Director Steven Klein Explains Lady GaGa’s ‘Alejandro’ Video

Published: Thursday 10th Jun 2010 by Trent

As usual, Lady GaGa has sparked a wave of controversy with her new music video. The ‘Alejandro’ clip, which features a mix of homoerotic images and religious symbolism, has left many of her fans both puzzled and upset. In response to this confusion, the video’s director, Steven Klein, has explained the meaning of the production’s content to MTV News. Check out what he had to say below:

“The religious symbolism is not meant to denote anything negative, but represents the character’s battle between the dark forces of this world and the spiritual salvation of the Soul,” Klein wrote. “Thus at the end of the film, she chooses to be a nun, and the reason her mouth and eyes disappear is because she is withdrawing her senses from the world of evil and going inward towards prayer and contemplation.”

Klein added that the scene in which Gaga ingests the rosary beads is meant to represent “the desire to take in the holy.” {Source}

Deep.

Thoughts?

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  1. Last Boy on Earth June 10, 2010

    that “deep” was sarcasm right? Lmao, because nothing that he said is deep, especially when you listen to the song while watching the video, her videos may have a meaning behind them but with them lyrics she ruins everything.. Ale ale jandro ale ale jandro, rofl

  2. MADONNA. June 10, 2010

    DOES ANYONE REALLY CARE?
    It’s a ‘shock’ video….it has not changed the world or made the world a better place.

    Why is there always BIG news with this girl does something wacky…isnt it normal by now? What is she going to do next? What can she do next without repeating herself…or other artists (ie. MADONNA)?

    Madonna montage after montage, this sexless creature Lady Gaga keeps going through Madonna’s old interviews, videos, movies, pictorials and anything else this horrid monster can get her pilfering little hands on and delivers it to a new generation of I don’t know whats.

    Gaga’s a Wanabee-Madonna dipped in a vat of ugly. Isn’t she embarrassed? I know Madonna has been focusing on directing her new movie, W.E. next month, but is the public so parched for Madonna that they will allow this wannabe stand in go through everything she has done without being called out? It’s appalling. Lady Gaga has the most unappealing singing voice, no dance training which leaves her looking like a dissected frog (see below), putrid stretch marked pancake b****** (Please Joanne, no S** Book), the worst face, and awful style.

    The song Alejandro is a bastardized La Isla, as passionless as Lady Gaga is sexless (note lots of Less). For the video, she uses Madonna’s right hand man Steven Klein as director. I think she even attempts to vogue. Haha! She’s got rosaries and crucifixes all around her. Ugh, it’s all just too disgusting to continue listing.

    If you can handle all the fug and I mean 9 minutes of it …

    http://madonnascrapbook.b*******.com/

  3. DANBOFFICIALL (AALIYAH/RIHANNA/XTINA) STAN) June 10, 2010

    LOL they can put any spin they want on that dumbass video…..main point is the video f****** sucks…..and Gaga’s about as real as her nose…….

  4. FUTURESTARdelux June 10, 2010

    if anybody believes that bull then they are retards lmao
    Gaga is so stupid she probably didnt think it was RELIGIOUS symbolism she probably thought it was MADONNA symbolism pmsl…

    When is this rat gonna take a break? she’s 23! thats 2 years older than me, she looks like she’s 37 or something lmao

    Oh well let the crazy stans desperate to fit into Gaga’s fake world of “little monsters” have what they want. All the rational people know she’s just stealing and recycling (badly) Madonna’s old stuff allong with Grace Jones, Bjork, Kylie Minogue, Janet Jackson, Roisin Murphy etc b**** get a clue! or at least sack your THIRTY stylists because you look a COLD mess lol…

    XTINA -{BIONIC}- IN STORES NOW! 🙂

  5. jonstrax June 10, 2010

    ERM OK I THOUGHT THE VIDEO WAS MEANT TO BE ABOUT GAGA’S LOVE FOR THE GAY’S NT RELIGION THE VIDEO HAS TOO MUCH GOING ON SMH

    CHECK OUT MY NEW ENTERTAINMENT SITE >>> http://WWW.FRESHURBANENT.CO.UK

  6. DizzyGuy1985 June 10, 2010

    The Fame Monster when it was first released was nothing but another pop album. But than she figured she could drum up some publicity by trying to sound all “deep” and “thoughtful”. This guys explanation is terrible. This is nothing but a bunch of publicity. Lady Gaga is just trying to make a buck. I don’t buy all her fuckery.

  7. stan June 10, 2010

    the haters are out in full force, i see. u maddddd?

  8. MADONNA. June 10, 2010

    @stan

    No I’m not maddd…
    I Am …MADONNA!

