POP'S ILLUMINATI TOP 10
10 Robbie Williams
Robbie Williams has provided plenty of mat erial for weird-watchers generally, from his retreat from music into an obsession with conspiracy theories and UFOs (heck, he even grew a Mulder beard straight out of the last X-Files movie) to his bizarre recent ‘comeback’ appearance on The X-Factor. Williams’s strange, wild-eyed performance on the show caused plenty of bemused speculat ion from the public, but for occult celebrity-spotters, it all made sense – Williams was displaying the classic signs of dissociation they’d seen in many mind-controlled celebs in recent years. And a quick flick through his recent output seemingly confirms their suspicions about his occult leanings: his logo (as seen in the “Sin, Sin, Sin” video) is made up of the letter ‘R’, a quest ion mark and the all-seeing Eye of Horus; in a recent interview, he talked about having “multiple personalities”; while the video for the song “Radio” even saw him shape-shifting into a Reptilian alien! On the other hand, Robbie’s avowed interest in conspiracy theories saw him posting on the David Icke forums, where debate rages fiercely about his real motivat ions. So: Illuminati slave, would-be whistleblower or just another pawn in the game? The jury is still out on Robbie.
9 Stephen Gately
Michael Jackson’s high-profile demise wasn’t the only pop star death linked to the occult conspiracy in recent years; Rapper Tupac Shakur is supp osed to have left a raft of musical clues suggesting that he was murdered by the Illum inati (or was not dead at all, just hiding from them). But would the masters of the world really stoop to bumping off a one-time member of Boyzone?
Well, maybe. His career was filled with the kind of symbolism that marks out a mind-controlled celeb: For starters, Boyzone – like most manufact ured boy- or girl-bands had five members – a significant occult number (how many points on a pentagram? Go figure.), and the combo’s logo emphas ised dark/light duality, as did their explicitly occult get-up of, er, white tops and black trousers. He appeared in a movie called Credo (aka The Devil’s Curse), in which five students tried to summon Belial. And if anyone was in any doubt, it was Gately’s panto and musical roles that revealed the awful truth. Playing the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz was the first giveaway – having no brains being a coded message for having been MK’d by the Illuminati – while the role of the Childcatcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (penned by Ian Fleming, whose Bond books and their film adapt ations are chock-full of occult symbolism) is an obvious gloating nod to the pædophilic sex rings run by the Illumin ati establishment. And Daily Mail columnist Jan Moir just thought he was gay…
8+7 Beyoncé and Jay-Z
There had always been speculat ion in occult celebrity-spotting circles that Beyoncé was a tool of the Illuminati. Her performance at the 2007 BET Awards was seen as containing symbolism referring to the robot-woman Maria in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, but when her 2008 album I Am Sasha Fierce… was released, the conspiranoiacs nodded sagely to one another. Sasha Fierce wasn’t just a stage alter ego, but could be evidence of “an artist taken over by evil to obtain success”. Songs and videos from the album revealed the struggle between Nice Girl Beyoncé and Evil Robot Beyoncé, while her marri age the same year to unknowingly possessed Masonic rapper Jay-Z – whose constant flashing of occult symbols in hand gestures had already made him a firm favourite among the cognoscenti – was the esoteric icing on the cake.
If there was an Illuminati version of Hello! Magazine, this would have been their celebrity wedding of the year.
6 Britney Spears
Britney’s bizarre behaviour is legendary tabloid fodder, but her numerous breakdowns, flip-outs and fashion disasters supposedly all tell their own hidden story. A one-time Disney MouseKeteer (MK), Britney was seemingly subjected to mind-control from an early age. Her first tattoo was a butterfly (Monarch programming) and her song titles (“Hit Me Baby” and “I’m a Slave 4 U”) included clear references to her fate. Spears was groomed as the next Illum inati pop high priestess, a process which clim axed in a public ritual performed at the MTV awards, in which Madonna (yes, allegedly another MK victim but frankly getting a bit past it) raised Britney to her new level in the evil hierarchy in a perverted lesbian wedd ing in which groom Madge sported a Worshipful Master’s top hat and sealed the ceremony with a much-reported same-sex kiss.
