The Gaga and the global

Abstract

The Super Bowl, one of the most widely watched American sports events of the year, is presented as an apolitical, media event. Yet, the potential for political expression seemed at its peak during half-time of the 2017 Super Bowl. Many wondered, in the heated post-Trump-election political climate, whether performer, Lady Gaga, would use this moment of peak visibility to make a political statement? Lady Gaga’s multi-layered performance straddled the line between pure theatrical presentation and pure political statement – a performance that could be read as neither clearly political nor as clearly apolitical. Her performance at the half-time of Super Bowl LI exemplified her mastery of double articulation, particularly the introduction to her performance. Her presentation and her choices are most plausibly read polysemically and through a political contextualisation of the American-Trump populist moment. Through a communicative strategy based upon extravagant gesture, Lady Gaga conveyed a message that could easily be understood as reflexively patriotic by one audience, but could just as easily be understood as subversive by another. Using John Fiske’s notion of excess as hyperbole and Stuart Hall’s remarks on the dual nature of American culture, I deconstruct the classically American double articulation of Lady Gaga’s performance.