Dear Readers,
Gaga Stigmata would like to
invite you to participate in a piece for our forthcoming book project. After
watching the Haus of U video featuring Jo, please consider the following two
questions:
- What’s more transgressive: when Jo takes off his pants, or raises his shirt?
- Is this the question we should be asking?
Please write your response to
these questions in the comments section; additionally, we encourage you to
experiment with the form of your response.
Later, we will sew together your
comments (like Frankenstein stitching together his monster) to compose “The
Manifesto of Jo Calderone.”
++ Stigmata Love ++
Meghan Vicks & Kate Durbin
I have always been fascinated by Jo Calderone. On a personal note, because I did a similar project in the summer of 2011, around the same time he was being shot for Vogue Homme Japan. http://blackberriestoapples.blogspot.com/2010/11/little-bit-man-little-bit.html
ReplyDeletePersonally, I believe that the sight of Jo Calderone lifting his shirt to reveal Gaga's bound breasts is the most powerful and transgressive image in the Haus of U productions. The slightly transparent bindings allow viewers to see parts of fleshy, physical femininity naturally existing on the body of a person who appears outwardly male. To me, this image acts almost as a large 'middle finger' to normalized social gender norms.
ReplyDeleteJo's existence as a performance by Lady Gaga highlights the likewise performative nature of gender itself (as theorized by such notable scholars as Judith Butler and Susan Bordo). Because of Jo's gaze upon Gaga herself, in her outwardly female form, Jo's act of exposing Gaga's bound breasts also calls for scrutiny of rigid constructs of sexuality, presenting viewers with not only cross dressing, but also sexual attraction between an apparently female person and an apparent male who might physically be 'female', and yet is also that same person in reality.
I am currently completing a Masters of Women's and Gender Studies at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. My thesis deals with images of 'othered' sexuality and gender identity in Lady Gaga's 'You and I' related videos (Haus of U, the VMA monologue, the official music video). For my thesis proposal defense, I dressed in drag in order to physically tie myself into the presentation and provide my supervisors, professors, and peers with a visual representation of my research. Afterwards, I took several 'Jo Calderone'-esque pictures to document how wonderfully different I looked from my daily self, and yet how simultaneously alike.
In the series of pictures, which I posted online, I included one in which I'd removed my pants to reveal a vague bulge in my underwear, and one in which I lifted my shirt to expose my own bound breasts. The only comments received from viewers on the photo of me without pants were about how I looked so different, or how I'm too petite to look truly 'masculine'. On the picture of me lifting my shirt, however, discussion sparked about cross dressing, transgenderism, sexuality, whether it was appropriate or not for me to have dressed this way at school and posted these pictures, and even questions of my own sanity. If I hadn't already been of the opinion that Jo's act of exposing Gaga's bound breasts is a fantastically controversial and wonderfully bold image, I certainly would have come to that conclusion as a result of the comments on my own re-enactments.
As for whether this question of transgressive-ness is what we should be asking, I believe the answer is two-fold. No- we should not have to discuss transgression, because gender and sexuality are culturally established constructs. This means that their variations are unlimited and they may be performed however one chooses. Our need to discuss an image as being 'transgressive' is spurred by the constraints placed on our identities by hegemonic ideals of masculinity and femininity (or heterosexuality versus non-heterosexuality). It's not that this isn't the question we should be asking, but rather that in a 'utopian' world, we shouldn't HAVE to ask this question. Under the circumstances of our social reality, however, I think this question is an important one. By drawing attention to transgressive images like these, we raise social consciousness surrounding the existence of 'othered' identities, some of which have been so beautifully depicted here.
Hi Courtney,
DeleteI'm currently working on my MA in Women and Gender Studies at Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, and I did my undergrad in Human Rights and Women's Studies at Carleton.
Your research sounds fascinating - we should talk. Who is your supervisor?