It didn’t work out though, and rather than replacing the fading Illuminati Queen, Britney wigged out (apparently many stars’ programm ing starts to fail at around age 30). Things came to a very public head when the malfunct ioning starbot checked out of rehab, walked into a hair salon and said, “I want my hair shaved off.” The sheared Shears caused a media sensation, but the real story was about more than strange tonsorial decisions: head-shaving is apparently something that many ‘multiples’ have done when trying to escape their programming: “The hair represents the stylists, the handlers and people who are in control of her life and manage her looks.” There was no escape for Bald Britney, though; she may now be a ‘failed’ replacement for Madonna – Lady Gaga is the current Illumin ati pin-up – but the torture, as Frank Zappa said, never stops…
5 Miley Cyrus
Twins and doubles feature a lot in the mind-controlled celeb mythos – from a fascination with Dr Joseph Mengele’s twin experiments (according to conspiracists, he was both an Illumin ati controller and a Rothschild, of course!) to a keen interest in pop stars and their alter egos. Miley Cyrus and her ‘alter’ Hannah Montana (as well as being a deadly menace to parents’ wallets) is a classic example, memorably described by the Pseudo Occult Media blog as “The Mind-Controlled Disney Slave from Sirius”.
The TV series Hannah Montana stars Cyrus as a girl who lives a secret double life – an average schoolgirl by day, and the titular, pretty-in-pink (and occult purple) pop star by night. The splitting of Miley is demonstrated by her alter’s name – Hannah is the same backwards as forwards, reminiscent of the constant mirroring we see in pop videos – and by their different hair colours (further dark/light checker board symbolism). Miley Cyrus’s real name is also signific ant, recalling ‘Sirius’, the Dog Star, which in turn represents the pentagram of the Masons, while even her father’s middle name – that’s the ‘Ray’ in Billy Ray Cryus – offers up more Masonic Solar symbolism for those in the know.
The fact that Miley/Hannah has often been seen sporting butterfly symbols on her clothes, access ories and website pretty much clinches it for one blogger: “She is literally (in terms of her MK programming) some form of corporate global Lolita robot” being used to socially engineer teenage girls for their role as Illuminati sex slaves and reptilian breeding stock.
4 Rihanna
Occult celebrity-spotters have noted that most of Rihanna’s recent videos blatantly employ the imagery of black/white checker boards, one-eye-covered close-ups, as-above-so-below poses (one arm up, one arm down) and all the familiar trappings of bondage and sexual enslavement, but who’d have thought that the infernally catchy song “Umbrella” contained plenty of clues as to Rihanna’s mind-controlled status?
In fact, being “under the umbrella” is just another way of saying “possessed by the Devil”. Rapper Jay-Z’s opening invit ation to Rihanna isn’t an offer of protect ion against life’s metaphor ical lousy weather but could be interpreted as a coded invit ation for her to join him as one of the ‘chosen’, the secret Illuminist elite who’ll ride out the storms of global recession (rhymes with possession… hmm), while the rest of us are just lizard-fodder for the conspiracy. Other lyrics – including the spooky occult chanting of “ella… ella” and the strange use of the word ‘entity’ seem to suggest that Rihanna is more than happy to be MK’d in return for Illumin ati ‘protection’.
And there are plenty more clues in the video, where Rihanna appears in both white and black outfits (split into good and evil selves; check the album title – Good Girl Gone Bad), dances with a phallic umbrella and gets sprayed with gushes of CGI water – or, as the Vigilant Citizen website has it: “The liquid hits her a total of 6 times. We then see Rihanna naked, covered in chrome-coloured liquid. Rihanna has been raped by the Devil and covered with his semen.” Eww.
And an equally vigilant poster on YouTube spotted a subliminal image (at 2.46) in which the Devil-sauce-glazed pop star forms the image of Baphomet’s head within a pyramid: “Hair forms the snout, shoulders form the eyes, arms form the horns. Very ‘not cool’ playing with the subconscious minds of viewers like that!” Quite.
3 Simon Cowell
He may not be a pop star himself, but talent show puppet-master Cowell obviously pulls the strings on programmes like the massively successful X-Factor (known to conspiracy-watchers as The Hex Factorand even the The Osiris Factor). He has been criticised by (presumably non-MK’d) artists like Sting as a destructive force against all that is good and spontaneous in music. But could his evil power go beyond manipulating the minds of the British public? Is he a major player in the conspiracy? A reptilian, even? While the David Icke forums were lashed into a state of excitement by a photo of a grinning Cowell riding a jet ski emblazoned with a Masonic symbol, evidence has been patchy at best. Then, news came in that Cowell had chosen this year’s X-Factorwinner’s single – and it was none other than Miley Cyrus’s Hannah Montana hit “The Climb”. Case closed.
