lady gaga – bad romance. (video treatment)

Lady GaGa’s new album The Fame Monster is an album I took a long time to come around to, but I have finally learned to appreciate its merits and its songcraft a lot more than that of The Fame.  I still think that Lady GaGa is somewhat gimmicky and repetitive, but the talent is evident in the music and I really like even “Speechless” (which I couldn’t stand to listen to for the first couple of months).  Lead single “Bad Romance” may repeat elements of “Poker Face” and “Paparazzi”, but I love the song and there’s a certain cinematic element (I’m talking beyond that of the Hitchcock references in the lyrics).  So when I am listening to / singing along to the songs, I imagine performing it and slowly but surely, a whole storyline began to unfurl in my head – so I thought it would be fun to get that down on this blog for you all so you can get a little taste of how my creative brain works 😉

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Intro

Video fades in on an office scene for some sort of Soviet / Eastern-European corporation.  Two very big, very important looking men are sat at a conference table in the centre of the screen having an argument and barking into mobile phones in Russian.  In the back left corner of the screen sits a handsome man behind a desk, wearing a grey designer suit and thick, black-rimmed glasses, reading a set of papers intently.  In the back right corner of the screen sits Me, also in a black designer suit and glasses, typing furiously on a desktop computer.  After an intense conversation, the big-wig sat on the right of the table stands up, clearly frustrated, and walks over to me and barks a string of orders at me.  I stop typing, exasperated, stand up and look my boss dead in the eye.  Without another word, I pick up my Gucci shoulder bag from the floor, take off my glasses (never breaking gaze with my boss), put on a set of huge black Prada sunglasses and walk out of the office – I have apparently quit.  As I walk out, the other secretary-guy looks at me in shock / awe.

Shot of me walking out of a faceless skyscraper, half-running as I hit the street.

Back to office, the other guy frantically grabs his papers, collects his back and runs off after me.  Both of the Russian CEOs look on in shock, then after a beat begin barking into their phones once more as servants bring them tea / vodka / some unidentifiable drink in a steaming clear square glass mug.

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Song starts / 1st verse

Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh
Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh
Caught in a bad romance

Ra Ra-ah-ah-ah
Roma Roma-ma
GaGa
Oh la-la
Want your bad romance

I want your ugly
I want your disease
I want your everything
As long as it’s free
I want your love
Love love love
I want your love

Shot of me walking purposefully down the street as music begins to play.  Cut with shots of my peer trying to catch me up, running after me, dropping papers and having to stoop to pick them up as pedestrians crowd around him.  Slow motion – a tear begins to fall from his eye.  Intercut with me running up the stairs to my flat, getting changed, putting on new clothes: shiny, black, designer, silver jewellery. As I turn around to go out the door, presumably for drinking and dancing, my colleague is there. We look at each other: close up on his face, on my face.  Another tear falls from his eye.  I close my eyes slowly.  He kisses my cheek.  I move my lips to his ear and whisper something.  Fade out…

2nd verse

I want your drama
The touch of your hand
I want your leather studded kiss in the sand
I want your love
Love love love
I want your love

You know that I want you
And you know that I need you
I want it bad
A bad romance

The camera spins around disorientingly to reveal a dark mirrored ceiling, green laser beams shooting here and there, people in various states of undress and sobriety dancing, drinking, shouting, kissing, fumbling, conversing.  Slow motion of a cocktail that contains coke falling on the floor intercut with my colleague / boyfriend standing by a booth, looking anxious.  As the glass hits the floor and the liquid spills out, cut to a scene of me in a bathroom staring hard at the mirror in an accusatory manner.  Close in on my eyes (wearing blue contacts).  I lip synch the words “I want your love”, then strut out of bathroom and grab boyfriend’s hand, who smiles.

