Hi! My name is Sheela!

Watching the “Hail to the V” commercials leaves me feeling conflicted.

They are certainly:

• Idiotic and annoying. But hey, what advertising isn’t?
• Considered racist by many people.
• Offensive to all women, everywhere, forever.

Why offensive? Well, their marketing has created and then preyed upon the idea that all women’s vaginal areas are inherently so dirty, stinky, icky and unsanitary that they require special products just to make the natural stench of women tolerable to the general public. One might hope we’d left that kind of misogynistic bullshit advertising back in the Women’s Day magazines of the 1950s, but sadly no. Just last fall, Summer’s Eve published ads for their feminine wash stating that douching is #1 thing every woman should do before asking for a raise. Le Wow.

Not only are these companies unethical for exploiting a fear that they created, their products are actually bad for women’s gynocological and general health. The American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology recommend against douching and using heavily scented chemical products in your vagina and on external genitalia. Using that garbage increases your risks of developing vaginal irritation, vaginitis, pelvic inflammatory disease, ectopic pregnancy, bacterial vaginal infections and certain STDs.

Now these adds are taking their nefarious campaign to the next level. Now they are groveling priests of the Cult of Vag offering gifts to your glorious vagina! It’s not about men or jobs anymore, it’s about what’s best for you. Only a company that advocates such overt worship of all that is the Sacred Feminine could produce a gift worthy of laying on the Alter of Vagina! Right? Except the gift is a toxic smoke bomb that kills everything inside the temple and corrodes the walls.

So why am I conflicted? They’re all bad, right? Well… I feel like I can take away at least one good aspect. In the past most feminine hygiene products were pure vague innuendo, euphemism, and metaphor. Unless you had pre-existing knowledge of the products and their uses you would have no idea what the ads were for. Here are some examples:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ro2mKtw77Sc

www.youtube.com/watch?v=potXaDoFZHQ

www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvD0X-mFk4U

www.youtube.com/watch?v=BR8fyh7QgPM

So I can’t help but think it’s ultimately a good thing that these ads are actually saying the word vagina and even using a quasi-realistic portrayal of a talking vulva. What I wish they would have gone with instead is this covert ad campaign they’ve started online, which I think is much funnier and more assertive. While I still find their marketing to be inherently offensive, I actually like this ad a lot compared to everything that’s come before it.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ss8uUbvprk

That kitty puppet sounds sincere, and I believe he would strongly condemn Summer’s Eve if he knew how bad their products are for vaginas. What do you think?

This is essentially a feminist site, but as its male proprietor, I confess to being utterly out of my depths when it comes to stuff like this new ad campaign for Summer’s Eve.

Hail to the V:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_zJwLZ49zM

And look, they made some for different races!

White:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKvLd_XxFuw

Black:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DcFjbELeW0

Latino:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=szausZLMZuY

Readers (and contributors) please help me out here. Are these sexist, racist, ridiculous or some kind of hitherto unexplored combination?

TOT TRIAL TAKES TOPSY TURN!

Did you hear? Casey Anthony has been found NOT GUILTY of killing her two year-old daughter, Caylee. The internets are aflame with outrage! Nancy Grace‘s head ACTUALLY EXPLODED on TV! Forget the Tea Party, this decision is the real spur to revolution!

I didn’t follow the case closely, but after the verdict, I did a little bit of research into the evidence and arguments. While I understand the jury’s decision, I will cop to being a bit troubled by the fact that our justice system is seemingly content with letting the death of a toddler go unsolved. It just doesn’t sit right on a fundamental human level.

The jury’s decision is fun to parse for a legal nerd like me. But that’s not what I’m really fascinated by. I’m more interested in how the proceedings played out in both the mainstream media and social networks. Recent history is peppered with highly controversial cases — from OJ to MJ to JonBenét — which have provoked strong reactions in observers. But the Casey Anthony trial was different. This isn’t because of the stomach-turning particulars, but rather the confluence of old-school media and user-powered platforms like Facebook and Twitter. It makes you wonder what the Rodney King aftermath might have looked like if it had happened yesterday.

People like to talk about “old” media vs. “new” media, as if one didn’t influence the other. But surely, the nation’s interest in the Anthony case was encouraged by TV pundits like the relentlessly shrill Nancy Grace, a woman who deserves an award for hyperbole. (Note to self: launch the Annual Contrarian Media Hyperbole Awards).

