Posted by Photo Boy
Let me start by saying that I was raised Catholic. If you are a regular reader then you know that obviously this is how I got this gig. That being said, even I can’t figure out what the hell is going on in this thing. But the non-present guilt over my lapse in faith can be slightly assuaged by Catholic League president Bill Donahue’s statement:
In her “Judas” video, Lady Gaga plays fast and loose with Catholic iconography, and generates several untoward statements, but she typically dances on the line without going over it. Perhaps that is because the video is a mess. Incoherent, it leaves the viewer more perplexed than moved. The faux-baptismal scene is a curious inclusion, as is her apparent fondness for the Jesus character. But if anyone thinks the Catholic League is going to go ballistic over Lady Gaga’s latest contribution, they haven’t a clue about what really constitutes anti-Catholicism.
According to Gaga’s recounting of the betrayal of Jesus a.k.a ‘Spanish’ from Old School, some type of apostle biker gang led by Judas (played wonderfully by Norman Reedus who nailed it) goes to a weird dance club where Mary Magdalene (played by Gaga who if you ask me phoned it in a little) dances around and serves people canned beer in a hot tub. Don’t get me wrong, Sunday School lessons were boring, but even a story this outrageous wouldn’t have made it any better. Maybe if they would have handed out those gold pistols that have a dog dick sticking out of them. On second though, maybe this is sounding familiar…
The Superficial is in Vacation Mode this week. Normal posting resumes Monday, May 9.
Catholic League president Bill Donahue missed the most important point in his critique of Lady Gaga’s new video. That being that he actually WATCHED a Lady Gaga video. I’m not going to point any fingers…but I wouldn’t be dropping the kids off for sunday school with this guy.
awesome read. unfortunately one of my first thoughts was it looking like a “dog dick” as well, hah. she should really stop trying so hard she keeps trying to get excommunicated by the catholic church so she can be more like madonna. pathetic really.
btw, i didn’t mean to reply to your comment.
no you replied to MFS’s comment because it would put yours at the top of the page. It’s really a service for us because obviously everybody should give a huge fuck about your commentary and it would be shame for it to be buried at the bottom.
Right Richard, because it’s not like every person around here is a blowhard fuck with nothing else better to do than toss their worthless opinion around on a gossip blog about shit they apparently hate.
Be less of a biased twat and you’ll see his commentary was just as asinine and ridiculous (not to mention ignorant as fuck) as “MFS”. Get the cock out of your ass, kid.
Agreed. Sometimes, I’ll read a comment and then absent mindedly post my own thought under it when I should have scrolled down. Even if he was posting under it intentionally, no big deal. Not sure why the vitriol Richard ??
It’s not about asinine, ridiculous, ass cocking, blowharding, twat biasing. It’s about replying unrelated to the first post because you don’t want your asinine and ridulous commentary to get lost at the bottom and then apologizing for it.
bianca – why the vitriol? Why not? internet commentary is my outlet for rage that would likely result in me killing commuters on the way home. which by the way i’m off work now and should be heading home. thanks.
This is a really, really funny thread. Richard is definitely a poster-child for pharmaceuticals abuse.
And I posted here because I felt like it.
No greater irony that the Catholic Church calling something “incoherent”.
It’s the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. Not the Catholic Church. Not that it still doesn’t make them great big hypocrites.
I’m not religious, and was definitely never Catholic, but I really do not understand the controversy. That fucking song shouldn’t be derided for being controversial. It should be panned for being a fucking HORRIBLE pop song. It makes no sense. Washing Judas’ feet? WTF?
I guess it’s supposed to be like Mary washing Jesus’ feet? I balk at some of the more blasphemous things she says and does, but I don’t think she means it to be offensive. Really, she just throws around Christian imagery arbitrarily at this point.
All the ugly people.
Where do they all come from?
WIN
they all came from a welfare office- right after they left the Social Security office where they applied for disability income. Judas looked like clawed his way right out of a ratty trailer park. The video made me want to shower- repeatedly. She should be called Lady Gag…she looks like a walking STD. Buying one of her CD’s prob gives you a year prescription of Valtrex.
Nope, got her album on amazon. received no meds. am now feeling ripped off. (although, contrary to my initial fear, she did have some good songs. born this way was not one of them.)
I’m starting to think that Lady Gaga is just Madonna in costume. Seriously – have we seen them together?!
Saturday Night Live.
Yup. SNL.
Madonna was more articulate.
