Is Pop Porn?

Lady Gaga’s unique combination of outlandish fashion and catchy pop tunes has secured her reputation as one of the most popular artists of our generation; her videos have racked up over one billion online views, and she is the first to reach this milestone. Inevitably, such popularity translates into criticism. Psychologist Dr Linda Papadopoulos told Grazia magazine that music videos featuring women in revealing clothing, such as Lady Gaga’s, should be banned before the watershed because they expose young people to ‘hypersexualised images’  that tell them they have to look ‘sexy and hot.’

There is so much wrong with this clichéd assertion that I don’t know where to begin, so I shall start with the most glaringly obvious:  the 'hypersexualised images' that Papadopoulos bemoans are so over the top, that not even the most impressionable young girl would consider fashioning a bra and panties out of crime scene tape for her school’s next mufti day.  If the conservative complainers spent their time supervising their children instead of wasting it by decrying the 5 seconds of a Lady Gaga video they have actually seen to anyone willing to listen, then perhaps they would have less to complain about.

Illustration by Abigail Lander

But, what is most infuriating about this article is the hideous hypocrisy that it demonstrates. Firstly, if Dr Papadopoulos is so concerned about the declining moral standards in our modern society, then why does she appear so frequently as a talking head on Big Brother? A programme filled with swearing, nudity and general nutcases is surely no more of a good example for the youth of today than Lady Gaga gyrating on television screens. And, if Grazia magazine is angered by the fact that young girls believe they must look ‘hot’ because of the influence of the media, then why is their magazine peppered with the offending adjective?

The media need to make up their minds; magazines that profess the value of inner beauty only to turn around and throw dieting tips in their readers’ chubby faces are far more damaging to the development of young people than Lady Gaga’s sexually provocative music videos. If anything, Gaga herself is a force for good. If you overlook the bare flesh that she sometimes flaunts, Gaga promotes a message of self-confidence; she herself is hardly a conventional beauty, and those penis rumours that have dogged her since the early days of her fame were probably not easy to handle. But, Lady Gaga doesn’t worry what people think of her when she walks around covered from head to toe in Kermit the Frog heads; young girls would do better to emulate those levels of confidence rather than embracing the image-obsessed culture propagated by fashion magazines, which leaves those who don’t conform to the widely-accepted feminine ideal standing in the shadows.

The prudish people who object to Lady Gaga’s ‘hypersexualised’ image need a reality check: there is not even any real nudity in her videos. Singling the music industry out as morally reprehensible is simply pathetic; the argument that it objectifies women holds no water in our technologically advanced society, where millions of far more titillating images are a mere mouse click away. Lady Gaga’s fan base largely comprises gay men and teenage girls, so if the so-called skimpy costumes are a marketing ploy, they have missed their target anyway.

Is pop porn? No, porn is porn. And if Daily Mail reading fuddy-duddies can’t see that, then perhaps they should all be made to watch The World’s Biggest Gangbang in order  to gain some perspective.