Puh-lease. It's one thing to be a celebrated artist, especially in this day and age when art is dead, but it's another when you declare your own divinity to the rest of the world like some pretentious arse. What have we learned from history if not that self proclaimed gods DIE HORRIBLE DEATHS.
There are a few steps one must take to declare self-deification, and here I will lay them out for you.
I'm going to compare Gaga here to the emperor Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (better known as Caligula) because they both have a deep passion for theatrics and they both meet miserable ends (yes, I have seen Gaga's future, and this is true).
Step 1: Legitimize your status as a god by publishing an origination myth that propagates your humility and humanity so people will love you and see you as one of their own.
This declaration of Miss Gaga's comes in the most generic of generically composed pop songs of the coming decade. 'Born this Way' is an origination myth hidden in the guise of yet another anthem of losers. The lyrics reek with encouraging lines meant to make teenagers feel artificial self-esteem. 'Oh how I hate myself, but if Lady Gaga can be born in a slum like me, then I can be something!' This is a lie. While I think people should think very highly of themselves, seeking self worth in such songs is not the way to come to grips with your own value. The lyrics are not about you. They are about the recording artist. Lady Gaga's song isn't about embracing your sexuality or ethnicity. It's about her. She tells the story of her mother teaching her to 'love thyself' and how to do horrific makeup. Aw, how sweet.
For Caligula this step was fairly simple. He was legitimate royalty through his great grandfather Caesar Augustus, the first emperor of Rome and a god in his own right. The Romans had no problem deifying Augustus after his death and did indeed see him as a true god, and Caligula had the birthright. Caligula also had that whole baby charm going for him too. The name 'Caligula' means 'little boot', a moniker lovingly given to the little tyke when he was but a boy running around like a soldier amongst his father's ranks. Who could resist an adorable little soldier smacking at their shins with an adorable little wooden sword? Isn't that just bleeding precious?! Not when that little boy grows up and turns into a psycho nut who regards his horse to be a political aficionado.
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| THUS SPAKE INCITATUS! |
Step 2: Challenge the divinity of other gods.
In the song 'Born this Way', Gaga mentions not only her mother but also God, and thanks Him for making her who she is. 'But wait!' you might say, 'doesn't that make her a God fearing Christian like the rest of us? Can't we accept her then as something more than just another pagan heathen?' No. God may not make mistakes, Gaga, but humans do, so don't claim that everything you are is because of God. No Christian will tell you that you can be whatever you want because God meant for you to be that way. That is blasphemy and a challenge to the commandments set up by God to live a certain way. Now God may not hate you for the choices you make, but they're called choices for a reason. God has nothing to do with it.
Caligula had the audacity to demand a statue of himself erected in a Jewish temple. He further decapitated existing statues of his own gods and replaced their heads with a likeness of himself. This trend of likening gods to an existing monarch wasn't new and wasn't about to go out of style, granted. The very Christian image we have today isn't at all what Christ most likely looked like. It comes from the fourth century, and since then Christ has often been modeled after various monarchs and clergy depending on where the piece in question comes from. I still doubt that these monarchs demanded that their likeness be the treatment Christ would get. As far as I know Caligula was all about making the gods, male and female alike, his clones rather than the other way around.
Step 3: Make public appearances as a deity.
This was the final straw for me today as I happened across a video of Lady Gaga's 'walk' down the red carpet at the Grammys which apparently happened or are happening at this moment. I don't really care. The point is that she was resting on a sedan being carried by slaves -er- special individuals who should love themselves like she says in her song. To top that, she was an in an egg. A giant alien egg, incubating like a soon to be born self-canonized goddess. I don't know if this is so much bizarre to me as it is disturbingly like watching the beginning of a sci-fi horror. Scientists find crazy egg thing in the jungle. Egg hatches. Tentacles kill everyone except the hot guy and the cheerleader. Hot guy and girl kill tentacles and kiss. Maybe next year she'll burst out of some poor homeless man's thigh like Dionysus rips from Zeus.
Caligula liked to dress up for the public too. He liked to dress up as different gods, talk like them, have people worship. Which brings us to the next step...
Step 4: Start a cult.
Lady Gaga lovingly calls her fans 'little monsters'. And they worship her. Like crazy. I was once a fan of Gaga's on Facebook until I saw just how creepily cultish people got with their comments on her page.
Imperial cults are also not new to the Romans. The Assyrians had them, the Egyptians had them, and so did the Greeks. The Romans in particular kept this sort of worship to honor deceased monarchs. Caligula, on the other hand, had a temple built and forced his people to worship him before he was dead. What a pretentious twat.
Step 5: Face Your Doom, You Mere Mortal!
This step is not yet more than prediction by the cards for Gaga, but I think it will come in the form of some overdose or a fanatical little monster decided that a Gaga not locked away in their basement was a dead Gaga. If I were her I'd hope for the latter result. It worked for John Lennon (Much to my chagrin. I don't mind his music, but please. He wasn't a martyr for crying out loud).
Step five isn't one that any self proclaimed god wants or expects to face. Not when they're divine beings. So imagine Caligula's surprise when he noticed himself bleeding like any old nobody. Imagine the shock when he realized that these conspirators poking at him as though they were playing Whack-a-Mole were not happy with the way he was executing his divine right. That's right Caesar, you're still a damned human and still subject to the same laws of mortality that we all are.
If Gaga learns any lesson here, it should be that she needs to stop. It's one thing to think of yourself as a god, it's quite another to demand that everyone else do the same. The probability is more in favor of her looking on the bright side as she feels her heart slow: At least Caligula's psycho tendencies immortalized him for the rest of history as an interesting character.
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