  9. matt June 10, 2010

    haters face it, she killed the game off. gimmick or not a gimmick, she’s better than you and by the looks of things (another release off her 1st album, only classed as a second album in america) she is set to do bigger, bolder, controversial things than any of your faves!!

  10. flopgaga June 10, 2010

    this video is nothing but bed excercise

    having with alehongdo

    and other men

    how alehongdou insert his huge into gaga’s ass, and makes her high. ups and down

    she really miss that huge mexicon d*** so much!!!!!!

  11. gaga d*** June 10, 2010

    this mtv is nothing but lady gaga’s s@x history

    how ale hong dou’s huge mexican cockk makes gaga happy high

    deeper stop deeper stop no no no push gaga to the ground

    she reallly miss that huge one…..

  12. gaga d*** June 10, 2010

    @FUTURESTARdelux

    i have ordered xtina’s delux taiwan version in CHINA. does that count the first week sales?

    in china, most people either buy honkong or taiwan version at taobao.com

  13. GangsterA June 10, 2010

    Dam it not again when this came out i liked it but after geting the meaning i hated it just like bad romance when it came out i like it but after knowing that she was a s** s**** in it i hated it and i am still shocked at this blog sayin beyonce videos are cheap to up lift this crap beyonce videos > lady gaga videos real talk and just dance was cheap too just my opinion i am sure the fans will come after me so whatever

  14. RANDOM June 10, 2010

    why does a video need an explanation since its visual it speaks for itself and people perceive it however.

  15. roadsareendless June 10, 2010

    thanks for posting up the explanation. this video gives the song so much more depth. ‘alejandro, dont call my name’ she’s obviously speaking from either a gay perspective, where the love is forbidden, or she is resisting sexual urges; both ideas which are presented in this video, very artfully. for those of you who couldn’t get those meanings from the video, a little advice to you: pick up a motherfucking book!!!

  16. OddOne June 10, 2010

    Hmmm… “GaGa’s about as real as her nose”

    Really? That’s pretty real, because if she’d had plastic surgery on it and it come out THAT big… she’d probably impale him/her on a spike… of human hair….

    Oh yes, very GaGa.

    Anyhoo, GaGa is’nt plastic in any way, now run along. dumb one.

    Omg would would look at that… I whole post without excessive capitals – take note peeplings….

  17. FUTURESTARdelux June 10, 2010

    @Gaga D*** yeah it counts towards the WORLDWIDE first week sales that are what counts not the US sales lol
    I always order J-Pop Cd’s from Taiwan ^_^

  18. angel love June 10, 2010

    It’s just pop music folks. It’s not that serious. Enjoy it for what it is. If you don’t like it, you have free will to support other artists. But please dont tear down people to make yourself feel better.

  19. alihang tou June 10, 2010

    @OddOne

    yeah~~ i saw gaga’s previous photos, super huge ugly nose.

    gross!!!!!!

    this video is disgusting…..

    is that bloody red meat liver???hung with rope?

    is alihangtou’s d*** huge? gaga was lifted in her bed by alihangtou ah ah ah

  20. Mr.727 June 10, 2010

    Her agenda is to turn people in to devil worshipers like her! The arrow pointing at her p**** crack, the nun get up, the symbolism of the church, at the end where her face is dissolved into the light! This b**** think she is trying to be artsy, only to fail at being a puppet for the Illuminati! They Got Lady Gaga, and people will say “OH she is expression her creativity side, or she is shitting herself apart!? No damn she is being used to brainwash youth, and people who believe anything to feel about of the crowd!

    If you look at her when she first come out, til now she looks like something is wrong with her, to me that Lupus is taking a toll on her body! I had a sister die from it, so I know the effects of what it can do! Gaga better stop and ask the Lord to deliver her before she is dead before her time!!!

  21. Raychel June 10, 2010

    I fully understand the videos meaning and love it for it is 🙂

  22. LOVEGAGALOO June 10, 2010

    SOME PEOPLE ARE REALLY RETARDED HERE!!
    FIRST, IF YOU HATE HER WHY DO YOU FEEL THE NEED TO COMMENT EVERYTHING SHE DOES????!! STOP BEING OBSESSED WITH GAGA 🙂

    EVERYTHING SHE DOES HAS A DEEP MEANING & SOME WON’T EVEN TRY TO UNDERSTAND.