1st chorus

I want your love and
I want your revenge
You and me could write a bad romance
I want your love and
All your lover’s revenge
You and me could write a bad romance

Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh
Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh

Caught in a bad romance
Ra ra-ah-ah-ah

Roma roma-ma
GaGa
Oh la-la
Want your bad romance

We make our way through the club, pushing our way through the crush of people unwilling to give way. Close up on our linked hands, my set lips, his eyes looking to me.  As we walk past, slowly each member of the crowd’s head turns to watch us pass by.  We stumble out of the club into the cool night air, the sky pitch black.  Limousines line the pavement and there is a queue of important looking businessmen, all in shades Karl Lagerfeld-style, all pouting and puffed up in their suits waiting to get into the bar next door to the club we have exited.  As we stumble drunkenly past, laughing and holding onto one another, the camera focuses behind us as one of the businessmen, in an Armani suit and black fur overcoat, leans out of the queue and raises his sunglasses so that his eyes are visible.  He looks in shock, then automatically whips out his iPhone and taps furiously on it.  We go on, laughing deliriously as we smoke our cigarettes and totally oblivious to what has just happened.  The camera cuts back to the man, who raises the phone to his ear, begins to talk, and slides the sunglasses back down to hide his eyes, puffing on a cigar.  Fade out as the screen spins and we wander back into the block of flats where I ran to after quitting my Soviet secretary job.

3rd / 4th verse

I want your horror
I want your design
‘Cuz you’re a criminal
As long as you’re mine
I want your love
Love love love
I want your love

I want your psycho
Your vertigo shtick
Want you in my rear window
Baby you’re sick
I want your love
Love love love
I want your love

Some time appears to have passed.  Back outside the club, same line of limousines, same pitch-black sky, same drunken revellers falling out of the nightclub.  An identical queue of identikit businessmen line the streets waiting for the bar.  A limousine pulls up in front of these businessmen, and the door opens as the man in the fur coat from the queue prior steps out.  From nowhere, paparazzi and a multitude of flashing lights appear as microphones are thrust towards the door of the limousine.  A beat, and then I climb out in skintight black jeans and a leather trenchcoat and dark sunglasses with leather cuffs.  I smile dazzlingly for my entourage as minders, having appeared from nowhere, clear a path through the paparazzi for me.  Freeze frames as flashing lights illuminate me shielding my eyes, signing an autograph, waving to the surrounding crowd.  Behind me, my boyfriend gets out of the car, a serious tight-lipped expression on his face, and he lunges forward and clasps my hand to pull him through the crowd, but I get knocked over and our hands come apart (close-up).  Cut to the VIP section, purple velvet ropes cordoning off us from the rest of the club: within the area is a giant plush black leather sofa in front of a table piled with bottles, cocktails, glasses of unidentifiable substances, a smear of white powder.  Sat on the sofa is me, my boyfriend (sat apart and not engaging in eye contact) and a heavy-set, stoned-looking bodyguard half-asleep.  Businessmen talking into phones mill around while the crowd dances, lights flash and I stare into the distance.  I fumble for a packet of cigarettes and a lighter, and I reach over to whisper in my boyfriend’s ear, but as he is about to respond (a smile flickering across his face), one of the businessmen reaches over and shakes my hand and begins to talk.

2nd chorus

You know that I want you (’Cuz I’m a free bitch baby)
And you know that I need you
I want it bad romance
Your bad romance

I want your love and
I want your revenge
You and me could write a bad romance
I want your love and
All your lover’s revenge
You and me could write a bad romance

Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh
Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh

Caught in a bad romance
Ra ra-ah-ah-ah

Roma roma-ma
GaGa
Oh la-la
Want your bad romance

Exasperated, my boyfriend gets up and stalks out the back of the VIP area; concerned, I brush aside the businessman and go after him.  Walking to the smoking area, I fumble to light my cigarette as I walk through a walkway framed on either side by barbed wire.  Camera flashes go off continuously, hands clutch excitedly at me through the gaps in the barbed wire; one of them grabs my shoulder and I fall to the ground, dropping my cigarette.  I scrabble around on the ground for it and look up.  The camera pans up from the ground (my line of sight) and a Gucci shoe trails upwards to a shin, knee, leg.  The camera scrolls up to reveal my boyfriend looking down at me.  Close-up of his disapproving gaze.  I gather myself on the ground, a tear forming in my right eye, and begins to roll down my face – the camera does not pull away.  He walks past me as I kneel on the ground, bereft and lost, puffing desperately on my cigarette, and I begin to crumple and cry.  Eventually I go to run after him, but I can barely hold myself upright.