And like for reals – black Jesus is way more shocking than Hispanic Jesus. Except it’s been like thirty years and people don’t give a fuck about shit like this anymore. UGH PLEASE SOMEONE KILL HER.
Madonna already had a black Jesus in Like A Prayer. Not new.
I like the part where she got stoned.
And so this mindless trash is what the modern entertainment “industry” offers the gobbling masses of “consumers”/brainwashes retards?
We sure have fallen since the Classical music times.
You think things have really changed so drastically much? There were always celebrity composers, with big egoes, who knew all the right people and were able to make their work immortal because of their access to connections and money. Cultural power will always be about money. It’s easy to think that things were simpler and purer in the past, but in reality, the human race has yet to really change.
Old man who complains about this generation while reminiscing about a time where things were “so much better”. Are you fucking kidding me? Get out of here with that cliched shit.
btw my response wasn’t to you Edie.
Hey, Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring allegedly caused a riot at its premier in Paris. there will always be music that’s edgy in its time.
The song sucks. All the high dollar production values in Hollywood can’t polish up that turd of a tune.
What. the. FUCK.
On the one hand, you’ve got the savior, the chosen one, the son of God. But on the other hand, you have the rebel, the betrayer. Isn’t this video a treatise on human nature? We are presented with salvation, but still, there is something to that snake with the apple that we find so intriguing that we just want that one bite, until that one bite possesses our soul and opens a world of desire and possibility, but also of danger and uncertainty. I’m totally fucking kidding. This video is completely moronic dance fodder for pre-teen slumber parties and masturbatory material for unwitting young boys with parental blocks on all the thriving porn sites.
Great post.
HA! best post here
I don’t think Gaga’s going to like that approach by the Catholic league.
she’s about as edgy as a sack of wet mice….
when she gives me her interpretation of the life of the profit Mohammad,,,
gimme a call.
When you learn how to spell “prophet”, give me one.
blow me grammar cop
* Spelling cop. Grammar has nothing to do with your inability to spell simple words :)
The MOST offensive thing about this video is Jesus’ cornrows.
Also, did the Mexican guy get cast because his name is already Jesus? Because… um…. I would love that.
THIS made me cackle. I totally agree Mandi.
Translation of the Catholic League’s press release:
“If you really want to be all edgy and offensive like Madonna, go watch the ‘Like a Prayer’ video again. Now THAT’S how anti-Catholicism is done. This ‘Judas’…well, this is just crap for crap’s sake.”
your exactly right
Ewwww…….the shrimp hands from Beetle Juice!
Boondock Saints ftw! I love that guy!
I’m glad they’re not attacking it-that’s what Lady Gaga wanted after all. The Catholic Church should also just keep ignoring her-that would really piss her off. She tries so hard to be controversial, but it just backfired and now all she has is another terrible song with a hilariously awful music at the cost $10 million!
Wait . . . So you are rooting for the Catholic Church? See, when two dumb fuck agents, in this case Gaga and the Church, have a little spat I usually just like to see the hilarious mess that ensues – I don’t actually care which one is left standing. Plus, I find it hard to root for an institution that systematically tortures little kids. Which is why I don’t like Gaga either. I made the mistake of watching the Bad Romance video and my vision still hasn’t fully recovered.
Ha. Noooo, not rooting for the Church at all. I just revel in the fact she spent millions trying to piss them off & it backfired in her miserable, untalented face that’s all. It’s a small victory of her crimes against my ears and sight.
The Catholic Church doesn’t need Lady Gaga to be brought down, that’s what all the molested boys, financial scandals and pregnant teens with rosary tattoos are here for.
CRAP!
So John Leguizamo is Jesus or something?
THANK you!
Way to burn…uh…the apostles I guess?
I know you are subbing in, and you are making a valiant effort. However, seeing syntax errors on this blog is rare. It’s “If you are a regular reader THEN you know” not THAN. Come on man don’t be hurting Fish’s rep!
Uhh, Fish totally makes errors, and is unapologetic about it because WHO THE FUCK CARES.
Ditto. Fish makes plenty of syntax errors. Especially when he starts a sentence with “granted” and then doesn’t include a “but” to introduce the counterposing argument:
“Granted, [the royal wedding] doesn’t have the same pizazz as bombing brown people who worship a strange, yet still Abrahamic god, the British do read a lot and have socialized medicine.”
BUT the British do read a lot, etc. And Fish does this EVERY time, so he obviously thinks this is the correct form.
I go to all this trouble to say, I’m a bigger grammar cop than you, Scott, and still I’m not going to get fussy enough about a then/than error to post a comment about it.
