Lady Gaga covers the October issue of US Vogue, timed for the world premiere of Joker: Folie à Deux in Venice and ahead of its release on October 4.
As far as celebrity profiles go, and how hit-or-miss they can be these days, this one is a good read. In part because the writer Jonathan Van Meter has interviewed Gaga several times over the last decade-plus, so he’s accumulated that many years of experience with her and has included in his piece his observations about how she’s changed or hasn’t changed; who she was then and who she is now; who she presented herself to be and how she presents herself now. And that, really, is the thesis of the profile: the performance of Gaga, with acknowledgement from Gaga herself that there will always be artifice in how she engages with her own celebrity but that artifice doesn’t necessarily mean she’s not authentic. All of these ideas happen to connect to the film, so we’re weaving in and out of character with Gaga, and not pretending that there’s not an exchange here – between the star and her public, between the star and the media, between the star and the actual person, where the lines are blurred, sometimes deliberately and sometimes unconsciously. Few celebrities are willing to acknowledge this, but it’s what makes celebrity so endlessly fascinating.
One of the things that typically can contribute to a good celebrity profile is whether or not they’re willing to talk about their personal lives and, specifically, their romances. Gaga and Michael Polansky are now engaged and this is the most detail we’ve ever gotten about their relationship which, for sure, is good gossip … but in this case it’s also good for gossip, because the way she manages her celebrity, the balance she’s been able to find while wearing all the colours of her personality, actually relates to her love life.
As Jonathan Van Meter writes:
“Don’t call me Gaga. That is the opening line of the song “Monster” on Lady Gaga’s 2009 EP, The Fame Monster. Every time I hear it I laugh because that is exactly what I call her: Gaga. I don’t know her well enough to call her Stefani. Never. I bring this up because it’s a question that is hovering over this interview, partly because of all this Joker talk: Is it all fantasy? Is Lady Gaga…a persona?
“Man.” She shakes her head. “That’s a big question.” She takes a deep breath. “You know it’s not a persona. It’s not. I am all of these things. The person that I am when I’m onstage in front of 85,000 people? That is also me. That’s like one of the freedoms of my relationship with Michael. It feels really nice to have someone value you whether there’s 85,000 people watching or…the dogs. To see the whole you. And Lady Gaga is the whole me.
“There was a time in my career when I…. Look….”—she cocks an eyebrow and slips into a self mocking tone—“where I spoke in an accent in interviews or told lies, but I was performing. Now, it’s a much more palatable mixture of authenticity and imagination. I feel like the world, to a fault, operates in these binaries: You’re either real or you’re fake; you’re authentic or you’re shallow. But for me, I played a lot with artifice. I was fascinated with artifice, really, truly fascinated with it as an artistic tool. I still am. But my relationship to myself as an artist now is more empowered: This is me. This. Is. Me. It’s too…complicated to split yourself in two and have to turn it off and on. It’s so much more empowering to be like, I’m a woman and I’m super complex. Michael said to me once, ‘I will know that you’re really feeling great when you know that you have you.’ I used to always be like, But who’s gonna have my back?! And now I’m like, I’ve got my back.”
Gaga wears a lot of masks. She seems to be saying that none of those masks are competing with each other anymore, but rather each is part of what makes her both a person and a celebrity. And she has found in Michael, a non-star, someone who’s comfortable no matter what mask she has on.
That’s a big ask from a big star. We have seen time and again that it can be too much to ask. While reading this my mind went to Ariana Grande. Like Gaga, Ariana and her ex-husband, Dalton Gomez, fell in love just as the pandemic hit. They spent lockdown together, they got married just as the world was trying to get back to normal. Unlike Gaga, their relationship did not survive Ariana going back outside.
Gaga and Michael, on the other hand, had a whole year or more in seclusion, but then managed to survive outside – while she was on tour, while she filmed a movie, while she worked on a new album. They just walked their first red carpet together in Venice. He speaks up a lot in this Vogue profile about what he sees in her and the key here is that he sees her. Both off-stage and on-stage. Very much on-stage. And he’s still in the picture.
Can’t say, obviously, whether or not this picture will disintegrate one day. But right now? Right now Gaga is in love, and it sounds like it’s healthy love. So healthy that we’re getting new music – a single in October and a new album next year. The takeaway here, at least for me, is that she’s happy and I’m happy for her. And for all the years we’ve been watching Gaga, this is my all-time favourite profile of her. And I f-cking love these covers.