    Here’s an interpretation;

    ”Lady GaGa, a known provocateur, has done it again. She became an icon through her music, fashion, and videos, but what many fail to realize and what few succeed in seeing is the artistic vision and the impacting message behind her every move. Spawning from Just Dance to Love Game to Paparazzi and now to Alejandro, each of her videos has an underlying message that people, for whatever reason, only feign to realize once its been told to them. While she was quoted for dedicating her newest video, Alejandro, to the gay community, it surprised me to see that it was less of a cursory nod and was instead a ritualistic tribute to the culture we live in today; tying in government, religion, and the social stigma still deeply embedded into the gay culture.

    The video begins provocatively with a man in heels and fishnets – a foreshadowing technique to show what the video is ultimately about. It should be noted that as the soldiers first enter, their stance is powerful, demanding, and intimidating. There are even robust allusions to the Nazi regime. It then begins to establish the roles of a woman and the roles of a man as defined by classic interpretations of gender: GaGa playing the role of a forlorn woman preceding a coffin, men playing the role of soldiers – perhaps the most masculine occupation in the world. But slowly, through the progression of events, the roles are flipped. Gender becomes erroneous and subsidiary to the idea that we are defined by our soul, not by our body.

    Unisexuality becomes ubiquitous marked most especially by the bowl haircut, a fashion that both men and women can equally sport. And it is through this vision of unisexuality comes the idea of uniformity and egalitarianism in a world where, while we claim to have modernized, is still addled by the conflicts of gender issues. GaGa uses this ideal of an equal and shared society by placing women in the seat of power, and dressing men in high heels, fishnet stockings, and spanks yet still portraying them as an Adonis figure.

    Later on in the video GaGa is seen with a bra fashioned out of machine gun shafts, and while it seems like a healthy nod to Madonna’s cone bra in Vogue, there are more powerful and obvious themes: a tool of masculinity only made to support a woman. Then, in a sequence where GaGa sports a pant suit, the men come marching out with dignity in every stride like the beginning, but this time with a feminine flair, as if they were on a runway. Juxtaposing that with their original entrance begins to unfold this degradation of the idea of what is male and what is female. And in that light, it comically satirizes the fact that military groups haze homosexuals, and were even targeted and killed by Nazi hands. It’s this twisted play on gender and sexuality that makes Alejandro a social message to the masses.

    But essentially, where could these thoughts of sexuality and gender even spawn from? Our world is so deeply rooted in dogmatic traditions, that sometimes we fail to realize that it is in religion, most especially Catholicism, where these conflicts first begin. Adam, as the first man made, was fashioned and molded in the image of God, which ultimately leads us, as followers of the holy word, to believe that God is man. And as a MAN of power, he is the alpha. He is the omega. Signifying that anything less than a man, for example a homosexual or a woman, is immediately cast away as irrevocably useless. This idea of religion imposing its ideals and controlling us is exemplified clearly within the first minute of the video where you see a soldier with a golden gun surrounded by wires; an obvious and perhaps blatant message that we are all just puppets of God.

    Lady GaGa, however, can’t leave it at just that. While her first sentence may establish the tone of God and religion, gender and s**, she, as a visionary of our generation, toys with this idea, plays with it, and essentially comes out with this subtle, yet brilliant message.

    She sets up multiple characters in the video, each one with a purpose: a tyrant, a widow, a nun, a priest, a rebel, and finally, and most importantly, a human being. As mentioned before, the tyrant represents government, politics, and modern society. The widow is the tragic, mourning woman, perhaps a simple glance to the realities of war. However, it’s through the other four symbols does her story and her sermon come to life. A nun is a quintessential figure of maternity, sacrificing ones womb and God-given ability to create life for a devout following and birthing of religion. She is shown praying and then symbolically swallowing a rosary into her throat. While this can be interpreted many ways, I think we can all agree that it’s really quite simple: she is swallowing religion, her beliefs, and what she was raised to be in order to liberate herself and her mind to a more global way of thinking. By swallowing one’s religion it is not a blasphemous act of shutting religion away, but rather accepting it into one’s heart and internalizing the purest message. Allowing our body to sift through the inequities and inevitably yielding the most virgin of attitudes and preaching only of what is truly important: love. The Bible may say being gay is wrong, but isn’t its ultimate message it preaches love? Love which transcends the borders of time constriction unlike the medieval thought of sexuality.

    They are then seen stripping and disrobing GaGa dressed as a cardinal priest with red being the only prevalent color in the entire video. This action of pulling apart and eradicating her clothing to expose her to the world serves many purposes and to choose just one is ignorant. Perhaps it’s a message to reveal yourself to the world, to make yourself vulnerable to the thought and philosophy of others. Perhaps it’s a violent urge to accept yourself as you are and that there is nothing inherently wrong with you. Perhaps it’s another message about religion, and that by stripping it and tearing it apart, you are left more holy than when you began. Perhaps it’s all of it and none of it. But the fact that she is covered by the hands of, well, let’s face it, obvious homosexuals, is enough of a message for me.