Bridge part 1

Walk walk fashion baby work it
Move that bitch c-razy
Walk walk fashion baby work it
Move that bitch c-razy
Walk walk passion baby work it
I’m a free bitch baby

Hands clutch through the barbed wire as I start to run, and this time the walkway seems to be interminable.  Intercut with footage of me running is a shot of a police car parked stationary; a black police hat, a set smirk on an unidentifiable male face.  From nowhere, policemen rush through the walkway at me, the hands retreat and the camera flashes stop.  Beating me with truncheons, I crumple once again to the ground, my sunglasses and hair askew, my clothes slightly torn.  One of them handcuffs me, and as I lie on the ground, cuffed, hands start to creep back through the wire to grope at me.  Fade out.

Bridge part 2

I want your love
And I want your revenge
I want your love
I don’t wanna be friends

Je veux ton amour
Et je veux ta revenge
Je veux ton amour
I don’t wanna be friends
(Want your bad romance
I want your bad romance)
Want your bad romance!

A television in the corner of a mystery white room flickers on and off with footage showing “Alan has been arrested” ; “Star meltdown” ; “Dumped and detained!” among other headlines.  Close up on my face, clear and almost angelic, mouthing the song lyrics. My eyes are a liquid electric blue, my skin is pale and sunlit.  The camera pans out to reveal that I am in a straight jacket in a white, padded room with just a television in one corner, and a fold-out bed / sofa in the other, all white.

3rd Chorus

I want your love and
I want your revenge
You and me could write a bad romance
I want your love and
All your lover’s revenge
You and me could write a bad romance

Caught in a bad romance

Grief-stricken, I throw myself around the padded room, bouncing off walls, pounding the floor, tearing stuffing out of the pillow with my fingernails.  The camera retreats further back to show the room with a giant glass window looking in; doctors pace outside tapping pens against clipboards, looking unconcerned and business-as-usual. Tears roll down my face as I sing pleadingly into camera.  At the phrase “Caught in a bad romance”, the music stops, and all that can be heard is the sound of my breathing as I look full-face out of the screen.  The camera switches to my view, and outside the cell stands my ex-boyfriend, looking in at me.  A smile of sympathy plays across his lips, and at the same moment we press our hands together, regretfully, against the glass.  A doctor then comes and escorts him away, and I follow his gaze as he is shepherded down the corridor, looking back at me.  The camera zooms out further to show that in the two cells either side of mine are the two Soviet big henchmen from the intro office scene, barking Russian into their phones just as they were in the office.  The whole scene fades out to white…

the cool kids.

Today I had my induction at the hospital (despite the fact I’ve already been working there for three weeks) and I learned such valuable things as the different colours of bins and their bags, that you should never inject someone in the spine with vinchristine, and how to pick up a box.  Occasionally there was a relevant tidbit of information, but I could have quite happily skipped the induction without being any less the wiser.

However, I did make a couple of friends, which made the whole thing worth it!  Two girls, Kim and Hannah, ended up with me outside the building during a cigarette break, and we got talking – it turned out that Kim and I had both worked in the Galleries together (she recognised me from during my time at the Perfume Shop), and the three of us would giggle during the funny bits of the presentations (whether they were intentionally funny or not) and get filthy looks from a spoilsport old woman who was taking the whole thing far too seriously.

We got to know each other during the course of the day and its multiple breaks, and we had a good banter and sense of humour.  And the strangest thing happened… during the end of the lunch break before everyone gathered together again for the afternoon talks, people would come up to our little group and ask if we knew what was going on etc.  They said that they “recognised us from their group”.  I’m not entirely sure why, because we were no more prominently sat than anyone else, and we contributed just as much (read= little) to the morning discussions as anyone else.  But after our while, our group grew and we comprised 5, 6, 7 people who were smiling, laughing and conversing and swapping jokes about the day. It was something curious, but it made the day a bit more light-hearted and bearable in the midst of insights such as “Anger is an emotion”.

