Lady Gaga's 'Telephone' is up for Video of the Year at this year's VMAs.By Jocelyn Vena
Lady Gaga
Photo: Amy Sussman/ Getty Images
Up until the release of "Telephone," Lady Gaga had been trying to one-up herself visually from music video to music video. She quickly went from producing simple party-music videos like the one she released back in 2008 for "Just Dance" to creating spectacles and feasts for the eyes thanks to over-the-top clips like "Bad Romance" and her cartoon-like video for "Telephone."
Nominated for three 2010 MTV Video Music Awards, including Video of the Year, where it will face off against "Bad Romance," "Telephone" is nearly 10 minutes of fashion, Gaga, Beyoncé, dancing and murder. Directed by iconic music video helmer Jonas Åkerlund, Gaga took fans for a ride and amped them up with clues as to what they might expect from the video.
What did they get? Gaga's own take on gender politics and Hollywood's fascination with ladies who kill. The video picks up where "Paparazzi" leaves off: Gaga breaks out of prison after killing her beau ("True Blood" star Alexander Skarsgård) in her "Paparazzi" video, then in the "Telephone" clip, she and Beyoncé go on a killing spree in the famous truck from "Kill Bill" before making a "Thelma and Louis"-like pact to stand by one another no matter what.
"There was this really amazing quality in 'Paparazzi,' where it kind of had this pure pop music quality but at the same time it was a little bit of commentary on fame culture," Gaga explained about the video. "I wanted to do the same thing with this video -- take a decidedly pop song, which on the surface has a quite shallow meaning, and turn it into something deeper: the idea that America is full of young people that are inundated with information and technology and turn it into something that is more of a commentary on the kind of country that we are."
And for the killer video, Gaga brought her "Video Phone" pal Beyoncé in for the track and the video, and the video's look was certainly a change of pace for Beyoncé. "The video in a lot of ways is more about [Beyoncé] even than it is about me," Gaga has said. "It was sort of a pop-art venture for me to bring her into my world. In a way, the video is an attempt for her and I to erase pop music as we know it up until this very point. It's meant to change the perspective of the world on what a pop music video should be and she's kind of the vehicle for that. In reality, more people around the world are familiar with her aesthetics than they are with mine. It was something for me to kind of change the way that you see her for one video."
It was a video that recalled not only such iconic flicks as "Kill Bill" and "Thelma and Louise," but also pop-culture moments like anything by Madonna, someone to whom Gaga has frequently been compared, the famed musical "Chicago," Andy Warhol and Wonder Woman. But, as Åkerlund would later explain, the video's colorful, mind-bending visuals were all uniquely Gaga's.
"Gaga's a little different because she has, like, the first [idea], which makes my job easier," he said back in March when the video first hit the streets. "She always has the first couple [ideas] to tell you. So, based on what she tells me, I write a treatment, she has comments on it. So that's how we go into the ideas. She's boiling. Her brain is amazing. She's filled with ideas.
"She writes music and thinks [of] images and wardrobe and all those things that are important for videos," he continued. "It's more like a concept than just me being a director for hire and doing a video and I'm out. It's a natural part for her. She's that generation of artists that think about all these things."
With the chance at winning a few Moonmen at Sunday's big show, Gaga might feel inspired to make a sequel to the clip, as is teased at the end of the splashy video. But, as Åkerlund has said, don't expect anything anytime soon. That really wasn't their intention. "Well, there's no plan," Åkerlund explained. "As I said, we're very spontaneous. We'll see ... I mean, it'll be cool, but we just left the door open. So we'll see."
The 27th annual MTV Video Music Awards will be broadcast live from the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles on September 12. The party starts with MTV News' VMA Pre-Show at 8 p.m., followed by the main event at 9 p.m. ET. Fans can go to VMA.MTV.com (or text VMA to 97979 if they are Verizon subscribers) to vote for Best New Artist from now through Sunday.
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