Lady GaGa is an interesting case, if only because the reactions to her (and her outfits, and her music) are so polarizing.  Some people feel that she is actually being controlled by a sinister illuminati style conspiracy, complete with mental reprogramming!  Others believe that she is transgendered.  And an entirely different swath of the public dismisses her work out of hand as "Autotune and those terrible computerized samples," before exhorting the neighborhood kids to get off their lawn.

Lady GaGa hit the scene just over a year ago, when her first album was released in August of 2008.  Born Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, she learned piano at the age of four, and went on to earn early admission to New York University's Tisch School of the Arts.  Then - to sum up - all hell broke loose.

Having taken up the glam standard once paraded by the likes of Freddy Mercury and early David Bowie, Lady GaGa is notorious for her bizarre and eye-catching outfits.  She appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone dressed only in plastic bubbles, and was recently photographed wearing an Elmo skirt.  

This outrageous style extends to her public statements, which have ranged from "peculiar" to "outright bizarre."  I think it's safe to say that Lady GaGa says whatever pops into her head at the time, regardless of the potential accuracy of the statement, mainly in order to get a reaction from the audience.  For example, she once stated that the lyrics to her hit song "Poker Face" explicitly reference a woman having sex with a man, while fantasizing about having sex with a woman.  This can't possibly be correct, unless the meaning of words like "got" and "the" have changed recently.

Her schtick vexes a certain percentage of the population, because she is so flamboyantly herself, and makes no apologies for it.  Some people expect their pop stars to pretend to be modest or humble, excited to be in the big city, having doubts about their own fame; self-effacing.  Lady GaGa is none of those things, which is why she plays poorly in the heartland.  "We're plastic but we still have fun."  To many people, Lady GaGa is tantamount to the successful passing of a ballot initiative allowing - nay, requiring - gay marriage.

Perhaps this is why the conspiracy theorists have recently cropped up like mushrooms after a cold dark rain, to "explain" Lady GaGa.  Perhaps it is easier to believe that she is an unwitting participant in the Illuminati's Monarch mind control regime (with the assistance of Bathomet the Devil, of course) than to believe the truth.

Ordinarily this would be the part of the article where I bring up the internet accusations that she is transgender, which so often exist only to tear down someone successful and turn them into the scary Other (see also).  But in this case, Lady GaGa herself is not particularly helpful.  I'm pretty sure she was just yanking everyone's chain when she claimed to be a hermaphrodite, saying, "it's just a little bit of a penis" in her blog post, but who can really say?  The video evidence looks pretty convincing, but would you really put it past her to wear a strap-on for deliberate effect? 

And do we really care?