Lady Gaga and her vomit girl are in trouble. A petition, denouncing her last performance at SXSW and asking her to ‘stop glamourising bulimia’ urged her to ‘end her professional relationship’ with ‘vomit painter’ Millie Brown, has been launched online. ‘Pop star Lady Gaga once struggled with bulimia, but now she is glamorizing the eating disorder,’ says the petition, which has already received more than 10,300 signatures.
‘This stunt was clearly intended to be provocative, tasteless and to create a media buzz around Lady Gaga. She has pulled similar stunts in the past, for example when she wore meat and fur garments to provoke animal rights supporters. But in this case, she should be more sensitive, having suffered from bulimia in the past. Hundreds of young women die from eating disorders every year, and many of her fans are at an age where women begin to develop these disorders. Lady Gaga needs to recognize the damage she could cause with these types of stunts.’ I agree, it was a stunt and Gaga is looking for anything to keep her in the news because her music doesn’t really accomplish that, and controversies are always a good way to do that.
The problem is that Gaga wants to have it both way, on one side she wants to play the role model, being the anti-bully priestess and the pro-gay advocate with her ‘Born this Way’ foundation, and on the other side she wants to be the edgy, punky, artsy pop star. But she can’t play on both sides, or people will not get it because this brings conflicts.
In 2011, Millie Brown denied that her art was a ‘conscious comment on bulimia’. ‘In no way do I want to promote bulimia’, she said, ‘but if my work evokes us to think about a disease that affects so many people in such a terrible way, then I feel it will at least be raising some awareness.’ She too wants to have it both ways: this is art, it’s not about bulimia, but if people think it is about the eating disorder, well I am raising awareness. No, you certainly can’t do that by vomiting the hell out of your gut in fluorescent colors all over the pop diva.