2 Michael Jackson
The late Michael Jackson was, according to some blogg ers, a mind-controlled tool of the conspiracy from an early age; his work, they argue, was pepp ered with references to the New World Order and clues to his conditioning, while his Illuminati miss ion was to be the poster boy for “narcissism, onanism, androgyny and homosexual pædophilia”. Self-proclaimed former Illuminati lackey Kathleen Sullivan stated that she had “absolutely no doubt” that Jackson was “an MK-ULTRA variety slave… [in] their bizarre ‘system’ of spooks, commercialised pædophilia and more…” Another blog noted that Jacko had a close relationship with a man sometimes described as his ‘personal magic ian’ and going by the name of Majestic the Magnific ent (or sometimes the even more revealing Majestik Magnificent – how blatant could this guy be?) and speculated that Majestic may have been more than just a con juror and probably “some sort of CIA Monarch mind-control handler”…
In the light of his backstory – bred and stage-managed for stardom by the child-abusing Illuminati elite – all Whacko Jacko’s subsequent strange behaviour – from changing his appearance to making his children wear masks and avoid mirrors – becomes explicable in terms of his attempts to break free of his programmers. Musically, this was signalled by his move into Mess ianic mode – “Earth Song” and the coded tip-off “They Don’t Care About Us” – but Jackson was playing a dangerous game and it was only a matter of time before his handlers moved in, wrecking his career with child abuse alleg ations. Jackson retreated into Neverland. As one forum poster wrote: “somebody with a sick sense of humour deliberately programmed him to be a living Pinocchio, who’s [sic] one desire in life was to become a ‘real boy’… (Geppetto was a pedo [sic]… talk about another revel ation of Illum inati programming in plain sight.) In this case they actually surg ically cut off Pinocchio’s nose…”
But Jackson’s rebellion against the conspiracy couldn’t succeed; his plan to reveal the Illuminati’s secret agenda to his millions of fans in a comeback tour was cut short, say the occult conspiracists, when he was murdered by his controllers.
10 Robbie Williams
Robbie Williams has provided plenty of mat erial for weird-watchers generally, from his retreat from music into an obsession with conspiracy theories and UFOs (heck, he even grew a Mulder beard straight out of the last X-Files movie) to his bizarre recent ‘comeback’ appearance on The X-Factor. Williams’s strange, wild-eyed performance on the show caused plenty of bemused speculat ion from the public, but for occult celebrity-spotters, it all made sense – Williams was displaying the classic signs of dissociation they’d seen in many mind-controlled celebs in recent years. And a quick flick through his recent output seemingly confirms their suspicions about his occult leanings: his logo (as seen in the “Sin, Sin, Sin” video) is made up of the letter ‘R’, a quest ion mark and the all-seeing Eye of Horus; in a recent interview, he talked about having “multiple personalities”; while the video for the song “Radio” even saw him shape-shifting into a Reptilian alien! On the other hand, Robbie’s avowed interest in conspiracy theories saw him posting on the David Icke forums, where debate rages fiercely about his real motivat ions. So: Illuminati slave, would-be whistleblower or just another pawn in the game? The jury is still out on Robbie.
9 Stephen Gately
Michael Jackson’s high-profile demise wasn’t the only pop star death linked to the occult conspiracy in recent years; Rapper Tupac Shakur is supp osed to have left a raft of musical clues suggesting that he was murdered by the Illum inati (or was not dead at all, just hiding from them). But would the masters of the world really stoop to bumping off a one-time member of Boyzone?
