Lady Gaga - Paparazzi
The music video is seven minutes long. Swedish actor Alexander Skarsgård plays Gaga's boyfriend. The video features a murderous plot line involving a doomed starlet who is constantly followed by photographers. The video opens with a shot of a seaside mansion, where Gaga and her boyfriend are shown lying on a bed talking in Swedish. They move to the balcony and start making out; however, when hidden photographers start taking pictures of them, Gaga realizes that her boyfriend has set the paparazzi to photograph her and tries to stop him. Her struggles nevertheless remain futile even when she punches him, and in a final frantic attempt at defense, she smashes a nearby bottle of liquor into his face. The enraged boyfriend throws her over the balcony. Gaga lies on the ground in her own blood as the photographers continue to take pictures of her bloody body and tabloid headlines proclaim that her career is over.[58] According to Rolling Stone, this scene pays homage to Alfred Hitchcock's film Vertigo (1958).[59]
Lady Gaga - Paparazzi
In the next scene, Gaga and her eye-patch wearing boyfriend are reading magazines on a sofa in a tea room. Gaga wears a yellow jumpsuit with circular glasses and shoulder pads. The Guardian compared this look with that of Minnie Mouse.[61] She finally takes her revenge on her boyfriend by discreetly poisoning his drink with white powder concealed in her ring. As he falls dead, Gaga calls 9-1-1 and declares that she just killed her boyfriend. The police arrive at the mansion and arrest Gaga who, wearing a tall ice cream cone corkscrew wig, walks to the police car as the paparazzi surround her once again.[58] Images flash by, with newspapers proclaiming her innocence and that Gaga is back in the spotlight and has regained her fame. The video ends with Gaga posing for mug shots like a fashion model while wearing a tulip shaped metallic dress similar to the single cover.
Rolling Stone writer Daniel Kreps compared the video with the 1992 music video for "November Rain" by Guns N' Roses. He described the scenes of the dead models as stomach-turning while complimenting the video for "brimming with cinematic style [so] that it's hard to take your eyes off it, though it will likely be labeled as a little self-indulgent." He also commented on the leaking of the video, saying that it "warranted more than just a simple leak; it deserved a red carpet."[59] Anna Pickard from The Guardian complimented the video saying that "quite a lot of work has gone into it". However, she opined that the video was too long.[61] Entertainment Weekly gave a positive review of the video, saying "it gives us even more of the next-level cuckoo we've come to expect from the girl born Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta." The paparazzi theme of the video was compared to Britney Spears' 2004 music video, "Everytime".[60] MTV News called the video a "1940s romantic-epic-style video" that "proves once and for all that Gaga is a true original with a unique vision."[58] The video was nominated for five VMAs at the 2009 awards in the categories of Best Direction, Best Editing, Best Special Effects, Best Cinematography and Best Art Direction. Along with four other nominations for "Poker Face", she and Beyoncé were tied for most nominations that year.[62] The video won the award for Best Art Direction and Best Special Effects.[63] The music video for Gaga's single "Telephone" is a continuation of the "Paparazzi" music video, and is a short film as well. The video picks up right where "Paparazzi" left off; starting with Gaga in prison.[64]
The video for Paparazzi began with Gaga (a famous celebrity) making out with her boyfriend at a seaside mansion, with their moment of intimacy moving to the balcony outside. But when Gaga realized that her boyfriend had set her up to be photographed by the hidden paparazzi, she tries to get away from him, leading to a struggle that ended with Gaga's boyfriend shoving her off the balcony.
The paparazzi (the word comes from Paparazzo, a character in an Italian movie) are those odious freelance photographers who make their living chasing around celebrities, snapping candid shots they can sell them for big bucks to gossip-hungry magazines and websites like TMZ and US Weekly. Many celebrities have a severe love-hate relationship with the paparazzi. On the one hand, all that exposure can be necessary to sustain pop superstardom, but on the other hand, all that exposure can be embarrassing, or incriminating, or just deeply destructive to any attempts to live life like a normal human being.
The nonstop exposure inherent in a world dominated by the paparazzi means that Lady Gaga is, effectively, always on stage. She never gets to take off the mask of her artistic persona; she never gets to stop being Lady Gaga to enjoy a few minutes as plain old Stefani Germanotta. Yes, that's Gaga's nom de realité. Bet you've never heard it before, right?
Fame exists because of a duality: people can only be famous because there are other people who are not famous, so the famous stand out by comparison. If we were all famous, then nobody would be famous. Lady Gaga understands this, and watches with a bemused expression through her mile-long false eyelashes as the obsessive paparazzi stalk her, questioning how she went from being a misfit in high school to one of the biggest pop stars on the planet. She is one of those performers who truly loves her fans and thrives on their affection, yet she believes that fame should be accessible for everyone, especially the misfits:
The Fame is about how anyone can feel famous. Pop culture is art. It doesn't make you cool to hate pop culture, so I embraced it and you hear it all over The Fame. But, it's a sharable fame. I want to invite you all to the party. I want people to feel a part of this lifestyle. 'Paparazzi' might come off as a love song to cameras, and in all honestly, on one level it is about wooing the paparazzi and wanting fame. But, it's not to be taken completely seriously. It's about everyone's obsession with that idea. But, it's also about wanting a guy to love you and the struggle of whether you can have success or love or both. (Source)
"I'll follow you until you love me," Gaga sings. Who hasn't felt that way at some point? Are we really just singing about celebrity photographers here, or is this part of a more timeless and universal story? When we fall in love, after all, don't we all fall into something like the role of the paparazzi, chasing after the objects of our affection just like the celebrity photographers chase after the stars. Interpreted this way, the entire song can be seen as an allegory for the larger struggle of loving something that pushes you away. 041b061a72