If you were hoping for a sun-filled, warm, Latin-inspired video to accompany Gaga's third single, "Alejandro," from "The Fame Monster," look elsewhere. Opting to largely ignore the lyrics of the song, which details a tortuous love affair with an addictive, yet ultimately poisonous Latin man, Gaga instead goes for dark militarism, homoeroticism and a bra that doubles as weaponry. Whatever happened to shooting a fun, flirty music video on the beach?
There's no point in attempting to go through the "plot" of this video. There is none. The video rotates from a series of setups without any overarching tale. There's Gaga as a nun, lying on her back, deep in prayer. Halfway through the video, she swallows her rosary. (Is that commentary on God living inside each of us?) Then there's Gaga as Rita Repulsa from the Power Rangers, peering from her dark throne down on her mushroom-haired minions. There's also Gaga as dominatrix, though this time she didn't wear a dominatrix costume. She struggles in a graphic and exposed simulation of sex on a bed with her dancers while other men writhe in the background. Tossing a bit of red meat to the Illuminati crowd, Gaga gets decked out in inverted crosses and lastly, Gaga dresses as Madonna from the "Express Yourself" video, only she's wearing a hideous mushroom-cut wig.
Gaga and director Steven Klein claim that the video serves as a dedication to Gaga's gay male fan base. The video is meant to depict Gaga as the outsider who can never feel the kind of love that gay men have between them. Ok. But that's not what "Alejandro" is about lyrically. It's not the first time Gaga's music videos have deviated from the lyrics of her songs, but at least when she did it in "Telephone," it was a cartoonish, thrilling major pop event. "Alejandro," on the other hand, comes off as overwrought, over-thought and unenjoyable. It's summer time, Gaga. Katy Perry is singing about daisy dukes and bikini tops. Can you put away the dreary funerals for a bit?
All of this suggests that Gaga might want to step back and tackle her music videos with a little more simplicity. ("Alejandro" clocked in at a bloated 8:43 minutes for no good reason) It appears that she has now bought into the notion that she needs to constantly top her "epicness" video after video. "Bad Romance" was an eye-popping amazing journey, and "Telephone" was an electric, roller coaster of a follow-up, but "Alejandro" comes off as a wet blanket. Gaga would be better served if she looked back in her catalogue to videos like "Poker Face" and "Love Game" where the focus was more on entertaining, rather than attempting to serve as some messiah for some pretentious, reaching "message."
