«MORE THAN ANYTHING PEOPLE JUST WANT STARS»

Alistair Newton used to have some nasty things to say about Lady Gaga. “I had written her off as the vacuous pop star of the moment. To me, ‘I wanna take a ride on your disco stick’ speaks for itself,” says Newton, artistic director of Ecce Homo Theatre.But then Newton read an essay Gaga had written while attending New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, back when she was merely Stefani Germanotta, age 17. The essay is about installation artist Spencer Tunick, nudity and monstrousness; it even quotes French Renaissance writer Michel de Montaigne. In the slickest, most attention-grasping pop star of the moment, Newton had discovered a fellow academic-theory geek.“People ask, ‘Who’s the real Stefani?’ But I don’t think there is such a person. If you create a persona and you act like that all the time, then that person becomes real,” says Newton. “Gaga actively presents herself as a saviour. She’ll say to her fans, ‘I’m here to save you, I’m here to rescue you.’ Her fans are her little monsters and she’s Mama Monster. There’s a real game in that.”

-Eye Weekly
Feb 16 2011