Cheers,
Jennifer MacLatchy
I think it's not the right or the wrong question to be asking - Gaga would probably agree that in art, there are no right or wrong questions to be asking. The transgression of Jo removing his pants and lifting his shirt is not, however, the question I would ask. I see Gaga as a woman incredibly shaped by her love affair with Lüc - he was, likely, her first love, and her initial relationship with him seemed to end when she left her life as Stefani to become Gaga, so I would posit that she equates her love for him with her longing, perhaps, for her past life. I say "initial relationship" because, as we all know, they got back together after two years apart. Her perception of her undying love for him is depicted in the video for "Yoü and I," which features Jo, and also shows Gaga running through the fields of Nebraska, where Lüc is from. In interviews about the creation of the video, she said she envisioned it as her running from New York to Nebraska, sheer across the country, for the man she loved - but ultimately finding that it wasn't about finding him at all, but about re-discovering her Self. I think that's what Jo symbolizes: her being, by way of literal embodiment, the man she wants. Or maybe not even the man she wants, but the man she thinks she wants, or that she wanted at one time. Sure, you can ask the questions about transgression, and gender bending, and queer theory, and breaking hetero-normative standards, but the most interesting question, for me, is where is Gaga in Jo? When he removes his pants, Gaga's unicorn tattoo is clearly visible; she's not trying to hide that it's her. Perhaps her identity is just as much Jo as Gaga as Stefani as Lüc, as much feminine as it is masculine, but however you look at it, I think the story of Jo and Gaga is really the classic romantic tale of a woman looking for true love.
ReplyDeleteI think you really nailed it, Meghan. Jo seems Archetypal for Gaga on several levels, and most certainly represents Luc in the video. Gaga has talked in the past about wondering why she tends to fall for the same kind of guy over and over again. Is Jo that guy? Is this what Luc looks like if you cut his hair?
DeleteAnd doesn't he cry out, on behalf of all the men in Gaga's life, "But how am I supposed to shine?"
As for your question, 'where is gaga in Jo?', I think Gaga has peeled herself back and Jo is who lies beneath the skin, making Jo something of a revelation. Jo is the one who struts and swaggers back and forth across an enormous stage, exhorting the crowd, swearing a blue streak, and grabbing his crotch. Jo is the Rock Star that Gaga truly is.
It also seems a bit giggle-worthy to be judging the transgressiveness of the actions of someone who, by his very existence, is Transgression personified. For a surly punky guy like Jo, dropping trou and grabbing your package isn't all that big a deal. As for lifting his shirt to show the chest bindings has a curious measure of bravado to it, as if to say: "See? See what torment I put myself through just to Be?"
I would have to say that Jo raising his shirt is more transgressive, as this is showing to the world that he is indeed just a woman being a man, and to do so he must cover his tits. Where he takes off his pants is also transgressive, since his legs are very, very feminine-looking but not as transgressive as the other.
ReplyDeleteI think what's significant here is that all the things which supposedly make GaGa "ugly" are the thing which make Jo look handsome and gorgeous in regards to his naose and all.
Here's what I wrote when ya'll originally asked the question on Facebook:
ReplyDeleteI just love this video. The pants / shirt question is really great. Is the disrobing a veiling or unveiling? Perhaps both. A re-veiling, a revelation. One can only reveal under the guise of a veil. When he takes off his pants, we see a veil, a "package," and even the veil is veiled by the underwear. So it problematizes the whole notion of unrobing to reveal what's "natural." There is no natural that can be directly unveiled. When he lifts his shirt we again expect to see what's "natural," but nope, once again we encounter another veil. And then we get the finger: Screw the "natural." It is always already a construction. It's veils all the way down.
Jo, raise your shirt just like your drink and prove to the world that their believes are either true or false. Remove your trousers and expose your male protrusion hidden under the cloth of briefs and prepare to impale the barnhaus hooker(s) then watch the world puzzle further about the (wo)man underneath.
ReplyDeleteIs it, Is it not, Is it, Is it not, who knows. Maybe we all should simply ask the questions we want an answer to, given we can't answer them ourselves, but we mustn't expect the answers we want. Don't take my word for it though I've been know to talk a lot of Scheiße.