Well, maybe. His career was filled with the kind of symbolism that marks out a mind-controlled celeb: For starters, Boyzone – like most manufact ured boy- or girl-bands had five members – a significant occult number (how many points on a pentagram? Go figure.), and the combo’s logo emphas ised dark/light duality, as did their explicitly occult get-up of, er, white tops and black trousers. He appeared in a movie called Credo (aka The Devil’s Curse), in which five students tried to summon Belial. And if anyone was in any doubt, it was Gately’s panto and musical roles that revealed the awful truth. Playing the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz was the first giveaway – having no brains being a coded message for having been MK’d by the Illuminati – while the role of the Childcatcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (penned by Ian Fleming, whose Bond books and their film adapt ations are chock-full of occult symbolism) is an obvious gloating nod to the pædophilic sex rings run by the Illumin ati establishment. And Daily Mail columnist Jan Moir just thought he was gay…
8+7 Beyoncé and Jay-Z
There had always been speculat ion in occult celebrity-spotting circles that Beyoncé was a tool of the Illuminati. Her performance at the 2007 BET Awards was seen as containing symbolism referring to the robot-woman Maria in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, but when her 2008 album I Am Sasha Fierce… was released, the conspiranoiacs nodded sagely to one another. Sasha Fierce wasn’t just a stage alter ego, but could be evidence of “an artist taken over by evil to obtain success”. Songs and videos from the album revealed the struggle between Nice Girl Beyoncé and Evil Robot Beyoncé, while her marri age the same year to unknowingly possessed Masonic rapper Jay-Z – whose constant flashing of occult symbols in hand gestures had already made him a firm favourite among the cognoscenti – was the esoteric icing on the cake.
If there was an Illuminati version of Hello! Magazine, this would have been their celebrity wedding of the year.
6 Britney Spears
Britney’s bizarre behaviour is legendary tabloid fodder, but her numerous breakdowns, flip-outs and fashion disasters supposedly all tell their own hidden story. A one-time Disney MouseKeteer (MK), Britney was seemingly subjected to mind-control from an early age. Her first tattoo was a butterfly (Monarch programming) and her song titles (“Hit Me Baby” and “I’m a Slave 4 U”) included clear references to her fate. Spears was groomed as the next Illum inati pop high priestess, a process which clim axed in a public ritual performed at the MTV awards, in which Madonna (yes, allegedly another MK victim but frankly getting a bit past it) raised Britney to her new level in the evil hierarchy in a perverted lesbian wedd ing in which groom Madge sported a Worshipful Master’s top hat and sealed the ceremony with a much-reported same-sex kiss.
It didn’t work out though, and rather than replacing the fading Illuminati Queen, Britney wigged out (apparently many stars’ programm ing starts to fail at around age 30). Things came to a very public head when the malfunct ioning starbot checked out of rehab, walked into a hair salon and said, “I want my hair shaved off.” The sheared Shears caused a media sensation, but the real story was about more than strange tonsorial decisions: head-shaving is apparently something that many ‘multiples’ have done when trying to escape their programming: “The hair represents the stylists, the handlers and people who are in control of her life and manage her looks.” There was no escape for Bald Britney, though; she may now be a ‘failed’ replacement for Madonna – Lady Gaga is the current Illumin ati pin-up – but the torture, as Frank Zappa said, never stops…
5 Miley Cyrus
Twins and doubles feature a lot in the mind-controlled celeb mythos – from a fascination with Dr Joseph Mengele’s twin experiments (according to conspiracists, he was both an Illumin ati controller and a Rothschild, of course!) to a keen interest in pop stars and their alter egos. Miley Cyrus and her ‘alter’ Hannah Montana (as well as being a deadly menace to parents’ wallets) is a classic example, memorably described by the Pseudo Occult Media blog as “The Mind-Controlled Disney Slave from Sirius”.
The TV series Hannah Montana stars Cyrus as a girl who lives a secret double life – an average schoolgirl by day, and the titular, pretty-in-pink (and occult purple) pop star by night. The splitting of Miley is demonstrated by her alter’s name – Hannah is the same backwards as forwards, reminiscent of the constant mirroring we see in pop videos – and by their different hair colours (further dark/light checker board symbolism). Miley Cyrus’s real name is also signific ant, recalling ‘Sirius’, the Dog Star, which in turn represents the pentagram of the Masons, while even her father’s middle name – that’s the ‘Ray’ in Billy Ray Cryus – offers up more Masonic Solar symbolism for those in the know.
The fact that Miley/Hannah has often been seen sporting butterfly symbols on her clothes, access ories and website pretty much clinches it for one blogger: “She is literally (in terms of her MK programming) some form of corporate global Lolita robot” being used to socially engineer teenage girls for their role as Illuminati sex slaves and reptilian breeding stock.
