See also "Lady Gaga Stages 'Sensual' Perfume Pre-Sale at Macy's Dadeland" -- plus "Gaga Announces Born This Way Ball Tour."
Lady Gaga is tormented by something. And it might be all this attention she's getting.
The heavy burden of being famous has been a running theme throughout her career, evidenced by the video for "Paparazzi" as well as album titles like The Fame and The Fame Monster.
Now she invites us into the creepiest hollows of her tortured-artist's soul with her black-liquid perfume, FAME, and a seriously unnerving five-and-a-half-minute promotional mini-film.
Directed by Steven Klein, also behind the video for "Alejandro," we've only got one question after watching this creepy clip: "So, when do you think Gaga is going to kill herself?"
0:00 - 0:34
It begins with a non-descript warning, followed by title credits, a roaming eye and a chilling scream. This whole mini-film is a warning to everyone out there who thinks stardom is all glitz and glamour. Gaga wants you to know there's a dark side. Oh, and buy her new perfume, in stores now for anywhere from $55 to $80.
0:35 - 1:01
We see a masked, golden goddess, lying naked and holding the eau de toilette's voluptuous bottle. Some slave boys stand in line around the deity. The statuette is larger than life and very beautiful. Some alien mechanics come poking around, inspecting the object of lust with cold, unloving light. The music is like the score of a horror movie.
1:02 - 1:39
Black goop emerges, with a black-latex figure dancing all sinister and in reverse motion between the goop's oily jaws. Gaga is this figure, seductively putting on her dark costume. Her hat is amazing. She's about to do some evil magic. She's in a room the shape of a face, and does a surreal H.R. Giger nightmare walk.
1:40 - 2:22
She walks to the mirror of doom in her dark and sterile existence chamber. What lies on the other side? Only something you can't ever come back from, but the perks are to die for. She's a little freaked out by what she's begun, but it's too late. She best just walk into her fate like a model on the runway.
2:23 - 2:53
We don't speak German, but the language gives the red club atmosphere a stoic and overbearing hardness. The sound of marching boots is heard as Gaga replaces the golden goddess from before. She walks emphatically between the boy slaves and the domineering red hooded figures as if practicing her stage persona. It has begun.
2:54 - 4:03
Is that eggs and caviar? Gaga finds love dark and hollow these days, something like a dark massacre. All the boys are beautiful and faceless. The cheers come closer as the tension in the score heightens. All her egos are struggling with something and suddenly, there are a lot of gun barrels.
4:04 - 5:00
BANG! She's done it to herself now. She's covered in the ooey-gooey fame, and there's no escaping it. Everything is covered in the black goop, which smells like "dripping honey, saffron, and apricot nectar" with hints of "Tiger Orchid and Jasmine Sambac." Gaga is reborn from the mass of it, forever changed.
5:01 - 5:31
And here she is! Lady Gaga, our golden goddess to trample and stand on for the rest of her trapped existence. This promotional video should probably scare people away, but that's just like fame isn't it? Everyone ignores the warnings and would sell their soul to be famous. The Marilyn Monroes, the Elvises and Michael Jacksons will always be there, and they'll always be very publically tragic in the end.
So, who wants to go to Macy's?
Lady Gaga's Born This Way Ball Tour. Saturday, March 16, 2013. American Airlines Arena, 601 Biscayne Blvd., Miami. Call 786-777-1000 or visit aaarena.com.
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