Now I know it is our duty as American citizens to respect the jury system. But I know one thing: as the defense sits by and has their champagne toast after that not-guilty verdict, somewhere out there, the devil is dancing tonight.

Isn’t that something? Such sustained, sensational coverage no doubt contributed to the way people perceived the case. A quick scan of related Twitter hashtags reveals multiple death wishes to Casey Anthony. This isn’t to say that she’s not potentially guilty, but it does hint at how strong emotions can be shaped by mass media reporting.

What might have been an opportunity to examine how our legal system functions instead became a powerful demonstration of mob mentality. One can be skeptical about whether justice was served and still be disturbed at the bloodlust just beneath the surface of our supposedly civil society.

And that bloodlust isn’t limited to the Great Unwashed. Corporate media feeds on it, opportunistically repackaging our obsessions as easy fodder for ratings. This creates a worrisome feedback loop that plays to our basest collective instincts.

I’m not a believer in a “fixed” human nature, but rather a spectrum of potential behaviors that are rooted in any number of factors. These phenomena are not limited to individual expression. As Carl Jung observed of the rising specter of Nazism, groups of people, too, possess a “shadow” personality that is subject to collective agitation. Here is the seed of the so-called “mob mentality” (or “participation mystique,” in Jungian terms). This phenomenon often presents itself as chaotic, but can be harnessed and directed to very destructive ends (as borne out by the Third Reich).

I’m not suggesting that the reaction to Casey Anthony verdict bears any direct relationship to Nazi brownshirts. Yet as the linkages between German propaganda and mass behavior were once poorly understood, much remains unclear about the interaction of traditional and networked media. At the right time and under the right conditions, the combo could produce calamitous results. This is the flipside to the “Twitter revolution” that  tech evangelists point to as driving democratic change in the Middle East. (The fact of the matter is that little actual organizing happens on these networks; most of it is Western echo chamber.)

At the dawn of the Internet Age, many of us overestimated the power the new platforms would have in remaking our media landscape. Certainly, they have upended business models and created an unprecedented environment for individual expression. But they have yet to replace traditional media. This could be due to the relative influence these corporations have over public policy, but I think it also has to do with ingrained consumer behavior and expectation. And by the time that a critical mass of the populace is fully acclimated to the new channels, old media will have figured out a way to control the underlying architecture — through law or corporate collusion. (For those playing along at home, this battle is raging as I type, and is the main reason for my existence in Washington.)

What I’m getting at is this: the continued strength of traditional media, coupled with the unique contours of the social web, creates an entirely new world for information. Like anything, there’s bound to be a good and not-so-good side.

To truly address the feedback loop described above would require a more open and participatory media environment, and not just in the realm of social networks. Whether this is possible or not, given marketplace and political pressures, remains an unanswered question. How that question is answered will determine nothing less than the future of information exchange.

Take that, Nancy Grace.

Our friend Shane of the Government tipped us off to a bit of non-news concerning an intermural rivalry between blowhard extraordinaire Newt Gingrich and Tea Party kahuna Dick “Tip o’ the Shaft” Armey. Their little contretemps is about the Republican budget, or rather which version of ineffective/irresponsible the party should endorse. Gingrich denounced the House plan — aka Ryan’s Folly — as “right-wing social engineering.” Armey responded by calling Newt “confused and conflicted.” Yeah, Dick, but we’re talking about policy, not marital history.

As fascinating as the politics are, I think we’re missing the bigger picture. Namely, how is The Donald — newly liberated from the shackles of his non-candidacy — gonna capitalize on this beef for the greater good profit?

Have no fear, Trumpeteers, we’ve got just the fix.

In these dark times, we need all the entertainment and distraction we can get, and Trump has proven to be an ace purveyor of at least one. That’s why we’re offering The Donald an idea that can leverage both his political influence and his propensity for over-the-top televised events. And we give this gem FREE OF CHARGE in deference to his profound financial conservatism.

————–

LIVE AT TRUMP PLAZA & CASINO

SEPTEMBER 11, 2011

GINGRICH V. ARMEY

“A NEWT TO REMEMBER, A DICK TO FOR THE AGES”

A No-Holds-Barred Battle Royale Between the GOP’s Primo SOBs
Available on Pay-Per-View Exclusively on HBO: Your Ticket to Inanity

————–

Make it happen, Donald!

The show was called “Small Town Gothic,” and it paid tribute to the back story of hauntings — those peculiar and offbeat little tales that give towns their character — rather than the paranormal investigation itself. Within each story, one investigator would play the “believer” while another would act as a skeptical historian. The two would dig deep into community lore, gathering tales of ghosts, monsters and general weirdness that accumulate through a town’s unique history. Using local archives, the tall tales would be separated from facts via historical record and personal remembrances.

