And now, the official video premiere of “Telephone” by Lady Gaga, featuring Beyonce.
Things I loved:
The concept. Pulp Fiction meets Faster, Pussycat! Kill Kill! Half Grindhouse, half glamour…and it’s all guts and glitter in the end. How is this not a Quentin Tarantino production?
The Miss Mann cameo. Did you catch it? The second jail guard? It’s Miss Mann from Scary Movie! Which tucks away nicely into the next moment I loved…
The penis puns. “I told you she didn’t have a dick.” She’s taken a lot of shit in the press for her big dick, so why not have a little fun slapping it in our faces now and then?
The Beysus-to-Godga Honeybun snack munch. So cute, so fierce, etc. etc.
The Poison TV concoction sequence. A deadly serious Gagz takes a quick turn as an ice cold Paula Deen gone-terribly-wrong. Coupled with the peen punches, it’s nice to remember that ‘art’ doesn’t always have to be serious business.
Literally everything Beyonce did. The .gif Gods were truly smiling upon us tonight. How immense were those repeat-heavy shots of Beyonce manically wielding that telephone? Amazing.
The flowing outfits at the end of the video. Thelma and Louise take a stab at haute couture.
Things I didn’t love:
The gratuitous girl-on-girl kiss on the prison yard. It felt forced and, as Hard Candy Music‘s Matt pointed out to me in our conversation, felt like Gaga was merely going for a ‘Banned on MTV’ video with that move. A smart move, though contrived.
The product placement. I know it must be done sometimes–that’s how these big budget productions get funded. But really, spending screen time on the home page of a dating website? There’s a thin line between tongue-in-cheek sponsorship and a full-length pop up ad.
In summation: The video is basically perfection.
With each boundary breaking video she’s released, Gaga continues to one-up herself as an entertainer in every way possible. There is literally no artist in the industry that is more powerful, influential or entertaining than Lady Gaga at this point in time.
There’s just no use arguing anymore…
Lady Gaga truly is the next Madonna, isn’t she?