Arya Stark

Erica, I know exactly what you mean about her video.
I remember this video. I remember that I had no idea who was singing it.
I just had pictures of her on the wheelchair.

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MB Journal.
Azucar y Especia. My blog.

VEGANGELICA

Heh heh...no argument with you here, AwwSugar!

Speaking of Lady Gaga's videos...and maybe you'll know the answer to this, Vanilla...I just noticed that over the last couple days it seems that all the Youtube videos of her were removed (like the one I embedded several posts up)! Was this due to actions of Lady Gaga? I read she called some people "mother****ers" recently due to the leaking of some videos of hers. Is this somehow related to the recent disappearance of her YouTube videos??

A second question related to Lady Gaga's videos: do you fault her videos for showing (dramatic) sexual violence toward women? I ask this because, since I couldn't watch "Paparazzi" again, I watched a related video, which was a documentary *about* videos such as hers. The documentary film-maker argued convincingly that song videos may perpetuate a society in which violence toward women is common. For example, in 2004 men in a crowded Central Park in New York sexually and physically accosted a large number of women, doing many things seen in music videos (ripping off the women's clothes, fondling their breasts, spraying them with water hoses and beer). This made me ask myself to what degree sexualized images of women, such as Lady Gaga uses, perpetuate violence toward them.

Since studies of kids have shown that they tend to be more violent after watching violent TV, I assume that people tend to mirror what they see (and like) in videos they admire.

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Astronomer

I find that many of her videos tend to sexualise topics like rape and anorexia. I don't know however if this is Gaga's doing or if she had little control over the production of the videos, but despite admiring Lady Gaga for many of her talents I do find the sexualisation of anorexia and rape in her videos (see: Bad Romance) to be a little unsettling.

Also, I'd just like to point out that most modern studies of children have failed to show that they will be more violent after watching violent TV. The bobo doll studies which were executed decades ago were very flawed, and more recent studies into children/ violence/ the media have shown that children will not typically be violent after interacting with violent media formats unless they already had some kind of underlying issue relating to violence and to their need to act violent.

We're not passive sponges that just soak up everything we see on television, but are instead active and interactive users who will question what we see. That being said however, does not completely rule out the fact that electronic media will affect people. And yeah, a lot of Gaga's video clips have been controversial, most disturbing to me the sexualisation of rape and eating disorders, and since I do admire Lady Gaga to some degree I would like to know what she'd have to say about that.

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