We pimped this thing like a ho at 2AM. We made phone calls, got some feedback, had a lot of doors slammed in our faces and received several “thanks-but-no-thanks.” The commercial television market is a tough nut to crack, much more so than the music world (where I lived for many years). Whereas record labels seem interested in hearing what bubbles up from actual scenes (at least superficially), TV is much more self-involved and nepotistic. Production companies would rather rely on insider consultants than consider outside ideas, regardless of how interesting — or marketable — those ideas might be.

While pitching the show to production companies, I was shocked at a clause they all required us to sign which basically stated that they could legally produce the exact show we were pitching because they had the same idea before they met us. Meaning, each time we pitched a show, they could say, “Yeah, we already thought of that. Thanks. Don’t let the door hit you on the ass on your way out.” And then put it into production.

The best feedback we received was “you’ve got something here, but I don’t think that it’s fully developed. Come back to us when you have a polished concept and we can talk.” I took this to mean, “I conceive better television shows on the toilet.”

So we gave up. Why bother? A colossal effort with little to no reward. Yet despite all this, I’ve spent the last year mulling the show over in my head, removing certain parts and altering others. I’ve spent countless hours in the shower (where amazing songs, lyrics and television shows are formulated and ultimately dried off with your towel) re-conceptualizing the show, and I came to a simple conclusion regarding pitching paranormal TV programs:

Fuck it. Fuck it all to Hell.

So anyway, here I am. With a television show I’m all set to pitch, but with no inclination to run around town, call around the country, sign ridiculous documents and all the other crap. Instead, I’m pitching it here, and tagging production companies. This is my show. Starring me and my friends. Production companies: you want it? Email me. You don’t? Go make a show about auctioning storage spaces — there’s four of those on right now, and surely the world needs another.

My show is called “Ghost Skeptic,” and it stars a dashingly handsome, likable and cocky teacher by day who spends his nights investigating supposed haunted locations around the country (world?). It begins with the following monologue:

My name is Chris Parizo. I spent my life studying the tales of ghosts, specters, and haunts. For years, I investigated the paranormal, searching for the unknown and unexplained. I spent hours with the latest equipment in hundreds of haunted locations and have come to one conclusion: ghosts don’t exist. But I want to believe! That’s why I’m offering this challenge. Send me to the most terrifying locations in the world, places where people dare not tread, and let me enter alone. Armed with a “panic button” as my only protection, and with my associate Darrell Hazelrig guarding the perimeter, I will venture into the world’s most dangerous and frightening haunted locales. And I will do it alone. This is “Ghost Skeptic.”

The gist of it should be clear from the opening. Basically, it’s “Small Town Gothic,” but we’ve succumbed to the paranormal investigation stuff. Act I will establish the location’s backstory: its history and the people who nurture the legend. Act II will focus on the archives and records, separating fact from folktale. Act III will be me scared shitless in the dark, doing my best not to press the panic button and alerting Darrell to switch on emergency lights, thereby ending the investigation. All of this will conclude with a wrap-up where I channel my inner Anthony Bourdain with my self-reflective and self-righteous philosophies of the paranormal. There’s another element that I will answer for anyone interested, but right now I’m too busy making fart noises with my mouth to get into it.

You’re frothing already, aren’t you!?!? This is just the greatest television pitch in history, right!?!?! You’ve got a great big boner and it has “Ghost Skeptic” written all over it, don’t you!?!?!?

Meh.

So that’s about it. I think it’s a good idea and it’s definitely something that I would watch. Hell, I’d even buy a t-shirt. Consider this an open call to all production companies: I’m tired of calling and emailing you; now it’s your turn.

And if you’ve already come up with this idea, kiss my ass. Give me executive producer credit and $20,000 so Darrell can get some new editing equipment and we’ll call it even.

One word: propaganda.

This is why we can’t have nice policies. We don’t know how to sell them.

The good news is that the fix is pretty simple. All anyone has to to do to regiment the attitudes of the public is THREE THINGS, CONSISTENTLY. This has been borne out through history, from Ptolemy to John F. Kennedy to George W. Bush. And I’ve identified them, just for you!

1. Make your message resonate emotionally
2. Make it relevant to the individual
3. Make the opposition look tyrannical

That’s pretty easy, right? You’d think so. But the Left has tremendous difficulty applying all three of these principles in concert, and consistently. By contrast, the Right does it 24/7.