I got to thinking.  In our group, there were the obvious computer geeks and social awkwards who didn’t wash as often as they should.  There was a mixture of races, genders and personalities.  There was the annoying guy who kept kicking our chairs and feet as he sat behind us.  Kim commented more than once that it felt like being back at school, and I began to wonder what “group” or clique we would have been?  And it dawned on me that we were the “cool kids” that the others wanted to be around – we were young, lively and chatty, and people flocked to us one by one.

That strikes me as strangely amusing, because at school I never felt that I belonged to a particular clique, let alone that I was particularly cool.  I was brainy at school, so other people used to call me a “keener” because I would study; I was heckled for being gay for a little while; my friends were a little bit geeky.  These things together made me feel as if I were a nerd or a geek, and it’s only looking back that nobody probably thought that I was a geek, because I certainly wasn’t.  Even though they weren’t friendships that lasted, I was on friendly speaking terms with quite a lot of people, I got on with my teachers, and my musical ability and singing and dancing made me a celebrity in the school, singing in the corridors as much as in concerts, and winning a few competitions.  I even used to sign autographs for the younger kids!  We had a prefect slave auction, and I fetched the highest price; I got asked to do duets with other people during my last year or so.  It’s funny, and I didn’t realise until the end of school, but I was one of the ‘cool kids’ and I was popular.  And somehow I managed to achieve that while being myself, which is possibly one of the hardest things of all.

It sounds funny even to write it now, because I never felt popular – not once but twice, I had a massive disillusionment where I realised that the people I would mainly hang around with weren’t nice people, were phony attention-seekers, and just weren’t on the same wavelength as me.  It hurt, and needless to say once I left school, I never made any effort to keep in touch with them, let alone see them again. That part of my life is closed, and I am relieved to be past that, because it caused me a lot of pain and taught me a lot of hard life lessons for a teenager.  The friends from my school with whom I’ve kept up a friendship are all people who weren’t in my year group or original social groups, but instead were people both older and younger than me whom I met through working at the Bookstore in the summer, exploring different cliques and just getting to know people outside of my comfort zone.  Doing that is something I will never regret; all that I regret is that I didn’t do it sooner!

True friends are few and far between; I’m learning to let people drift apart naturally, because that’s healthy – some people are in your life just for a season.  I’m learning that the people with whom you keep in contact and who keep in contact with you are friends you never have to worry about making an effort to keep in touch with; that connection happens naturally.  But what is funny to me is that a lot of my old year group are on Facebook, and they add me as friends.  At first, I would reject them because I had absolutely no desire to be in touch with them and to see what they were doing, let alone for them to be able to browse my information and photos.  But after a while I just felt “fuck it, if they are desperate to add me on Facebook, why not? Let them boost my friend count if that’s all that matters to them.”  And a lot of these people are all friends with one another on Facebook, which makes me LOL because at school, a lot of these people either never spoke to one another (due to the social hierarchies of high school) or hated each other.  And now they are “friends”.   Bish please!!!  It’s so fake to me, and it just reinforces the fact that I don’t need that kind of energy in my life.  I know who my real true friends are, and although I might have been “popular” without realising it, and I may be “popular” now – which is a nice confidence boost and does make me feel cool, in a way – I don’t need to compete with anyone for who’s the most popular or who has the most friends.  I am confident in a crowd and in a smaller group, but I’m also at ease with myself and my own company, and I know that at the end of the day it’s not how many people are in your entourage, but who is in your entourage who really, truly has your back.  I’m complimented that I seem to give off a ‘cool vibe’ and I won’t put it down (certainly that rather than repel people!), but I am more blessed to finally have friends who are truly there for me through thick and thin, and for whom I would ride or die.  It took long enough, but now I feel popular – and my friend count is irrelevant, because my friends count.