    There is a sequence within the video that I first claimed to be disjointed and completely irrelevant upon first watching it. You can definitely quote me now that although musically lacking, this clip is important in the overall plot. She repeats the chorus “Alejandro” over and over again in a hypnotic fashion and is seen wearing a leather jacket. This is the rebel. This chant of “Alejandro” is like a call to arms, and then showing clips of revolt and terror only fortifies her message that as a society we must fight for change. We must fight for equality, because even though it may seem as if we have changed, there’s still a large majority within the world with archaic points of view.

    Which leaves us finally with GaGa as a human being. In this look, she is androgynous. She is neither male, nor female. Her message of equality has transcended and morphed into simply being, existing, living.

    Regardless, there’s so much more that I could extend on, and dig even deeper, but it seems that doing so would essentially destroy the entire piece of art. We may try to excavate, discover, and understand, but perhaps it’s best to simply allow it to exist and keep the meaning to ourselves. Because no matter how far you go, I wouldn’t doubt that GaGa has gone further.”

    WHO HAS READ THE WHOLE THING?

    I BET NO ONE DID.

    LAZY FUCKERS, YOU HATERS. (:

  23. Mariah elephant June 10, 2010

    yeah yeah yeah

    the lyric is forced into the mv

    the song came long before the mv,

    the mv was made not compatible to the song.

    just 100% rip-off Madonna to get attention, and add more s@x movement.

    that’s all . no meaning.

    besides, madonna is way prettier!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  24. smartee June 10, 2010

    LMMAO at the video of Madonna! I was never really into Madonna, I liked some of her songs in the early 00’s, but wow, Gaga f**king copied Madonna’s video to death! All she did was have a German theme!

    DizzyGuy1985, you’re right on the money! Gaga’s album consisted of generic pop singles with an electro twist with songs like “Just Dance,” “Poker Face,” “Love Game,” “Paparazzi,” “Starstruck,” and she’s released singles from the “Fame Monster” like “Telephone” that was talking about partying at a club and trying to have a good time and she has this song called “Teeth” which just talks about her being a bad girl and having dirty s**!

    Steven Klein sounds like a dumba**! He sounds like he’s trying make it sound like the song has that much depth!

    All of her lyrics suck a**! When I heard “Alejandro” I got a vibe of her being mad at her boyfriend and shunning him away! When she released her first single as a new artist, it was doing okay and then her album came out without any real promotion and she only sold 20,000 copies. Then, she starts to get her pics taken by the paps in her raunchy and weird getup, then the music videos were more raunchy and odd, and then, her stupid and over the top performances and bam… the album sales shoot up! No one cares about her as an actual SINGER! They like her as an entertainer and that’s bad considering that she’s not known for amazing and meaningful songs and an out of this world voice!

  25. Caitlin June 10, 2010

    @DIZZYGUY1985

    Totally agree with you there.

  26. ADE STAN 4 CICI June 10, 2010

    If anyone believes this LIE then I truly believe that people are being brainwashed this chick said the video was about the gay community now its about going into a holy place. YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE RELIGIOUS but don’t mock those that are she is part of them and the only person she is fooling is her stans/fans who won’t even try and analyse the video the ending was beyond creepy I thought she couldn’t have done worse than bad romance but she did this video is just disgusting and there’s no point in even complaining because there gonna show it on tv and its probably gonna go to number one so the whole controversy does not stop her from climbing them charts. SMH KMT

  27. BENJAMIN June 11, 2010

    Yeah, like anyone would have figured that out if he didn’t say anything.

  28. sollai June 11, 2010

    not really , there is so many pschological psychoasis in the video, i might explain it in a full presintation in my psychology class

  29. roadsareendless June 11, 2010

    @lovegagaloo i liked that interpretation and i fully read it, thanks 🙂

  30. Darren June 11, 2010

    LOL b*******.

  31. Darren June 11, 2010

    nothing she does has any meaning. its all advertising

  32. Alex June 11, 2010

    @LOVEGAGALOO i have red the whole thing and it indeed made me look differently at Alejandro video!

  33. LOVEGAGALOO June 11, 2010

    @ROADSAREENDLESS

    @ALEX

    Thank you so much for being open-minded and not full of hate like almost all the people here.
    🙂

    <33

  34. ella June 11, 2010

    The video still sucked. It was incoherent and overhyped, just like Telephone. Gaga is NO MJ, Madonna, or Prince. When she fades away it will be a sad day.

