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[HejiraNYC]

Originally Posted by holidayroad

It's okay to want attention. It's not okay to do things ONLY for attention. I don't think a woman should have to disrobe to get noticed. In fact, isn't that playing into the wants of a 'male-dominated business'?? You mention that Stevie, Debbie Harry, and others have 'had to sell their sexy images to become superstars' but there's a huge difference between what they have done and what Lady GaGa is doing. She's making it very hard for people to take her talent seriously.

Also, as for Ann and Nancy being nude on the Dreamboat Annie cover and even Stevie being nude on the Buckingham Nicks album, there is nothing wrong with tastefully done and occasional nudity. They were not constantly showing off their bodies to the point where it became more about their looks than their talent.

But who's to say that Gaga's "nudity" (I'm not aware if she's gone fully in the buff in public) isn't tasteful? It's not like you're seeing more female anatomy than you would see on a woman at the beach or even a modern dancer. Yes, she is a dancer (or, at the very least, she's an entertainer who dances), so I don't think it would be appropriate for her to show up at her gigs wearing pleated wool skirts and cardigan sweaters; it's just not practical. A dancer needs to show the lines of her body when she performs so that invariably means she is going to wear very little or something very form-fitted.

As for "making it hard for people to take her talent seriously," do you really think Deborah Harry tarted up herself in Playboy centerfold drag so that people will take her seriously? She intentionally painted herself out to be the Betty-Boop-cum-Marilyn-Monroe airhead bimbo blonde stereotype; she was in on the joke and she was poking fun at the stereotype. But the world at large probably did not think so; they probably assumed she was being genuine rather than ironic. Oh, and I'm sure Stevie expected to be taken seriously by wearing curtain sheers on the cover of her debut solo album and singing songs about witches, doves and lace. If she wasn't accused of being a witch, the world at large thought she was a space case, especially compared to the much more straightforward, hard rocking Pat Benatar, who also happened to be much less interesting IMHO.

As for Gaga, like I have been saying all along, her music is nothing particularly special or interesting and I think she is smart enough to realize this. Nobody is going to take her music seriously at face value. So I think she made the right decision to sensationalize it and to present herself to the world as an over-the-top entertainer vs. a navel-gazing musician. If she presented herself as a piano-playing chick singer-songwriter like Regina Spektor or Vanessa Carlton or Fiona Apple, she would have no career. Good on her for doing what it takes.