4 Rihanna
Occult celebrity-spotters have noted that most of Rihanna’s recent videos blatantly employ the imagery of black/white checker boards, one-eye-covered close-ups, as-above-so-below poses (one arm up, one arm down) and all the familiar trappings of bondage and sexual enslavement, but who’d have thought that the infernally catchy song “Umbrella” contained plenty of clues as to Rihanna’s mind-controlled status?
In fact, being “under the umbrella” is just another way of saying “possessed by the Devil”. Rapper Jay-Z’s opening invit ation to Rihanna isn’t an offer of protect ion against life’s metaphor ical lousy weather but could be interpreted as a coded invit ation for her to join him as one of the ‘chosen’, the secret Illuminist elite who’ll ride out the storms of global recession (rhymes with possession… hmm), while the rest of us are just lizard-fodder for the conspiracy. Other lyrics – including the spooky occult chanting of “ella… ella” and the strange use of the word ‘entity’ seem to suggest that Rihanna is more than happy to be MK’d in return for Illumin ati ‘protection’.
And there are plenty more clues in the video, where Rihanna appears in both white and black outfits (split into good and evil selves; check the album title – Good Girl Gone Bad), dances with a phallic umbrella and gets sprayed with gushes of CGI water – or, as the Vigilant Citizen website has it: “The liquid hits her a total of 6 times. We then see Rihanna naked, covered in chrome-coloured liquid. Rihanna has been raped by the Devil and covered with his semen.” Eww.
And an equally vigilant poster on YouTube spotted a subliminal image (at 2.46) in which the Devil-sauce-glazed pop star forms the image of Baphomet’s head within a pyramid: “Hair forms the snout, shoulders form the eyes, arms form the horns. Very ‘not cool’ playing with the subconscious minds of viewers like that!” Quite.
3 Simon Cowell
He may not be a pop star himself, but talent show puppet-master Cowell obviously pulls the strings on programmes like the massively successful X-Factor (known to conspiracy-watchers as The Hex Factorand even the The Osiris Factor). He has been criticised by (presumably non-MK’d) artists like Sting as a destructive force against all that is good and spontaneous in music. But could his evil power go beyond manipulating the minds of the British public? Is he a major player in the conspiracy? A reptilian, even? While the David Icke forums were lashed into a state of excitement by a photo of a grinning Cowell riding a jet ski emblazoned with a Masonic symbol, evidence has been patchy at best. Then, news came in that Cowell had chosen this year’s X-Factorwinner’s single – and it was none other than Miley Cyrus’s Hannah Montana hit “The Climb”. Case closed.
2 Michael Jackson
The late Michael Jackson was, according to some blogg ers, a mind-controlled tool of the conspiracy from an early age; his work, they argue, was pepp ered with references to the New World Order and clues to his conditioning, while his Illuminati miss ion was to be the poster boy for “narcissism, onanism, androgyny and homosexual pædophilia”. Self-proclaimed former Illuminati lackey Kathleen Sullivan stated that she had “absolutely no doubt” that Jackson was “an MK-ULTRA variety slave… [in] their bizarre ‘system’ of spooks, commercialised pædophilia and more…” Another blog noted that Jacko had a close relationship with a man sometimes described as his ‘personal magic ian’ and going by the name of Majestic the Magnific ent (or sometimes the even more revealing Majestik Magnificent – how blatant could this guy be?) and speculated that Majestic may have been more than just a con juror and probably “some sort of CIA Monarch mind-control handler”…
In the light of his backstory – bred and stage-managed for stardom by the child-abusing Illuminati elite – all Whacko Jacko’s subsequent strange behaviour – from changing his appearance to making his children wear masks and avoid mirrors – becomes explicable in terms of his attempts to break free of his programmers. Musically, this was signalled by his move into Mess ianic mode – “Earth Song” and the coded tip-off “They Don’t Care About Us” – but Jackson was playing a dangerous game and it was only a matter of time before his handlers moved in, wrecking his career with child abuse alleg ations. Jackson retreated into Neverland. As one forum poster wrote: “somebody with a sick sense of humour deliberately programmed him to be a living Pinocchio, who’s [sic] one desire in life was to become a ‘real boy’… (Geppetto was a pedo [sic]… talk about another revel ation of Illum inati programming in plain sight.) In this case they actually surg ically cut off Pinocchio’s nose…”
But Jackson’s rebellion against the conspiracy couldn’t succeed; his plan to reveal the Illuminati’s secret agenda to his millions of fans in a comeback tour was cut short, say the occult conspiracists, when he was murdered by his controllers.
