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Why a US college is studying Lady Gaga

Why a US college is studying Lady Gaga
Why a US college is studying Lady Gaga
Why a US college is studying Lady Gaga

Human Behavior Expert and Celebrity Life Coach Patrick Wanis, PhD, answers a reporter’s in-depth questions about Lady Gaga, Madonna and the social and artistic impact each one has had. This is Part 7: Why a US college is studying Lady Gaga

For Part 6: Madonna and Lady Gaga – gay icons, click here:  https://patrickwanis.com/blog/madonna-lady-gaga-gay-icons/

Natalia:  Lady Gaga has had also — she has aroused this interest in the intellectual community, like there are universities and colleges in the States that have like a Gaga course, like sociology of fame and such based on her success. Why do you think that happened? Because, you know, Madonna was equally controversial and you never saw university professors having a course on what it’s like being Madonna.

Patrick: Yes, but if Lady Gaga was around 30 years ago, they would have never done a university course on her either. I think the first thing is you have to look at the timing. A lot of the colleges today do stupid courses. I’m very happy for you to quote me on that. They’ve done many stupid courses. I remember there was another one that I thought about that was equally ridiculous.

Lady Gaga isn’t hip-hop. She hasn’t created a whole movement. So to me, it’s ridiculous to even be studying her. But if you’re saying ‘well, we’re studying the sociology of fame’, that’s very different than saying ‘we’re studying Lady Gaga.’

Natalia:  They give this in the University of South Carolina, and the course is actually called “Lady Gaga and the Sociology of Fame.”

Patrick: Okay. Again, my point is: why didn’t they study David Bowie in the ’70s? David Bowie was equally as shocking as Lady Gaga, but he didn’t impact the world as much because it was a man doing it, not a woman doing it. If you go back and look at what David Bowie was doing, David Bowie was crossing gender images and barriers long before Lady Gaga ever came along. Go back and look at what David Bowie was wearing, what his message was.

So I don’t know if I’m fully answering your question other than to say why are colleges doing it? Colleges are always looking for new courses to do, something unique, something different. I don’t know that it’s necessarily relevant because I don’t know that Lady Gaga – yes, tens of millions of people have seen her videos. Maybe hundreds of millions of people have seen her videos around the world. But I don’t necessarily think that means that she warrants a whole university course.

Because you can find a viral video. The viral video from — what is it — the new dance movement? Gangnam Style? That’s huge and hundreds of millions of people are watching that too? Should we do a video course on that, I mean a university course? (The video of Psy – Gangnam Style has been viewed more than one billion, eight hundred million times.)

I think anytime a university course should be done is when it really adds great value – when the subject of the course is about something that has had huge social impact. So we need to argue, we need to first establish “Has Lady Gaga had such a huge social impact?” I don’t know what the answer is to that. I wouldn’t say that she has changed the world. Some of my clients who are musicians and artists believe that she has because she has changed the music videos again. One client of mine says to me that now every artist feels that they have to dress up lavishly, like Nikki Minaj who has colored her hair and changed her look.

But three months after my client who is a very successful artist said that to me, Adele came along and proved my client wrong. Again, the only validity for studying Lady Gaga would be to say she has made a huge social impact, and you have to measure that. How do you measure the social impact that she has made? I don’t know that she has made such a huge social impact compared to the hip-hop movement.

Now, there are colleges that study hip-hop and that makes more sense because the hip-hop movement, the rap movement has truly changed the world, much more than Lady Gaga has. Again, that’s just my opinion.

Natalia:  I understand. Well, I think that that’s all. Thank you so much, Sir, for collaborating with us again.

Patrick: You’re welcome.

Natalia:  Okay. Thank you so much.

Click here for Part 1 of the interview: Can Lady Gaga dethrone Madonna as the Queen of Pop? https://patrickwanis.com/blog/lady-gaga-dethrone-madonna-queen-pop/

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