The meat is on

Germanotta a.k.a. Lady Gaga, a student and successor of Lady Madonna — of the ‘Material Girl who knows her Cabbala’ fame — has finally made it to this sombre page by dint of the raw couture that she wore to the MTV Video Music Awards on Sunday.

Showing some flesh has always been par for the main course among celebrities. It’s the cheapest ticket to the next level of attention-getting. Stefani Germanotta a.k.a. Lady Gaga, a student and successor of Lady Madonna — of the ‘Material Girl who knows her Cabbala’ fame — has finally made it to this sombre page by dint of the raw couture that she wore to the MTV Video Music Awards on Sunday. Looking like a cross between the Bride of Frankenstein and someone on whom a cow has coughed up its innards, Ms Gaga has brought to pop music what Maneka Gandhi brought to vegetarianism: a bit of bizarre glamour.

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But looking at Ms Gaga and her chorizo-covered rump peeka-booing, one must say that her get-up is a far more effective campaign in support of vegetarianism — which, we are told, does not involve consuming meat of dead animals — than all those naked ladies hiding behind placards from the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). Ms Gaga has not shown any overt interest in being a brand ambassador for vegetarianism (or, for that matter, non-vegetarianism, in case the idea was to make meat look more alluring). But a master of pop cultural theory and practice, the performer must know that once the ‘art’ is out in public, the artist has little control on how people will perceive it.