1 Lady Gaga
Of all the artists singled out for Illuminati links, none currently gets more column inches and web hits than Lady Gaga. Doyenne of the spark-shooting fembot electro-bra which out-nippled 80s-vintage Madonna, Gaga seems like a factory-made embodiment of the cult of cultiness – a knowing personification of occult symbolism, with one of the oddest and most disturbing personæ in any mainstream creative industry, combining some of the understated Peter Pan creepiness of Michael Jackson, the in-your-face pseudo-fascism of Marilyn Manson, and the shrink-wrapped and battery-farmed sexuality of Rihanna and Beyoncé.
Defenders suggest she’s playing the fame game deliberately, hyping the outrage and milking the scandal, following in an ancient tradition that namechecks Elvis, the Rolling Stones and the Beatles.
As the self-styled Fame Monster, Gaga claims to have more in common with the glam rock spang les of David Bowie and Queen, and the glossy but ridicul ous lifestyles of fashionistas like Donatella Versace, than with secret occult societies and CIA-run mind-control programmes. Videos from early in her career prove that she can sing and perform traditional piano ballads with a strong stage presence, unsupported by fake blood, fake ritual, nudity, or auto-tuned vocals. And she’s not lacking IQ – she claims German mystical poet Rainer Maria Rilke as an influence, and wrote papers about art, relig ion, and sociology while studying at the prestigious Tisch School of the Arts in New York.
And yet, there’s no denying that she’s also the Queen of Weird. In less than a year, she has moved from being an unknown to the conspiracy blogosphere’s favourite pin-up, ticking all of the boxes of alleged symbolic Illuminati give-aways. While many artists suggest and hint, Gaga seems to revel in strangeness, associating herself in her videos and performances with butterflies, bubbles, rainbows, hyper-sexualised dolls, robots, puppets, kittens, slaves, and trained killers. She consistently appears in photos making visual gestures that occult conspiracists interpret as references to the all-seeing eye.
And why was she selected for the Queen’s Royal Command Performance last year? Presumably as one lizard princess being rewarded by another – although in the post-event photos it’s hard not to be struck by the contrast between the red latex-clad Gaga in her mock-demure ironic red evening gown and abused panda eye make-up, and the more conventionally attired real Queen.
The high point for Gaga-watchers was last year’s MTV VMA ceremony, where she was given an extended slot for a performance of her song “Paparazzi” and the undivided attention of a live audience of celebrities and inter national viewers. The performance, described variously as ‘raunchy’ and ‘gruesome’, culminated in a mock hanging, and her ascent to a glowing light as she was pulled to heaven swinging on the end of a noose, with fake blood dripping down her midriff and over her trademark latex panties. Fans loved it, almost everyone else was scandalised and revolted – not least the nuns at New York’s Convent of the Sacred Heart who had tried to educate Gaga (then known more convent ionally as Steffani Germanotta) and set her on a path of devout Catholic ism before she began her creative career.
But anyone over 30 understands that outraging the wrinkl ies, and especially one’s former teachers, isn’t necessarily the most original artistic statement. Gaga is weird, but are her antics any weirder than the ultra-violence and make-up games of punks and new romant ics, or the avowed Satanism of heavy metal bands?
Perhaps a more telling criticism is that Gaga is simply a plagiarist, most obviously borrowing much of her look from established icy electro-pop diva Roisin Murphy, garnished with references to other famous fashion stylings. She turns the eccentricity ‘up to 11’ for effect, but her major talent is self-promot ion and media manipulation, rather than occult self-immolation.
As always with conspiracy theor ies, lack of hard evidence makes it impossible to settle on a firm interpretation. But for dedicated culture watchers, Gaga’s persona isn’t so much occult as adolescent – attention-seeking, gaudily sexual, and dedicated to shock and awe – making her no different from almost every other headlining mainstream pop act from the last half decade.
Her performances are adult-themed pantomime and vaudeville burlesque – more Punch and Judy than mind-controlled pædophilia. She’s certainly a role model, but only in the Romantic sense that artists are admired, encouraged and rewarded for breaking rules, and for being odd. If she promotes bizarreness, it’s of a very limited and self-conscious kind, dedicated to and delimited by clothes, boys, girls, make-up, accessories, and an entirely mainstream self-abusive angst.
