Lady Gaga - Telephone

Directed by Jonas Akerlund

Lady Gaga is usually known for her strange style and crazy ideas. The best way to express this is through her music videos. So she usually makes them outlandish for everyone to recognise her unique ways.

In telephone Mise- en – scene is very important. They use normal locations like a diner a jail and a car then they jazz it up with things out of the ordinary. Like bright outfits, huge hats and coke can hair curlers. It seems like she has taken reality and putting an un – ordinary spin on it. Just like a movie, very over the top. The video seems purposely fake in some parts so it's more exciting and fun to watch. There isn't much visual effects in this video, but the colours of everything do look brightened, this is because it's more like a mini movie than a music video. So the quality has to be to perfection.

The cinematography in this is quite simplistic. It doesn't need fancy shots because the video and ideas itself does most of the work. The shots usually follow Gaga. She is the main focus of the video. So even when other people of locations are around the audience will automatically be focusing on her. In some shots they also use CCTV look a like shots, to give it a realistic edge when she's in the prison.

Lady Gaga is very special in when she does her videos because she is very kooky her lyrics and her music doesn't have to relate to her music videos. But she gets away with it because it's all part of her quirkiness to her fans. She relates things to her videos in very minor ways. For example her song is called telephone, and to match this in the video, she wears telephone accessories. Like the telephone hat.

There is very strong intertextuality in this video. The most obvious concept that has been used is the pussy wagon that is used in Kill Bill. They also use concepts of Thelma and Louise with beyonce and Gaga go through the video working together to get revenge on a man and running away from the law, just like in Thelma and Louise. I think the intertextuality has very high relevence in this video. Both of the concepts used in the video are very feministic films. Where the women care for themselves. And I think Gaga is trying to promote the image of women being able to fend for themselves.

The video is mainly based on a narrative of beyonce and Gaga poisining Beyonces cheating boyfriend after Gaga is realeased from jail. It is very dramatic and it's left on a cliffhanger. There is performance inbetween the narrative sections. But seeing as it's more like a film, the fact that is narrative based is very appropriate.

This video is a perfect example of how Gaga wants to be promoted. The video is very different from the typical pop artist, and this is how she wants to be seen. As different from her peers. The video is mainly for women, women who know what it's like have horrible men in their lives and who aspire to get their own back on many exes they have had.