One caveat: different countries and global regions have different value sets, almost like cultural DNA. For example, Canada can and does respond to “greater good” arguments, so long as they are participatory. That’s a social democracy! Many in the East are less susceptible to self-interest motivators unless there is implied collective benefit. In America, INDIVIDUALISM IS IT. That’s the operating paradigm in which all effective messaging must occur. If you make your message fit with America’s Ur-folk narrative, then you can even sell collectivist policy. (Sorry libertarians; it’s true.)

Keep in mind that propaganda is outcome-neutral. Like other technologies, it can be used to cure or to kill. So before you start calling me Goebbels, check out this quote from the godfather of American PR, Edward Bernays:

Propaganda becomes vicious and reprehensive only when its authors consciously and deliberately disseminate that which they know to be lies, or when they aim at effects they know to be prejudicial to the common good.

FOX News is prejudicial to the common good. But ultimately, the technique for shaping public opinion is not partisan. It’s just that one side has figured out how to wield this technology, and the other side… not so much. Speaking of technology, consider the digital space. Each time a new tool emerges that can be used for political organization, the Left thinks they’ve just discovered Penicillin. Twitter is a perfect example. Progressives reveled in its ability to deliver 140-character bullets of outrage, never considering that the opposition was figuring out how to use it even more effectively. What do progressives do next? Complain loudly that conservatives have taken it over.

Let’s go back those three principles. I work in media reform (well, partly, anyway), a movement that has been notoriously difficult to message. I think it could be made easier by checking our advocacy against these three principles.

To set an appropriate frame for messaging on media reform, I’d start with FREEDOM (an uniquely American political synonym for individualism):

Freedom is meaningless where its expression is controlled by powerful groups like major media conglomerates. Freedom must be insured. Your God-given rights depend on it.

In the first sentence, I showed you the tyranny of the opposition. In the second — without using the word government or policy — I told you how the goal is accomplished (government and policy!). In the last, I made an emotional appeal to the individual within the context of American cultural tradition.

The next step would be to identify “key persons” and persuade them that it is in THEIR self-interest to broadly disseminate your core message. Church is an excellent place to start. Hell, you might even snag a few powerful figures from those “media conglomerates” if you use proper persuasion. (Here’s where it helps to have authentic and charismatic communicators on hand. They’re basically product pitchmen, but instead of vacuum cleaners or soap, they sell “values.”)

I could go on and on and on about the how’s and where’s of effectively applied propaganda. But the bottom line is that if there is to be a successful and sustainable progressive movement in the United States, it must employ consistently these three principles of communication.

I’m here to help.

Celebrity meltdowns aren’t exactly our bailiwick here at at The Contrarian, but sometimes they’re just too epic to ignore. Case in point: Charlie Sheen‘s recent tirade about magic, poetry, pornstars and “Two and a Half Men” creator Chuck Lorre. It’s like Sheen is channeling Dennis Hopper and Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now (but not his father, which is interesting). Here’s how Hopper’s character in the movie describes Col. Kurtz:

Hey, man, you don’t talk to the Colonel. You listen to him. The man’s enlarged my mind. He’s a poet warrior in the classic sense. I mean sometimes he’ll… uh… well, you’ll say “hello” to him, right? And he’ll just walk right by you. He won’t even notice you. And suddenly he’ll grab you, and he’ll throw you in a corner, and he’ll say, “Do you know that ‘if’ is the middle word in life? If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you, if you can trust yourself when all men doubt you”… I mean I’m… no, I can’t… I’m a little man, I’m a little man, he’s… he’s a great man! I should have been a pair of ragged claws scuttling across floors of silent seas…

And here’s some highlights from Sheen’s on-air rant, courtesy The Daily Fix:

• Charlie said he doesn’t care if his show gets canceled because, “I’ll go make movies with superstars and not work with idiots.”
• He called Alcoholics Anonymous a “cult” and a “bunch of losers” who are “brainwashing his family.” “[AA] is vintage, it’s outdated, it’s stupid and it’s worshiped by stupid people and it is their fault,” he continued. “Step up and change it, change it right now. Look your father in the eye and say, ‘You’re wrong, I’m different I’m better, watch me, watch me bury you.’” Charlie added, “I have a disease? Bullshit! I cured it … with my mind.”
• On his harem of pornstars: “Let me just say this about the goddesses. I don’t think the term is good enough. But when you’re bound by these terrestrial descriptions you must use the best choice available”
• On his recent state of mind: “I’m sorry, man, but I’ve got magic. I’ve got poetry in my fingertips. Most of the time – and this includes naps – I’m an F-18, bro. And I will destroy you in the air. I will deploy my ordinance to the ground.”
• Thomas Jefferson was a pussy (not actually in the video below, but he said it out of the blue in the full interview)

