Disoriented. Confused. Delirious. Violated. Upon completion of your initial viewing of the Lady Gaga and Beyonce mini-movie for "Telephone," left will seem like right and up will be down. You'll curl up in the fetal position and call out for your mother. It's that jarring.
The video, which clocks in at a whopping 9 minutes, is chock-full of numerous costume changes, layered plot lines, different sceneries and conspicuous product placements. "Telephone"'s smorgasbord of music, color, noise and fashion sits somewhere mysteriously between a mini-movie, a music video and a Superbowl commercial. It's meant to entertain the daylights out of you but it leaves you with a "what just happened?" feeling.
The main plot for the video picks up where Gaga's "Paparazzi" left off. After murdering her Swedish boyfriend with poison, Gaga is thrown in an uber lesbian women's jail. She is later bailed out by Beyonce, Thelma and Louise antics ensue and the two drive off into the sunset. In the opening scene of the video, Gaga is stripped naked by butch (possibly transsexual?) prison guards and she uses the video to address the oft-repeated rumor that she's a hermaphrodite. After shoving a naked Gaga onto her cell mattress, one of the guards smartly remarks, "Told you she didn't have a d**k." Yeah, but the "Telephone" video definitely proves Gaga has balls.
Watch the video for Beyonce and Lady Gaga's "Telephone" video below
In order to digest this video, multiple viewings are required. First and foremost, the whole affair isn't so much eye candy as it's an all-out visual assault on your retinas. The colorful costumes are just as daring as Gaga's "Bad Romance" video and the split-second scene changes keep the pace at breakneck speed. Where the video succeeds is in making a music video featuring two of the world's biggest female pop stars feel (forgive the cliched term) like the most epic thing on the planet. "Telephone" is a big budget, wild, maniacal affair that's meant for the pop at heart. The choreographed routines feed the bubblegum soul and the Pussywagon from "Kill Bill" is a neat treat for pop culture junkies. Pornographic excess is the name of the game here.
But Gaga was so caught up in trying to make a mini-movie, that she sacrificed the "music" in music video a bit. The multiple breaks for the "acting" muzzled the momentum of what is otherwise a killer dance floor anthem. This was especially lamentable on Beyonce's "Incredible Hulk" verse, which is reduced to shots of Lady Gaga snapping Beyonce's picture while Bey pretends to drive aggressively. Kind of weak. If the video were shaved off by about a minute or two, it really wouldn't have suffered much for the worse at all. And the costume changes could've used some trimming too. Some, like the caution tape outfit and the Fourth of July-inspired duds, didn't really fit and seemed pointless.
After the premiere of the video on E! Television, Gaga explained that the video is meant to be a commentary on the inundation of technology in American life. Is Gaga saying we need to unplug from the matrix for a bit? But if we did that, then who'd bump her music on Last.fm and stream her videos on YouTube?
Compared to Gaga's other videos, "Telephone" doesn't top "Bad Romance," which had far more focus and tighter editing. But it sits comfortably among Gaga's other great videos like "LoveGame" and "Poker Face." The pairing of Lady Gaga and Beyonce as a deadly femme fatale duo is an apt metaphor for the two ladies' current reign in pop music. Gaga and Beyonce are knocking the competition dead and having the time of their lives while doing it. And we, the peons, are cheering for them, "Long live the queens!"
