash the screen so her network carrier, Virgin Mobile was visible. This was obviously intentional, so my question is whether is product placement, or shes making a comment about something else. Below is the link to the explicit version of the music video, enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQ95z6ywcBY