Jo Calderone is relevant to us because he sends a socially relevant message at this time in history. "Gender", gender "norms" and gender "constructs" are all social constructs and no longer work for this society anymore.
ReplyDeleteWhat is "gender" anyway but a construct used to confine the people and create a division of labor? It was created to keep the women at home raising the children, doing the house work, and the men doing the labor in the workforce.
Well today's society is no longer like that. Both women and men are at home AND in the workforce. Gender norms have thus fallen apart, and these gender constructs no longer work for us.
Which is why Jo is so brilliant. He comes at a time when this is already beginning to be talked about, and has just forced it to be talked about more and really understood. Just as GaGa came along for the gay rights movement and forced it into full swing. Now look. GaGa comes around 4 years ago, and now 4 years later President Obama and VP Joe Biden, among others, have come out in support of marriage equality.
I'm not saying GaGa did this all be herself, but she is the most popular and talked about artist of the last few years, and to have someone like that fight relentlessly in support for gay rights does something and I think forced it to be talked about even if the society at large (politicians, etc.) did not want it to. Gay rights used to be on the back-burner, and then she came along and now gay marriage/rights are looking to become one of the paramount discussions of the upcoming elections.
I am no fortune-teller, but I would liken Jo as to have been created to do the same thing with gender/gender identity as GaGa did with gay rights. And just as brilliantly. Force it to be talked about even if the society isn't ready to.
I think he is important to GaGa's message and to her trajectory. He has only just started. He's made himself known through the VMA monologue/performance, as well as his presence in the official music video. So now the society is aware of or at least know about him. He is being, or was, talked about and the next step will be to continue to push gender boundaries and force it to be talked about that much more in the next few years.
Whether Jo shows up during GaGa's next album/era is unknown and might not happen, but the fact of the matter is we haven't seen the last of him. He will be back, and next time in full swing to push this issue and get it to be discussed.
Jo represents more than gender transgression -- he represents duality, and ultimately, the erasure of duality into one true essence, which is the transcendent, mythological function of both life and art, present here in Gaga's work. The question of which is more transgressive has surface importance -- to ask viewers to begin questioning modes of duality, such as gender -- but ultimately, it does not capture the true mythological capacity of not only the art piece, but of Born this Way as a whole.
ReplyDeleteFrom the start of the era, Born this Way addressed issues of duality. In the Born this Way music video, Gaga is cleaved into two dual opposites -- the giver of life, and the giver of death. Light and dark. It's no coincidence that the mise en scene of the video revolves largely around the colors of black and white. Gaga positing herself as a goddess in the music video, at the immediate beginning of the Born this Way era, makes the relevance of the mythological context in interpreting the era's work incredibly important.
Gaga herself said that she was inspired by Jung's mythological archetypes in making the Yoü and I music video. Jo represents not only the animus in her consciousness, but also the archetype that transcends consciousness itself -- the non-duality of the creature that is two-made-one, which has spanned the entire history of mythology with snake-birds and half-male/half-female beings that were hewn in stone long before a human ever uttered, "I wanna take a ride on your disco stick." Non-duality represents the spiritual truth that eternity can be found in the temporal, and life can be found even in death. "Thou art that." Whether consciously or not (and most often, with Gaga, it's more often the former than we ever truly realize, I think), Gaga plays on these mythological and spiritual themes with Jo.
In lifting up his shirt, then, Jo makes explicit his non-duality. He is, at first glance in the video, to be construed as fully male, but upon lifting up his shirt, reveals himself as fully female -- and so which one is he? In terms of representation, both. Furthermore, Gaga reveals that the identity of Jo is rooted in play and metaphor. She lifts up the mask, so to speak, to reveal that the power of Jo's existence lay not in reality, but in our own imagination, because we are entirely aware that Jo is actually Gaga, a woman, but we choose to believe, whether for several minutes in a music video or several hours in an award show, that someone who is not Gaga is among us. As Gaga said often in this era: "I live halfway between fantasy and reality." Once again, the theme of duality and the two-made-one is discussed, and spoken perhaps to address the growing abundance of metaphor in her work, where one thing is posited mentally to be another, although physically is not, hanging in the balance between fantasy and reality that only art and metaphor can fully inhabit.
