My take on Lady Gaga's "Judas"

 

 Lady Gaga - Judas (from her LadyGagaVEVO page on Youtube)

She did it again, didn't she? First the meat dress, then the slightly controversial (I don't really know why it's controversial in the first place) lyrics of Born This Way and now her latest single and its promotional video - Judas is causing an uproar in the Catholic community. But again, what's new right? The churches are always opinionated, no?

Well first of all, I think that this song is perfectly fine! I mean, I love it! It's like an evolved version of "Bad Romance" meets with a more poetic and deeper lyrics - though the lyrics are part of the reason why this song is so controversial in the first place.

In case you don't really know your "history", Judas is known as the disciple who betrayed Jesus. Well, you can spot him in the photo below if you squint your eyes a little bit~

The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci - Taken from Wikipedia (because it's so convenient!)

Hmmmm... A bit fail but if you squint a little bit, you can see this hand from the person counting from the left. One, two, three and hand with a knife. That's popularly known as Judas. You'll see me using "popularly" a lot because I'm basing my opinions on what others had established - not new discoveries. Yeap~ That's the person Lady Gaga's singing about.

BUT! Well, this is where my opinion comes in. If you watched the Da Vinci code or read the book, you know that this mural by the legendary artist/architect/mathematician/musician/the-list-goes-on (now seriously, who in the modern age can claim so many titles for themselves?) and so, Judas is not really seen in this painting, other than his hand and the knife - symbol of betrayal. Judas was theorized to be behind everyone else - i.e. not drawn.

Then that begs the question - isn't there supposed to be 12 people along with Jesus during this significant moment? There are 12 people in this painting, no doubt, but if Judas' hidden at the back, then who's the extra person at the table? Seated beside Jesus, as many theorists had argued, is believed to be Mary Magdalene. Well, I don't know but that the theorists and Dan Brown believed so for the sake of argument, let's assume that the person is Mary Magdalene.

I said for the sake of argument!! So don't shoot down my argument first~

Why did I bring up this painting and mentioned the 2 characters? Well, that's because in the promotional video of the song, Judas and Mary Magdalene were featured and yes, Gaga is Magdalene.

Now no wonder that angered so many people... Now you see why they are angry?

Quoting Bill Donahue, the President of The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, this is what he thinks about the video/song...

"She is trying to rip off Christian idolatry to shore up her talentless, mundane and boring performances. Another ex-Catholic whose head is turned around... Is this the only way to jet up her performance? This isn't random, we are getting closer to Holy Week and Easter."

Wow~ Angry man! Well personally, why has he got to be so mean? If he is unhappy, then should just be gracious and say "Look. I disagree with what Gaga is doing because she is using my religion in an inappropriate way" but why scoop down to the level of calling Gaga "talentless, mundane and boring"?

For the record, Gaga ranks 4th on The World's Most Powerful Celebrity scale (source: Forbes.com) and I don't see how someone who is "talentless" can chart herself up so high, kicking the butts like Tiger Woods (now why is he up there?) and poor Britney Spears and Madonna (I still love y'all!).

As for the ripping of Christian idolatry... She is just using it as a metaphor to express her views on certain matter, no? At least she isn't changing history or something or challenging the truth like what the Da Vinci Code is speculated to do, right? Sometimes, I feel that modern artistes are getting a tougher time in terms of making something legendary or creative.



As a design student - or used to be design student - or going to be design student again in university - whatever - I feel that such restrictions and unhelpful criticisms form boundaries in terms of creativity. If you were told not to do this, not to do that, even though you have a brilliant idea, then where will you express your creativity and opinions?

True - sometimes, things get a little out of hand and gets labeled as "controversial" but at least it challenges what traditional people are thinking about and sheds a different light on matters, no? Isn't that what creativity is about - to challenge the existing to make people think? To express your views, feelings and opinion in a healthy way as opposed to going on a rampage and starting wars around the world?

If the terrorists were more well-behaved and channeled their negativity through music and arts, maybe the world would be such a better place... There's more than one way to skin a cat, if you get the meaning.




So here, Miss Gaga is using Judas as a metaphor of depicting probably a past love which is unhealthy to her but even so, she clings onto it. It's almost like you know that eating too much chocolate will make you fat but "you're still in love with chocolate, baby~". You get what I mean? Anyway, Gaga said that... 

"This video is not meant to be an attack on religion. It's not meant to be an attack on anyone's beliefs. I respect and love everybody's beliefs. My fans know that about me. I consider myself a strong and devoted Catholic, and a religious and spiritual person who's obsessed with religious art."

I believe you, Mother Monster! See~ She is just honestly making an attempt to be different, to be groundbreaking and apparently, I think she did it, again!



As an intelligent and modern audience, like you and me (unless you still want to label Lady Gaga as a devil, fine), we should be more open minded than resort to calling people worthless or anything just because they did something you disagreed with. You may not like it - fine. But what good will it do if you just go around airing your negative energy? Nothing will change - masterpieces will still be masterpieces whether you like it or not.

We should give these artistes the freedom of expression and encourage them - not to call them the devil's reincarnate and all sorts of funny and uninteresting names to hurt their creative energy. The world is boring without these people who break new grounds to bring us better form of entertainment so don't be killing my muses. You won't want people to walk around the streets looking like zombies with no life now, would you?

"I'm just a Holy fool, oh baby he's so cruel 

 but I'm still in love with Judas baby"

I meant the song. :) Can't wait for the album!

Sources, references and interesting reads
(because it's good to give credit to people's hard work)

MTV's interview with Gaga and director on promotional video
http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1663450/lady-gaga-judas.jhtml

Gaga's Views on the controversial

http://jezebel.com/5799284/lady-gaga-reveals-the-only-controversial-thing-about-judas-video

Gaga blasted by critics over the song

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/showbiz/music/3565300/Lady-GaGa-blasted-by-critics-over-controversial-Judas-music-video.html

"Judas" upsetting the religious groups

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/lady-gagas-judas-upsets-religious-179188

Forbes - The World's Most Powerful Celebrities

http://www.forbes.com/2010/06/22/lady-gaga-oprah-winfrey-business-entertainment-celeb-100-10_land.html