Let’s go to tape, shall we?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4Iz0p0E_RY

Those of you familiar with Chuck Lorre know that he’s fond of inserting “vanity cards” at the end of his shows. If we’re talking poetry, these missives are it. Here’s his latest, which is surely about Sheen:

To Do List

Re-calibrate the line behind fiction and reality

Meditate using new mantra, “high ratings do not equate to high self-esteem”

Go to Al-Anon meeting

Stand in front of a mirror and practice saying “no comment”

Stand in front of a mirror and practice saying “as far as I know everything’s terrific”

Write a country song entitled, “Hooker in the Closet.” (Chorus: “There’s a hooker in the closet, ‘neath the monogrammed robes, don’t know how she got there and I can’t find my clothes. Officer Krupke, how are you tonight? I’ve misplaced my watch but I’m feeling alright.”) Donate royalties to womens’ shelter

Quit the business and teach creative writing at Cal State Bakersfield. Fresno?

Bite the hand that feeds you because you’ve had more than enough to eat

Hire a publicist to put a positive spin on this vanity card.

I’ve never seen an episode of “Two and a Half Men,” but I can’t wait to watch how this plays out. In the meantime, what happens to Ducky?

Seconds after the Canadian critical darlings scored their Album of the Year Award for The Suburbs, the indignant masses took to Twitter, revealing the fact that a large percentage of viewers had never heard of them. Take that, Egypt! America demands Grammy satisfaction!

Forget for the moment that Arcade Fire was lauded in TIME four years ago; never mind the planetary fawning over their 2004 debut (I was the lone professional dissenter) — this win was clearly suspicious.

Check out Who Is Arcade Fire, which aggregates the outrage. Here’s a lovely example from Tawny Kitaen, the 1980s vixen best known for writhing on sportscars in that Whitesnake video:

OK, I’m not THAT old but whos Arcade Fire? & worse who the hell thinks their good? Did I just lose all my followers? Cuz they sucked, sorry.

What are these people gonna do when the Decemberists win next year?

Although it is amusing that anyone sees the Grammys as a bellwether of musical culture (or even record sales), the controversy underscores a broader trend in American life — namely, the emotionally unsettling effects of cultural fragmentation. And this phenomenon cannot be separated from contemporary politics.

The reason for this fragmentation is due to the saturation of information channels. No longer does commercial radio — or the Grammys, for that matter — shape the tastes of the masses. We’ve got a million outlets, and there’s an ass for every seat. This can be very discomfiting to the herd mentality.

Many Americans, still sucking on the Big Media teet, view this fracturing as suspicious, if not dangerous. It’s as if NPR and the Kenyan in the White House are conspiring to make culture something they just can’t comprehend. In actuality, Obama is more conservative than Nixon, and Arcade Fire closer to Bruce Springsteen than G.G. Allin (Google him.)

But that doesn’t matter. America’s heebie-jeebies are being played out on both the political and pop culture stages.

It ain’t about age. It ain’t about who’s “hip.” It’s about whether the tenuous fabric that connects us as a culture can be maintained in an environment where people ONLY get their news from FOX or MSNBC; where either you listen to Black Eyed Peas or Drake; whether you’re a birther or a rational human being.

Maybe it’s because Arcade Fire are Canadian. They do have single-payer healthcare and all. Not going broke due to medical expenses is socialist! Interestingly, Justin Bieber — who many people think was robbed of his rightful award — recently called America “evil” for our lack of a full-coverage medical system.

I wonder if we can make the Culture Wars part of our defense spending? Maybe build a virtual border wall between us and our neighbors to the north? That’ll create some jobs, right?

Baby sees the future, tells me it’s got nothing for us… Nostra… Nostradamus — sung to the tune of Lady GaGa’s “Paparazzi.”

Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, aka Lady GaGa, hasn’t been in the public eye for very long, but given the hype, you could be excused for thinking that it’s been just shy of forever. Credit where due: it’s no small feat to direct the attention of today’s attention-deficient masses and sustain it for more than the length of a tweet. Yet it seems the grains in GaGa’s hourglass have finally begun falling, and we all know what that means: time is fleeting for the new Queen of Pop.