How shall I transgress thee? Let me count the ways?
ReplyDelete"I am a man. I am a human being. I am me. And I was Born This Way." ~~ @JoCalderone, August 27, 2010
Jo Calderone answers the question, "Is Lady Gaga really a man?"
Yes, and my package is bigger than yours (drops Brooks Brothers trou, fondles self)
"Is it transgressive for a man to touch himself?"
Obviously not, though it seems a bit immature to still be doing it in public. But that's part of who the fuck he is: alternately surly, defiant, arrogant, angry, immature. And exuberantly male. Your mind may think differently, but your eyes are held captive by what he reflects.
"Is it transgressive for a man to raise his shirt, revealing a woman's taped down breasts?"
Transgression can only occur in the presence of a perceived boundary. What is the boundary here? Societal boundaries have been suspended in making/viewing this film. We all know this is Gaga, who has no boundaries.
Is it transgression that Jo must bind Gaga's breasts in order to be himself?
This is one of the larger questions that Jo asks, by his very existence. Does the societal boundary built around genitals-as-destiny transgress against men like Jo (and women like Gaga), that they must bind up their bodies, and their minds, in order to fully express who they are? The real danger of transgression is that it proves a rigid, impenetrable boundary to be as porous as smoke. That's what makes transgressors so dangerous that society must bring great force to bear on suppressing them.
Or is the boundary itself superfluous? Jo's one-finger salute as he saunters away, still exuberantly male, seems to say so.
Perhaps instead of asking questions of Jo, we should be answering the ones he himself raises. The deeper answer lies in his own manifesto:
"Society's projection should not be your reflection".
@JoCalderone, June 2, 2011.
And in Gaga's own Manifesto:
"We are nothing without our image. Without our projection. Without the spiritual hologram of who we perceive ourselves to be, or rather to become, in the future."
i am the incongruent howl at the gates of conformity
ReplyDeletei trans-gress
pass through
ramparts
as porous as smoke
my truth cleaves yours in two
and two again
i am a question
i'm the answer
and my truth stands behind every dark fear and deep longing
i'm every man you ever loved
i'm every bad boy you've ever been
i am lover, i am brother
i'm the son you cannot be
and the son that lies within
i'm your Judas, i'm your Jesus
i confess your secrets
and forgive your sins
and when the curtain goes up
i'm the rock star beneath your skin
i am your manifesto
made flesh
Early on in Gaga's career, photographers used to ask her, “Show me the real Gaga,” to which Gaga replied, “I’m right here.” Gaga’s essence is inseparable from construct. Subsequently, Gaga’s artifice is unquantifiable. With Jo in the mix, the conversation turns to gender, but Gaga isn’t really doing anything more “transgressive” than usual. Regardless of character, artifice and essence are purposefully blurred in nearly everything Gaga does. In this instance, it’s depressing that Jo should even be considered transgressive, because gender is one of the most blatant cultural constructs in human existence. According to Marjorie Garber, drag and cross-dressing purposefully expose the imperfection of the drag queen or cross-dresser’s portrayal, through the “exploitation of the opposition between construction and essence…[of] detachable parts.” When Jo grasps his, ahem, “detachable part” between delicate, baby-smooth legs, or raises his shirt and flips-the-bird, he says “fuck you” to essence. In other words, what does it matter that Jo is “really” Gaga, because what’s real anyway?
