The song, along with the video received positive reviews, and was included in the 'best-of' lists in several media outlets such as Rolling Stone and Pitchfork Media and acquired two Grammy Awards for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance and Best Short Form Music Video.
The video was directed by Francis Lawrence, who worked along side many singers and bands, creating music videos for them, but is best known for directing three of the four Hunger Games films.
"The accompanying music video of "Bad Romance" features Gaga inside a surreal white bathhouse. There, she gets kidnapped by a group of supermodels who drug her and sell her to the Russian Mafia for sexual slavery. The music video ends with Gaga killing the man who bought her. The song's video garnered acclaim from critics, who not only applauded the risqué and symbolic nature of the plot, but its artistic direction and vivid imagery" -Wikipedia
Male Gaze
This theory was created by Laura Mulvey, a British Feminist Film Theorist who believes that media is often created with a male audience in mind. Presenting women for the pleasure of a male gaze.
As a Post Feminist, Gaga would most likely disagree with the theory, as she believes that what she creates and the way she dresses is to empower her and actually gives her a sense of freedom.
The costumes in this music video are very revealing which, from a traditional feminist point of view, this would arguably be to attract a male audience. The men in the video are watching her and the rest of the women, which further accentuates this point and the arguable aspects of the male gaze within the video.
Feminist/ Post-Feminist
Gaga uses long standing and traditional feminist arguments to call out and comment on the double standard that is placed on female performers (they are expected to be sexual, but only up to a certain point) Whereas male performers/rock stars are given free license.
However, she insist that she is not a feminist, and opens up the image of an empowered and liberated woman.
Normativity
There are some cases in this video which provides us with some things that have become normative to us. (stereotypes that have been repeated over and over, until we see them as normative).
russians - vodka
men watching women- arguably objectifying them, representation of the audience? strip club set up. There are multiple ways to read this, again going back to the contrast between feminism and post feminism.
Product Placement
Product placement has become much more common, due to the fact that there is much less money being brought in from album/record sales. There is product placement in this video through the bottle of vodka.
Intertextuality
Her underwear is an intertextual reference to Madonna's iconic bra.
look of decay- could be interpreted as "the queen is dead" and gaga is new queen.
Mise en scene
makeup and hair, skin tone is like a doll, dolls are seen as an object. she is exaggerating the stereotype that women are seen as objects.
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