Music video planners: Lady Gaga, we’re so excited about working with you, and we’ve come up with some great ideas for your video.
Lady Gaga: Okay, that’s great, let’s hear them.
Music video planners: For starters, we explored the concept of literally interpreting the story told by your lyrics–
Lady Gaga: That’s really not going to work. Most of the song is nonsense, punctuated by wordless babbling and also, some French.
Music video planners: Ohhhkay… well, let’s see what else we had. Ah, right here we have the video opening with you, wearing a freakish old-lady wig and a pair of glasses made out of razor blades and some other sharp stuff you shouldn’t put by your eyes, in a room all in white. I’m thinking you should be staring vacantly into middle distance, one finger poised above the power button of a sound system.
Lady Gaga: Can I be surrounded by degenerates and malcontents dressed in freakish metal masks? And could we get some of the girls from the Robert Palmer video in there, as well?
Music video planners: Of course! This is exactly what this meeting is about. An exchange of ideas! Now, when you push the button on the sound system, the beginning of the song proper will start.
Lady Gaga: We should all look like startled robots!
Music video planners: Sure! Then, we were thinking of a cut to another white room, with sensory deprivation pods. You know, like the coffins on Anubis air in True Blood, only white.
Lady Gaga: They should say something on them, though.
Music video planners: Maybe an “L” and a “G”?
Lady Gaga: No, they should say “Monster.” And then they should have monsters coming out of them.
Music video planners: Uh, okay. Yeah, we could work with that. Do you think they should be hairy monsters, like on Sesame Street or–
Lady Gaga: No! Dancers, all in white, dressed like that kid in the pajamas from Where The Wild Things Are. Except it should be a one-piece latex suit, with just the mouth cut out. And then we could dance like the nurses in Silent Hill!
Music video planners: That’s… very high fashion of you.
Lady Gaga: There should also be shots of me with pink hair and oddly disproportionate bug-eyes. And then, I want to dress like Tom Petty and sing to myself in a mirror.
Music video planners: Oh, okay, I think we can–
Lady Gaga: We should probably get our dancers from a local production of Cats, because I want those kinds of moves. Like, “batting at a ball of yarn in the air” type moves.
Music video planners: I’m sure we can find someone like that.
Lady Gaga: But I don’t want it to be completely freaky. I want to be able to sing into the camera with minimal makeup, and look very earnest.
Music video planners: You’re right, it’s good balance the more artistic elements with some traditional–
Lady Gaga: Because then I want there to be some implication of forced medication, and after that I want to be practically naked with chandelier on my head, while my dancers strip a graffitied Burberry coat off me.
Music video planners: Does this chandelier have to be crystal, or…
Lady Gaga: And I want to dance for a guy with a gold plated jaw.
Music video planners: This is getting kind of expensive.
Lady Gaga: And there needs to be a hairless cat.
Music video planners: I think Jan in accounting has one–
Lady Gaga: Did I mention I wanted to do full nudity, too? As much as I can get away with? We need to dispel this weird transexual rumor.
Music video planners: As long as it’s tasteful, and shot from the side in low light, we can accomodate that.
Lady Gaga: I want to have some kind of hairless bat thing in my hair, too. It will only be seen briefly, but I feel it’s important.
Music video planners: Well, this all sounds great, and I’m sure we can make the arrangements to shoot by–
Lady Gaga: Now, in the next scene–
Music video planners: Next scene?
Lady Gaga: Yeah, you didn’t think we were done here, did you? This is barely half-finished. We’re going to need another chandelier. I’m thinking I should be dressed like Madonna, only more sexualized, surrounded by the suspended pieces of a broken chandelier. I’m probably going to wear a cross and throw in a few gestures to offend super religious people. You know, the kind who write letters?
Music video planners: Oh dear.
Lady Gaga: Do you think we could find someone to make high heels with snake spines wrapped around them?
Music video planners: We’ll add it to the list.
Lady Gaga: Great! I also think we should use the spinny ring thing I wore on SNL, just so I get my money’s worth, you know? And I’ve got this sequined Imelda Marcos costume and a pointy wig I bought at Gwen Stefani’s garage sale. I can wear that for the bridge.
Music video planners: We’re only up to the bridge at this point?!
Lady Gaga: It’s amazing how much I can pack into this, right? Okay, when we go back to the chorus, I want to be wearing a polar bear.
Music video planners: A what now?
Lady Gaga: And Baron Von Underbite from The Venture Bros. waiting to have sex with me, on a bed flanked by taxidermy Antelope heads.
Music video planners: I’m sorry, Ms. Gaga, but… how many animals have to die for this video?
Lady Gaga: I’m going to have to have some serious back up dancers for the all-red sequence.
Music video planners: All red? Where is this going to fit?
Lady Gaga: Oh, close to the end of the video. Right before the bed burns up, and I’m shown wreathed in flames and burning polar bear.
Music video planners: Did you bring any Advil with you? We feel a collective headache coming on.
Lady Gaga: And at the end, I want to be lying on the charred bed, next to the smoldering remains of Baron Von Underbite. I think it goes without saying that at this point, I should look like a blonde Amy Winehouse, and have sparks shooting out of my nipples.
Music video planners: Why not? Fuck it, do whatever you want. I’m going to go hang myself in the bathroom.