Lady Gaga Promotes Ways of Empowerment Similar to the those of the Material Girl, but more Cryptic

Gaga performing "Bad Romance" in Kobe, Japan, April 14, 2010.

I watched the Glee episode dedicated to Madonna on DVR Wednesday night and I realized that the statements the Glee characters expressed about Madonna's cultural impact and the meaning of her songs are also quite relevant to Lady Gaga.

After listening in at the Cheerios' Madonna-themed cheerleader rehearsal led by Cheerio's captain Sue Sylvester(Jane Lynch), Glee Club instructor Will Schuester (Matthew Morrison) is inspired to make the Glee Club sing Madonna songs. He makes a speech to his Glee Club describing Madonna's cultural impact in an exubert manner. He says, "Culturally, Madonna's legacy transcends her music because by and large, the subtext of her songs are about being strong, independent and confident no matter what your sex, but more than anything, Madonna's musical message is about equality."

Despite sounding a bit preachy, Mr. Schuester's statement rings quite true. However, when he made the statement I thought about someone else other than Madonna. I thought about Lady Gaga. Maybe I thought more of Gaga because I'm a huge fan of hers or because Gaga is currently the world's biggest pop star and she's all anyone talks about these days. Madonna will always be relevant since her influence is present in today's pop stars, but it's Gaga who is making moves right now.

Gaga hasn't had enough longevity to have a legacy that transcends her music, but her songs do contain subtext about being strong, independent and confident no matter your sex, and Gaga's main musical message is about equality. The question at hand is how does Gaga's music promote strength, independence and confidence?

She's been promoting equality and strength since she released her debut album The Fame in 2008 on a song called "Boys, Boys, Boys." The song is said to be a slight homage to the 1987 Motley Crue song "Girls, Girls, Girls," but other than the title and the fact that both songs sound like strippers' anthems, there aren't any other similarities. "Boys, Boys, Boys" is a RedOne-produced confection that promotes the joys of a gay man's life. She does this by describing different types of gay men that defy society's stereotype of the gay male as effeminate. Gaga sings from the perspective of a gay man featuring scenes from the lives of various gay men.

The song sounds as if the men are singing to Gaga. She describes gay men diversely as men who wear "retro sneakers" and attend concerts by The Killers, or "glam-electronic" men who smoke cigarettes and wear lipstick. The chorus is Gaga sharing her love for boys with her beloved gay men. Both Gaga and gay men love the boys who buy them drinks in bars, drive Ferraris and wear "hairspray and denim." The blurred lines between straight and gay lifestyles during the chorus are meant to evoke feelings of equality. Gaga sings about loving boys in cars who buy her drinks in bars as if she's Madonna singing about being a Material Girl, but she's singing about something much deeper: her love for the gay culture that made her illustrious career.

Concealment and mystery is a huge part of Gaga's image and movement. Most of the things she keeps hidden relate to sexuality. Her No. 1 hit "Poker Face" is about bisexuality and the intuition that people with homosexual feelings have to use in order to find love and sex. Gaga is a person who doesn't believe in labels and she figures if she wants to be with a man at one time and then with a woman at another, that's her perogative. "Poker Face" doesn't only speak to the balancing acts that bisexuals have to manage, but the masks that many gay people have to wear to hide their true sexuality because they fear ostracization. "Love Game" is another song that likens love to a game that people use tactics to maneuver through and hopefully win. Gaga simply wants people to have the freedom to be sexual animals, be open about their sexuality and to destroy social norms instead of fearing them. People fear what they don't understand and sometimes they fear what they do understand for their own personal reasons. Gaga wants to do away with secrets and conformity. Once Madonna attended a Lady Gaga concert date during Gaga's The Monster Ball Tour, and two men were having sex with each other in the stands. Talk about being free.

The Fame Monster announced the arrival of Gaga's latest mantra: "I'm a free bitch!" She says this phrase in shouted and whispered tones on different songs from Monster. On her single "Bad Romance" she uses the mantra to inspire the world to unleash their inner freak. "Dance in the Dark" features the mantra in a more whispered, subdued tone where she uses the mantra to inspire both sexes to own their bodies and feel comfortable in their own skins. Basically, confidence shows on the outside. If a person feels awkward when they walk, whether in private or in public, this means their brain is affecting their outward body language. It's like the Megazord in the heat of battle with no Power Rangers inside the Megazord's cockpit to control its movements. Same difference.

Gaga's newest single "Alejandro" combines all the themes mentioned above, strength, independence and confidence. In the campy, exaggerated style of Mexican telenovelas (soap operas) and '80s Italian trash-cinema, Gaga plays a damsel in distress pleading for Alejandro to let her go, even though she knows he loves her. The slow, dark, scraping synths that drive "Alejandro" evoke slow-burning fire and Gaga's urgent need to extinguish it. Indirectly, Gaga uses metaphors to relate to her hiding her true sexuality, whether it be for men or women. Lyrics like "She's got both hands in her pocket" and "She hides true love in su bosillo (in her pocket) illustrate Gaga's concealment of her true feelings. "Both hands" means bisexual and the "pocket" means the closet that she hides her bisexual feelings in. The pocket also refers to Gaga's vagina, which refers to the masturbation she turns to in order to deal with her sexual frustration caused by being afraid of men who she fears won't accept her unpredictable sexuality. The first man (Alejandro) whom Gaga thinks can accept her for who she is, she treats him like a God, like a Saint whom she worships, and this also scares her. The message to really take out of "Alejandro" is that it's much better to save yourself instead of having someone save you because often when someone is your savior, you start to wear blinders and view your savior as a perfect being. Gaga says to let all of that go, be independent and slay your own monsters.