  35. OddOne June 12, 2010

    @ Alihang Tou

    The bloody red meat is a heart, Alejandro’s heart – represntative of what Cathoics would do to gay lovers 2000 years ago.

    But anyhoo, any GaGa hater that wants to come along with their non-sense about “the video doesn’t relate to the song”, don’t try and fog off that I am being offensive to Catholics because I am Catholic myself but unlike others, I realise the religion has flaws.

    So, to conclude, I’d like to say that whilst the video has a deeply important message to convey, but it does so far too vaguely. I feel that this may be GaGa’s first misfire. The first time in her career where the video was seen by casual listeners and die-hard fans alike, as less than impressive.

    I love the song, very summery with a great vibe, but the video is, as many have said, too dark and cold for the song and this time of year.

  36. OBVious June 16, 2010

    IF you watched the vid – She won.

    IF you haven’t watched the vid – Watch it if you like art, otherwise don’t.

    simple

  37. mike June 17, 2010

    each and every one of you are wrong. lady gaga along with many other artist young and old is not who or what they seem. this video is far too deep for ANY of you to understand. you will be frightened off your chair if you knew whats going on in the music industry and deeper. i have picked up symbology in this song, bad romance telphone, papa and all her others. this is actually her best work, kliens best work, the true meaning etc is mind fuckingly shocking that its an actual video for the world to see.. you will all do yourself the biggest favour if you dig a little deeper, you will uncover a triangular world you never knew existed, enlighten yourselves…. try googling, lady gaga symbology, then make a real comment. just to warn you all, some wont like what you find, and some will never understand, but to those who do, you wont regret it. welcome to the new world people.

  38. Lawful Rebellion June 19, 2010

    Totally agree with Mike.

    Everyone can contemplate what the meaning behind this video is but in reality it’s something way bigger than anything we could fathom.

    As far as I’m concerned I’m pleased this video has come out, because it only provides even more evidence of what is really going on in society and what will come.

    Have anyone of you made the link yet between the heart which interestingly enough follows on to show a bobby ‘British Policeman’ under fascist control and the Anarchist movement that took place during the Punk era in London, England?

    There are so many things people have yet to pick up on.

    “The reason her mouth and eyes disappear is because she is withdrawing her senses from the world of evil and going inward towards prayer and contemplation.”

    Hmmm.. could this be the introduction of the New Age religion? Where suddenly we are all made to believe that blindly looking inwards falsely believing in New Age doctrine is the answer to salvation? Funnily enough Madonna and the people that fund her projects have been hard at work “educating” you on the new path to salvation through her music, videos and Kabbalah literature.

    The video isn’t meant to shock to create buzz or to some how be a tribute to Gaga’s gay friends (B*******) but because those shock segments in the video are ACTUALLY subliminal psychological triggers which were used by the Nazis (Who is this Steven Klein fella???). Also in marketing it’s a well known technique to make use of the ‘articulatory-phonological loop’ of the human memory to create a brand name that is viral and memorable for example, Coka Cola, Bugs Bunny, Roger Rabbit, Daffy Duck (you get the point) the same with song lyrics. Ever thought to yourself, I can’t get this song out of my head..! That’s the ‘articulatory-phonological loop’ at play. Ever pop song contains triggers but this song contains multiple audible and visual triggers.

    This is why in the song the words ‘Fernando’, ‘Alejandro’ and ‘Roberto’ are repeated several times. Ale Ale jandro is the most obvious subliminal use of the loop technique. To prove it, ask 1000 people to sing the song or what they thought about it and 8 out of 10 people will all memorise the Ale Ale Jandro segment because it’s the most catchy part of the song. This proves that this technique is being abused in order to increase listeners for their own agenda.

    There are many other factors within the video that you need to look into more deeply, not just the meaning but the way in which the movements are depicted, the lighting, the way shapes are shown, why certain parts contain more flashes than others and what do those flashes do and so on. THINK!!

  39. Jess July 4, 2010

    For any of you who actually believe Gaga got ‘caught’ ripping off Madonna’s old videos, did you honestly think she didn’t think someone would notice? Obviously she didn’t try to hide it!

    Another thing I notice as I read feedback about this video. So many people complain that ‘today’s’ music videos don’t reflect the intention of the song, now someone (Gaga) is actually doing this and people are STILL complaining.

    What the heck!?

  40. Jess July 4, 2010

    I meant to say: Do you honestly believe someone *wouldn’t notice.

    p.s. Madonna fans should be honored? Typically it sadly seems ‘critics’ reach for the negatives, but hey lets be a little optimistic!

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