Bad Romance
November 16, 2009 by Symbolic Living
Filed under Arts, Fashion and Film, Featured Videos
Lady Gaga wears Alexander McQueens haute couture designs from his show Plato’s Atlantis in this video, Bad Romance. This song was debuted at the end of McQueen’s show in October. This video brings forth the expressions of Plato’s Atlantis bringing the animal, snake motif into focus in movement and art. See Plato’s Atlantis here.
video starts 10-15 seconds after pressing play.






This video has a lot to do with sex and desire and the complex manifestations thereof.
I think there is a lot to do with the journey of sexuality here, much like one could see in ancient mythologies of sex as being both the highest ideal of love, as in Venus, and lowest of sexual perversions sadomasochism as Pluto would apply.
The words “Bad Romance” together, brings in the duality, the dichotomy.
I see the ascension, the rising from the abyss here, as in birth… the primeval elements. It is very Anadyomene – rising after being submerged.
In the bathtub scene, Lady Gaga’s eyes are innocent, wide eyed, as she emerges from the bath, into the light of existence. Like Aphrodite rising from the ocean, as consciousness rising from the source when the sun rises like the Goddess of the dawn (sunglasses in the beginning of the video). She rises from the waters of existence when the life force, the primal sexual force rises within her and animates her desires. Immediately she is challenged by the women, restricted and dominated into having her desires directed. Aphrodite has risen but the worlds pressure molds her sexual force. Immediately as Aphrodite rises she is clothed by the nymphs, influenced now by external bonds of the world. Her arms rise as if in exclamation of why as well as being in prayer, in wonder to something within and something higher. Her natural, primal desires, move into becoming drunken desires. Although Aphrodite has been evoked, she is deemed as fated in myth, to the sins of Eve. Innocence is lost.
She has a lot of symbolism in this video. Universal, Archetypal imagery, very prominently Light, Snakes (desire), Sex. The Bat on her head, is much of the extreme sexual reference Vampirism denotes, but being on her forehead could mean the rise of kundalini over the third eye. In this case I doubt it. I think it symbolizes the mind consumed by sex. The root chakra is definitely written all over this video. The baphomet reference at the end is a continuing symbol throughout her video.
Overall this video portrays the evocation of basic animal desire, a universal motif. She moves from curiously submissive to the dominant. She travels from purity to perversion, not unlike many who journey the world. The video moves from birth, to death while she survives to continue the journey with all this world has to offer, light and dark.
Great video. Lots of ancient symbolism. Unfortunately universal ancient symbols of myth and metaphor are deemed evil in the mainstream, however, they are only in the eye of the beholder who chooses to apply such labels from that particularly biased, negative slant. Some choose to interpret the symbolism from an obsessive fear based viewpoint and deeming everything like a compulsive disorder to denote anything as based on the ideology of a dark Illuminati. I don’t think their interpretations are the truth, they are simply a reflection of their fear biased mindset.
Updated Lady GaGa videos. Youtube isn’t always dependable for continued content.
Just wanted to add, when she comes out the water in the poker face video with the two dogs, it reminds me of the card XVIII – the moon – in the tarot deck. She being that which ascends out of the water.