The "Alejandro" music video is still in the works, said to be directed by famous photographer Steven Klein who has directed some of Madonna's big videos in the past. It's rumored that she'll wear the gold vampire grillz/fangs she wears in the pic below that she posted on her Twitter account.

We shall see. Watch for her to perform on American Idol on May 5, 2010, which is Cinco de Mayo. It's gonna be a party!

Mike Silas: Lady Gaga's Main Dancer Will Make You Melt

Mike dances with Gaga at the 2009 American Music Awards

Lady Gaga has a lot of great dancers, male and female, but there's one of her dancers that really shines like heaven's light. He's a Puerto Rican/German/Black mix named Michael Silas aka Mike who will make you melt like ice cream on a summer day.

The pics I posted in my previous entry about Mike Silas are of a very sexual nature and Mike has an undeniably hot body. One of the great things about Mike is he looks as sexual and hot in clothes as he is without clothes. There's something about seeing his buttery skin tone that makes me think of pecans and caramel, and I can't help but want to eat him up. The pics I posted before are from his days as a go-go dancer in Texas, which I've seen tapes of and not surprisingly he keeps it classy even then by exhibiting some of his fantastic modern dance skills to a reggaeton song. I'm making this post to remind people that Mike is a classically-trained dancer, trained in ballet and jazz to hip-hop and modern dance.

There's one performance where his dancing genius is quite evident on a big stage, the 2009 American Music Awards. Lady Gaga performed her now-influential single "Bad Romance" for the first time on National television. Gaga and her dancers wore the talked-about bone accessories designed by Gary Card. Like Gaga’s other dancers Mike is wearing a Gary Card mask made of sparkly bones that really light up with matching arm bands that extend from his elbows to his wrists. These masks and armbands are the same ones featured in Vogue Homme Japan magazine, modeled by sweaty hard-bodied men with abs of steel, photographed by renowned photographer Steven Klein (who is also set to direct Lady Gaga’s upcoming “Alejandro” video). The matchup of Mike’s graceful, passionate dancing and haute couture is godly.

The choreography for "Bad Romance" was created by in-demand choreographer Laurie Ann Gibson (you remember her, she's the one you saw all over P. Diddy's MTV reality-series Making the Band II where Gibson gave P. Diddy's pop star upstarts the right moves to dance with). Gibson's choreography couldn't fit "Bad Romance" any better. It's like she hears the movement in the song and she brings that movement to life. She materializes it. Of course, Mike Silas jumps all over this epic choreography and infuses his own elegance into it.

There’s a point in the performance during the chorus when Gaga sings those passionate arpeggios of the word “oh” that sound like battle cries, and all of her dancers shuffle their bodies in pace with the music, pawing the air with their simulated monster claws, as if they’re trying to escape some cage. On this part, there’s a high point of the arpeggios which mirror a synth that’s part of the texture of RedOne’s underlying instrumental. As Mike Silas is shuffling, he hits this high point by synrchronizing his body with it, by rising on his tiptoes. It’s beautiful to watch and sometimes it’s easy to miss it because of the presence of Gaga and all the other dancers, but often you notice the best things when you look closely.

During the bridge of copulation on "Bad Romance" Gaga sings "I want your love and I want your revenge/I want your love, I don't wanna be friends" and then proceeds to repeat the same words in the romantice language of French. During this bridge, Mike gets on his back and makes a bridge with his back and gently thrusts the air as if he's having sex, giving himself up to something. The way the stage was lighted showed the silohuette of Mike's body from the side. The cup of his beefy buttocks sheltering the floor of the stage like a moon to the earth. To watch Mike Silas is like watching sex, whether he's moving or not, it's the most organic thing you'll ever see.

I think all of that information above will make anyone fall in love with Mike Silas. He seems humble and I heard he's very easy to talk to, yet as calm and quiet as he seems, I have this feeling he has a wild side especially when a song like Gaga's "Boys, Boys, Boys" comes on. The electric guitars that sing in the background remind that “Boys, Boys, Boys” could easily be a stripper’s anthem, whether you’re a man or woman. It’s the kind of song you want to let loose to and let your inner slut out, that’s assuming your inner slut isn’t already out. I can't wait until Gaga's "Alejandro" video comes out, and I hope Mike has a strong presence in the video. Mike is my Alejandro.

Lady Gaga's dancer Mike Silas go-go dancing = Sexy!!

I think these pics are four or five years old when Michael "Mike" Silas worked as a go-go dancer for the Latin-Boyz company. He did go-go dancing and took sexy pics, but no actual sex on camera. I wish he had, but maybe not because sometimes once you start having sex on camera, you never go back. I'm glad Mike is a dancer for Lady Gaga. He gets to travel the world and dance his heart out for one of the most prolific songwriter and singers music has had in a long time (that's Lady Gaga folks! haha).