These types of documentaries always interest me, regardless if they were actually any good or needed to be made. Many people will dislike a movie like this simply because they will think it is just a way to make more money for a whole of people that already have tonnes of money. Or the problems they face aren't really problems, and watching someone whinge about how hard their life is when they have a mansion and millions of followers is excruciating. But I find it quite captivating. In many ways I think these movies capture quite a clear extract of modern pop culture and share it with the world. I find it educating to see how someone like Lady Gaga lives her life, what her day to day looks like, what annoys her or what gets her excited, or what someone of this fame's values are. Most of the time I come away from a movie like this, thankful I'm not famous, or a pop star, thankful that I have my own quiet place with a handful of people that care about me, and I was again in this viewpoint after watching Gaga.
She shares an insight on what it is like to work for producers and some of the power plays going on behind the scenes that just seem so twisted and power hungry as she shares about the dynamics at play when men with lots of money can ask for whatever they want. It's no wonder that the #Metoo movement was exposing many people like this, and long may it continue.
Alongside this Gaga also displays many of her inner traumas as she is processing her break up with her fiance and trying to return to preforming while coming back from a hip injury. You can quite clearly see the mental weight of keeping up with trends, of trying to find yourself, of being secure, or doing what you feel you were made to do. All things that Gaga is trying to put her own spin on. She decides that this is because she's become a woman and not a girl anymore, that its something to do with age. But I think this clearly shows that fame can just prolong maturity, that she lost her sense of herself in her fame of 21, 22. She didn't know what she wanted and just went with what she was told. Compared to her now deciding what she wants. This is something I feel like, I'm able to do sooooo much easier, at a much younger age, and that becoming famous in your early 20s at a time of such change, insecurity and identity development is actually such a burden, something that can take years to unravel.
So this doco, is a bit strange, but as I've said uncovers quite a hidden world and really shows that fame and fortune are really just a huge disappointment and to put your hope in them is a terrible idea. Great to watch the doco from this point of view, any other view and its just ok.