Madonna 2.0
Madonna 0.5
I would find that edgy too. She would actually gain a life long fan…
well, allah and gaga rhymes, im sure she could maek that work before someone “theo van gogh’d” her.
Six months, tops, before Gaga is starring in a Broadway musical about Cristina Kirchner, the first elected female president of Argentina.
While I’m no Catholic Church Fanboy it is worth distinguishing between Bill Donahue who is a fucking batshit loony (he spends his time worrying about Joan Osborn…Google it) and the church itself which is just loony and WAY too into roleplaying games with little boys.
Let’s be fair and separate the pedophiles from the publicity whores please.
oh wow..I feel so bad for the guy who had to have lady gaga hanging all over him.
Wow how freakin original, mocking the catholic church. I mean Holy shit shes really going out on a limb. No one has ever and I mean ever taken on the catholic church like this before. Bravo Gaga bravo!
Just more tired pretentious weirdness from ‘Lady’ Gag Gag the rip off artist. Nobody’s offended by her “controversial” statements because they aren’t controversial, just cliched. She’s following every page in the 30-year-old playbook, and in a fair world Madonna would’ve sued her already for intellectual property theft. Oh well.
Derrick Rose is everywhere these days.
Haha! I thought that maybe I was the only one who saw the resemblance.
I don’t get what’s with her and religion. A few comments in a magazine, a video.. that makes sense. But it’s like all she talks about and all her videos/performances are trying to be “anti religion”. Why? I’m atheist, but even I think this is overboard. It’s not even contraversial, it’s just boring and repetitive. Why not devote some of her engery to something else? My guess: she is lazy and religion is the easiest thing to “push the envelope” with.
That’s a really common problem with entertainment these days. A lot of it ridicules religion and right-wingers (which was probably funny the first time around), but it’s all the same jokes. And in lady gaga’s case, it borders on the obsessive. You’d think she’d be a little bit more creative since , you know, she considers herself an “artist”.
She is trying to be “hip”. This tune misses the mark by miles. It’s just regurgitated pop bullshit with a crown of thorns added in for good measure. If you listen to that song. It isn’t controversial. It is just a bad, re-manufactured pop tune with incoherent lyrics. This has been going on for what, twenty-five years now? The cool part is that people are starting to get it, and, in turn, get turned off by it.
It’s not like she actually comes up with this stuff herself.
Imagine that, someone using “Lady Gaga”,”incoherent” and “mess” all in the same statement. They could have covered the whole subject of Lady Gaga’s works with those four words and an “an”…..”Lady Gaga, an incoherent mess!”
But if anyone thinks Lady Gaga is trying to be coherent, then they haven’t a clue about what really constitutes Lady Gaga.
Saw her live, bitch was insane. Bangin’ ass too.
One fatal motorcycle accident too few.
So retarded I couldn’t make it through the first minute.
Good lord eat a brownie. Eat three.
Is getting diet coke poured on your ass really that exciting? I mean I know it’d be all wet and sticky… but in all the worst ways.
red rocket red rocket!!!!
Oh look, its Adam Ant
so the last single was like “express yourself” and this one is like “like a prayer”, what’s next “papa don’t preach”?
I’m 27, which makes me way too old to understand this on a “deeper” level (oddly enough, at 12 I still couldn’t understand N*SYNC and Backstreet Boys’ success either, so maybe my ears are just broken), but do the kiddos watch this and think “Wow, AWESOME!” or do they laugh, like I do? This is a legitimate question. Do people actually think she’s cool, or are we keeping her around because she’s something to talk about?
Making a video with heavy christian iconography? Is she going to copy EVERY page form the Madonna playbook or what?
i think i’ve heard this song before – didn’t they used to call it “Bad Romance”?
I think I speak for everyone when I say “UM….WHAT”. What the hell is this crap ? Honestly her first 2 singles from her new album suck more than anything that has ever sucked before. I went to her monsterball and liked her previous albums. This new crap is, well, crap. Friggin weirdo.
oh, lets get religious controversial like Madonna’s “like a prayer”. Gaga you’re a facsimile! Who dat? A fucking copycat!!!
Nice to see Elaine Benes is still getting work as a choreographer.
Trying too hard.
Who gives a fuck aboout Madonna? Nobody would have mentioned her name in the last 2 years…
all of gaga’s videos are strange…have you seen alejandro? i had nightmares after watching born this way. and judas was just downright insane…the entire time i was like…what?
I’m going to be perfectly honest. It looks like Richard Simmons choreographed the majority of this.