Lady Gaga’s Super Bowl halftime show was surprisingly palatable, especially given the rumors that she would deliver a “definitive” statement on politics. Still, the sheer amount of praise thrown at her has effectively triggered the collective gag reflex of music highbrows everywhere.
The high school years of many Super Bowl viewers had been unwittingly intoxicated by Gaga’s postmodern cocktail of Dadaism and glam rock. By comparison, the muted hedonism of Gaga’s performance Sunday offered a sweeter aftertaste than Pepsi’s “Zero Sugar” — the sponsor of the halftime show. The flashy, conspicuously pantless costumes and show-stealing microphone holder succeeded — at least compared to the meat dresses from last year.
For a singer whose past artistic statements have been intermittently inscrutable, absurd and horrifying, the return to Guthrie’s wholesome hymn “This Land Is Your Land” gave hope for the nation during a tough period. Gaga’s adequate musicianship and amateur Cirque du Soleil stunt work (P!nk, for the record, does it better) were perfectly suited to an audience ready to be wowed by satisfactory things.
The Super Bowl as a whole is an ideal platform for Gaga — her forceful, unsentimental maximalism would be suffocated by any smaller venue. Her attempts at sentiment in the show, though, were almost as laughable as her effort to demonstrate proficiency at the piano during “A Million Reasons.” Gaga was in her truest element flashing a keytar during the show’s aggressive rendition of “Just Dance.”
Though Gaga’s performance has been lauded as “empowering,” viewers could question how relevant her self-proclaimed goal “to make you feel good” is in this day and age. A parallel question, of course, is whether it is reasonable to expect something meaningful to be featured in the Super Bowl’s orgy of late capitalism.
The tradition of glam rock has always been more concerned with obscuring or deconstructing meaning, as opposed to finding it. David Bowie, for instance, espoused a profound aimlessness, once remarking, “I'm always amazed that people take what I say seriously. I don't even take what I am seriously.” Gaga’s performance, like Bowie’s canonical Ziggy Stardust act, though absolutely galvanising, was never remotely purposeful.
Gaga, in many ways, is best understood as consumerism’s own coping mechanism. As the ratings show, she admirably succeeded in her role. Though music highbrows, as mentioned earlier, may point to Prince’s, U2’s or Beyonce’s transgressive halftime shows as enduring classics, the ratings — in their infinite wisdom — seem to lean towards Gaga.
Sitting comfortably as the second-most viewed halftime show in the Super Bowl’s history, Gaga’s “Zero Sugar” show packed enough flavor for a marketable quorum of viewers.
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