Lady Gaga stepped out in LA the other day and she was wearing a big ass ring on her finger so most of the discussion around her has been about whether or not she’s engaged. She’s a rich bitch. Rich bitches wear big rings. That’s all there is to say right now on this subject.
So let’s talk about the movie – the movie being Joker: Folie à Deux which is a big story today because the first trailer is dropping tonight, and Sarah will have that for us tomorrow. But they did release a teaser which I’m not attaching here because when I asked Sarah if she wanted to write a post about the teaser, her response to me was:
“I don't want to reward this teaser for teasers nonsense.”
LOL forever.
I love her so much. Because she’s right. This is nonsense!
Anyway, Joker: Folie à Deux comes out in October, which is around the same time of year that Joker was released and it became an Oscar contender, with Joaquin Phoenix winning Best Actor, so there may be similar hopes for this one, and again, Sarah will say more about that tomorrow. My focus is whether or not Gaga in the fall will be riding the high of a prestige film AND the high from new music. Because she’s been teasing it. Multiple times over the last couple of months she’s been sharing on socials that she’s invigorated by music and that she’s working as fast as she can on the new album.
Gaga has been famous for long enough to know how people react to those kinds of crumbs. And so there’s speculation that a new album might be on the way at some point this year. On top of the fact that she’ll be back in residency in Vegas for a few weeks this summer. The point is, quiet time for Gaga is about to end. So enough about this ring business – Mother Monster is going back to work.
On another Gaga related note, her last two Instagram posts have been sponsored ads for a new medication for migraine. You will note that I just said “migraine” instead of “migraines” and so does she. There is no “s” at the end of the word in Gaga’s posts and I learned last year on an episode of The Social that the medical community is changing the way we talk about migraine, singular not plural, to illuminate the fact that it’s actually a neurological disease. Per the American Migraine Foundation:
“The way we talk about migraine impacts how people perceive the symptoms and the impact of the disease itself. For example, referring to head pain experienced during the headache phase of an attack as “a migraine” confuses the entire disease with just one of its many symptoms. This not only oversimplifies this complex disease but also ignores the many other symptoms people with migraine may experience.
Additionally, referring to specific symptoms that occur during an attack as “a migraine” or “migraines” makes it sound like an occasional problem. In truth, migraine is an incurable, debilitating disease that people must manage their entire lives.”
Two people who work on this site every single day have migraine: our site manager, Emily, and our operations director, Jacek (also my husband). Both experience migraine attacks frequently and they can be debilitating. It’s a miracle, sometimes, that they are able to function. Emily, in particular, has tried so many treatments, and some of them are cost prohibitive. For example, the monthly injection she uses now is $700 without coverage. Without coverage, the medication that Jacek takes whenever he has a migraine attack is something like $90 a pill. There are so many people with migraine who don’t have coverage, who can’t afford to pay that much money to alleviate their migraine symptoms, and who therefore have to live their lives, sometimes every day, in a constant state of pain.
It is a good thing, of course, that Lady Gaga is raising awareness about migraine. I also hope, however, that as we have this conversation, we can also hold space for a related one about cost and access as part of a greater discussion about medication and treatment and health care cost and access in general, and not just limited to migraine. Where migraine is concerned, though, it is a disease that affects women in greater numbers than men. About three times more, in fact. So this may be another example of a medical condition that has not historically received sufficient attention from the medical community (until recently) because women are the ones who have had to endure it more.
