Lady Gaga #1 - Atop the Fourth Wall

Welcome to Atop the Fourth Wall, where bad comics burn. In this episode, Linkara looks at a comic PURPORTEDLY about Lady Gaga!

http://atopthefourthwall.com

Originally uploaded April 11th, 2011.

ORIGINAL INFO: Let’s play a love game instead of reading this. …Please?

RUMINATIONS: Now here’s one that caused some friction. Not so much in the comments section (though a few people did agree with the sentiments) but rather from Iron Liz. She and I were together at the time and we vehemently disagreed about this comic. I do see her point of view and at the time tried to link people towards her alternate take on it, but sadly that video has been lost to Blip purges. More or less the deal there is that she felt it was a story of a guy coming to terms with his newfound sexuality and gender identity, especially since Lady Gaga has been vocal in her efforts to help LGBT.

I am all for that… I just don’t agree with that interpretation of the comic. Regardless of the creators’ intentions, the actual presentation leaves a lot to be desired. Aside from the artwork itself just frankly being hard to look at and with terrible color choices and a fairly unappealing protagonist, the writing is off the wall. It seems less like a man coming to terms with previously-unexplored parts of himself and more an obsessed fan having dangerous fantasies about Lady Gaga and then disturbing others. I am all for expressions of pride… except he wasn’t expressing pride – he was blasting unwanted music at people who were trying to do other activities, disturbing them, and ignoring their polite requests to stop. In the end, he’s not celebrated by Lady Gaga for recognizing his own individuality, but because he’s WEIRD, abnormal, etc. To me, that’s not acceptance – that’s just giving him money to be “part of the freak show,” so to speak.

However, that’s of course JUST my own interpretation and people are free to have their own, just as long as they’re respectful of others.

The only other thing to note with this episode is the brief thing with Spoony at the end. And yes, while I was still a long ways away from ending the Entity arc, I was deliberately planting the seeds of the Gunslinger arc and Linkara’s increasingly douchey behavior.