Of all the artists singled out for Illuminati links, none currently gets more column inches and web hits than Lady Gaga. Doyenne of the spark-shooting fembot electro-bra which out-nippled 80s-vintage Madonna, Gaga seems like a factory-made embodiment of the cult of cultiness – a knowing personification of occult symbolism, with one of the oddest and most disturbing personæ in any mainstream creative industry, combining some of the understated Peter Pan creepiness of Michael Jackson, the in-your-face pseudo-fascism of Marilyn Manson, and the shrink-wrapped and battery-farmed sexuality of Rihanna and Beyoncé.
Defenders suggest she’s playing the fame game deliberately, hyping the outrage and milking the scandal, following in an ancient tradition that namechecks Elvis, the Rolling Stones and the Beatles.
As the self-styled Fame Monster, Gaga claims to have more in common with the glam rock spang les of David Bowie and Queen, and the glossy but ridicul ous lifestyles of fashionistas like Donatella Versace, than with secret occult societies and CIA-run mind-control programmes. Videos from early in her career prove that she can sing and perform traditional piano ballads with a strong stage presence, unsupported by fake blood, fake ritual, nudity, or auto-tuned vocals. And she’s not lacking IQ – she claims German mystical poet Rainer Maria Rilke as an influence, and wrote papers about art, relig ion, and sociology while studying at the prestigious Tisch School of the Arts in New York.
And yet, there’s no denying that she’s also the Queen of Weird. In less than a year, she has moved from being an unknown to the conspiracy blogosphere’s favourite pin-up, ticking all of the boxes of alleged symbolic Illuminati give-aways. While many artists suggest and hint, Gaga seems to revel in strangeness, associating herself in her videos and performances with butterflies, bubbles, rainbows, hyper-sexualised dolls, robots, puppets, kittens, slaves, and trained killers. She consistently appears in photos making visual gestures that occult conspiracists interpret as references to the all-seeing eye.
And why was she selected for the Queen’s Royal Command Performance last year? Presumably as one lizard princess being rewarded by another – although in the post-event photos it’s hard not to be struck by the contrast between the red latex-clad Gaga in her mock-demure ironic red evening gown and abused panda eye make-up, and the more conventionally attired real Queen.
The high point for Gaga-watchers was last year’s MTV VMA ceremony, where she was given an extended slot for a performance of her song “Paparazzi” and the undivided attention of a live audience of celebrities and inter national viewers. The performance, described variously as ‘raunchy’ and ‘gruesome’, culminated in a mock hanging, and her ascent to a glowing light as she was pulled to heaven swinging on the end of a noose, with fake blood dripping down her midriff and over her trademark latex panties. Fans loved it, almost everyone else was scandalised and revolted – not least the nuns at New York’s Convent of the Sacred Heart who had tried to educate Gaga (then known more convent ionally as Steffani Germanotta) and set her on a path of devout Catholic ism before she began her creative career.
But anyone over 30 understands that outraging the wrinkl ies, and especially one’s former teachers, isn’t necessarily the most original artistic statement. Gaga is weird, but are her antics any weirder than the ultra-violence and make-up games of punks and new romant ics, or the avowed Satanism of heavy metal bands?
Perhaps a more telling criticism is that Gaga is simply a plagiarist, most obviously borrowing much of her look from established icy electro-pop diva Roisin Murphy, garnished with references to other famous fashion stylings. She turns the eccentricity ‘up to 11’ for effect, but her major talent is self-promot ion and media manipulation, rather than occult self-immolation.
As always with conspiracy theor ies, lack of hard evidence makes it impossible to settle on a firm interpretation. But for dedicated culture watchers, Gaga’s persona isn’t so much occult as adolescent – attention-seeking, gaudily sexual, and dedicated to shock and awe – making her no different from almost every other headlining mainstream pop act from the last half decade.
Her performances are adult-themed pantomime and vaudeville burlesque – more Punch and Judy than mind-controlled pædophilia. She’s certainly a role model, but only in the Romantic sense that artists are admired, encouraged and rewarded for breaking rules, and for being odd. If she promotes bizarreness, it’s of a very limited and self-conscious kind, dedicated to and delimited by clothes, boys, girls, make-up, accessories, and an entirely mainstream self-abusive angst.