I’m not so bold as to call GaGa’s back-to-back appearances on “60 Minutes” and the Grammys a shark-jump, but it may be where her fame clock officially began ticking. For someone who claims dominion over the apparatus of fame itself, both events made a conspicuously feeble impression. Not among her fans — those already under her spell remain so. But if you are not a GaGa devotee (I believe she calls them “monsters”), you likely regarded Ms. Germanotta’s Old Media blitz as the definition of meh. Not even worth being annoyed/disturbed/fascinated/repelled by.

Probably not even worth a blog post.

In fact, the reason that I’m even bothering with this exercise is because I have an obsession with epoch-setting calendar events, however minor. So, I’m calling this one for the record: February 13, 2011 marks the official beginning of GaGa’s decline.

Since we’re here, let’s examine why. Admittedly, nobody under the age of 35 watches “60 Minutes,” so GaGa’s aimless interview with Anderson Cooper will have had a negligible impact on her core demographic. Actually, I’m willing to bet the venerable program was the true beneficiary, as GaGa’s most obsessive fans temporarily bolstered the number of viewers who tune in to witness Andy Rooney‘s burgeoning dementia. (Forgive me, Morley Safer, for I have sinned…)

On “60 Minutes,” GaGa came across like a distracted grad school gal sweating her final thesis. With regards to her peacockery and calculated weirdness, I believe this Lady doth protest too much. GaGa did everything she could to impress upon Cooper that she fully understands each symbol that informs her meticulously crafted persona. This is the wrong move for someone who trades in the techno-cryptic. We don’t need you to tell us that you know why we’re enraptured. It kind of ruins it.

GaGa keeps explaining that she’s a “student of fame.” Nice work if you can get it, but forgive those of us who have witnessed several historic superstar permutations for expecting a little more. It’s not that GaGa is drawing incorrect conclusions from her studies. It’s just that, unlike true alchemists of adoration, she adds no new ingredients to the stew. Everything GaGa does, says, or reflects is a pale reflection of her forbears’ more innovative expression.

Surely it is difficult to be original in a fractured culture saturated with corporate and brand symbols. But to be regarded as an artist of lasting stature, one at least has to try. GaGa’s schtick can be boiled down to Madonna and David Bowie, with a dash of Freddie Mercury and Elton John. Maybe some Cher, with her penchant for pantslessness and warbly singing. If only pastiche were a substitute for genius!

Back in Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust phase, he tapped into a similar longing for acceptance that animates GaGa’s fans. Bowie took the idea of alienation and turned it into an Alien Nation — a clan of disaffected youth who reveled in their estrangement by exaggerating it through gaudy makeup and “tacky things.” What Bowie did was hardly subtle, but at least he had the good sense not to fucking tell us what he was doing. He respected his audience more than that. In fact, he respected his audience so much that he dragged a portion of them kicking and screaming through his metamorphosis into the Thin White Duke. But that’s a tale for another time.

What’s GaGa’s next act? Does she even have one? Judging from her musical output, probably not.

Speaking of her music, it’s hardly worth mentioning at this point that her new single, “Born this Way” is a melodic and rhythmic clone of Madonna’s “Express Yourself.” Not that The Material Girl seems to care. The aging succubus will surely find a way to suck some extra lifeforce out of her sycophantic understudy.

GaGa’s performance at the 2011 Grammys was, despite the requisite costumery and dancers, surprisingly bereft of spectacle. My favorite part was the beginning, when she hatched out of some kind of space egg, a la Mork from Ork or Spinal Tap in “Rock ‘n’ Roll Creation.”

Seriously:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vbi5Zegp55o

And here’s Lady GaGa:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Jxm_NMwEdo

Many of us who can afford to eat more than once a day are any combination of bored, distracted or overwhelmed. We require escapism, and for some, GaGa delivers. Better still, she does so in a way that champions a vague sense of self-empowerment (Madonna) and commiseration with fellow outcasts (Bowie). But can that sustain a career? On some essential level, Madonna possesses the raw material of which lasting art is made (I can’t believe I just said that). Bowie, for his part, is an ace showman/manipulator. He’s also a fabulous musician who had to grow into that role. Yes, Bowie, too, struggled to transcend his influences — Velvet Underground, Dylan, Bolan, Iggy. But he eventually did so, and triumphantly.

Can GaGa do the same? Clock’s ticking.