Lady Gaga uses her stage name to separate her personal and public lives and control her image. She intentionally created an outrageous persona to divert attention from her private self. The music video for "Paparazzi" imitates styles from old Hollywood films and Hitchcock's Vertigo to homage other artists, tell the story through camera angles and imagery, and portray Lady Gaga at a larger-than-life scale.

1. LADY GAGA AND POSTMODERNISM

2. LADY GAGA
The name ‘Lady Gaga’ is used as a stage name by
Stefani Germanotta. The music artist uses her
stage name to keep her personal life and superstar
status separate, giving her the her the ability to
control her image and enabling her to get away
with various different things. Fans primarily focus
on her image and fashion rather than gossip or her
everyday life. In an interview she said “I have
mastered the art of fame.” This explains how she
purposely created a hyper-real version of herself
with outrageous fashion to keep the public and
press attention away from her personal life as
Stefani Germanotta.

3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2smz_1L2_0

4. DECONSTRUCTION OF ‘PAPARAZZI’
The music video follows typical conventions of old Hollywood films as Lady Gaga is displayed to be
the main character within the music video. Furthermore, a list of the cast is shown at the beginning of
the music video which was used in Noir Hollywood films in the 1970’s. This is known as Pastiche as
Lady Gaga is imitating the style of work from another artist.

5. DECONSTRUCTION OF ‘PAPARAZZI’
The use of camera angles and movement is important in the analysis of post-modernism. For
example in the scene where the camera cuts to a long shot of the couple lying on the bed
speaking Swedish, the video not only plays homage to subtitled foreign films, but also lets the
audience know what the couple are saying to each other. As the couple kiss and caress each
other, there are cuts to objects around the room. The first is what looks like a dollar bill, but
instead of the American figurehead, there is a picture of Lady Gaga. Written on the top right
hand side of this bank note is “The United States of Lady Gaga”
The next cut shows a fictional newspaper called Evening Star with the headline “Lady Gaga
Reaches the Top Yet Again, with a picture of her and three men. These two cut offs from the
main scene on the bed show the audience that Lady Gaga is portraying herself in the video, but
to a much bigger scale in the way that by putting her face on a dollar bill makes her look like the
figurehead of America. It also lets the audience know that the woman on the bed is Lady Gaga,
if they hadn’t already worked it out for themselves.

6. DECONSTRUCTION OF ‘PAPARAZZI’
Mimicking the way the music video begins with the wiped in circle, one scene shows Lady Gaga
against a black and white swirled background. The way that the colours swirl against one
another and the way that Lady Gaga moves slowly gives the illusion that she is falling. The
hypnotic background is a homage to Alfred Hitchcock’s psychological thriller, Vertigo. The
background draws the audience’s focus towards Lady Gaga because she is in the middle,
showcasing what she looks like so they know that she is the singer. This scene could also be a
symbol for Lady Gaga falling from Heaven into Hell. I came to this conclusion because at the
start of the video, it looks as if she has the perfect life; the fame, the fortune and the perfect
man, but now she’s lost it all. As she falls, the audience can hear her ragged breathing and the
sound of a heartbeat. These sounds would have been added in at post production, making them
non-diegetic sounds.