ReplyDeleteThe “Born This Way” cannon is full of examples of “detachable parts:” the facial prosthetics of the “Born This Way” video; the spoken introduction to “Marry the Night;” Gaga’s wig as she serenaded it bald-headed on the Paul O’Grady show. Furthermore, Garber says “Drag is the theoretical and deconstructive social practice that analyzes…by putting in question the ‘naturalness’ of gender roles through the discourse of clothing and body parts.” In this way, Jo functions as a perfect addition to Gaga’s ongoing discussion of “naturalness” in the “Born This Way” realm. In other words, a prosthetic does not make it any less real, a wig is not a lie, and costume is identity. Here, Jo makes one thing clear—he is just as real as you and I.
The existence of Jo pushes us to ask a deeper question: can someone transgress a boundary when the boundary crossed doesn't actually exist? Society has allowed the fantasies of gender norms to become (perceived) realities. Jo's very presence is that "big round deep spotlight" on the stage of the world saying your ideas aren't real, they're theater.
ReplyDeleteThe acts of lifting shirt and removing pants are a very real (and I say deliberate) postmodern FUCK YOU to the essentialist concepts-contraptions of "masculine" and "feminine".
i have boobs
ReplyDeletei have penis
but i'm not hermafrodite
and i'm not freak
i'm human
i am who i am
i was born this way
i am jo calderone
everybody is jo calderone
jo calderone is you
i am you
you are me
tsukinokawa "manifesto of jo calderone"
the fact that he lifts his shirt up to reveal those wrapped breasts and dropping his pants to "reveal" his penis hidden in underwear shows repressed sexuality that society tells us to be or to have. the fact that gaga is dressed up as a man is a way to question our beliefs, our invented truths, the ones we keep repeating all time, about human sexuality.
but knowing the fact that jo is manifesto of gaga, we are not shocked when we see those breasts, but the moment when she drops her pants will certainly cause shock and confusement. "she really does have dick" this is manifesto of gaga's motive to shock us, she wants us to question ourselves, are we what we really think we are or are we just reflection of society norms.
-----------------------------------------------------
the poem "manifesto of jo calderone" is my own artistic view of jo calderone and what he represents. the last two bits are from my still raw version of the article i'm currently writing about this hau of ü feat jo calderone video. if you're interested in it, just contact me.
“Is this the question we should be asking” is always the question we should be asking. It is a question that takes a step back from the question. It is the question’s placenta—what both nourishes and is then discarded when it is no longer needed.
ReplyDelete“Is this the question we should be asking” is not digression. “Is this the question we should be asking” is always transgression, just as any type of deconstruction. Answering “is this the question we should be asking” causes a sort of striptease, a peeling off of the initial question’s layers—and therefore also a peeling off of the layers of the subject. And we are left with skin and tape and a pair of white Hanes briefs.
White: both nothing and nothingness, both face and façade.
I have never seen a stripper wear Hanes. Hanes do not equal sex-for-show. And perhaps the Hanes are the point. Jo is not intending to strip—stripping is not an inherent part of his role. The women (and Gaga) are wearing black bondage harnesses, are wearing what might anticipate a striptease. They dance, practically writhe, seductively lift their hair, etc. Jo, on the other hand, is visibly agitated from the outset, and, at the moment before he lifts his shirt, when he is seated on the ground, looks downright despondent. It seems as though we (the audience) are asking/expecting Jo to participate in the show we are watching, a show we are asking for.
Entice us. Enthrall us. Reveal yourself to us.
Jo relents (if he is relenting) with his middle finger up. He gives what we ask—now we “know”—but he delivers a fuck you to the question, to our inquiry.
Nothing to stare at here.
Wanna See
ReplyDeletewhat's more transgressive when Jo takes off his pants or raises his shirt what's more transgressive when a girl gets naked on the internet or when she writes poems about trashy TV what's trashier a white tee or a pouf what's realer what's realest what's faux real and fo'real my niece not even a year old wears green and kind people in boutiques rush to call her buddy she sees the ceramic dog on the floor furrows her brow when you're older I tell her we'll talk about real and fake there's this thing I tell her called the internet thumbs down what's real thumbs up what's fake there are ways to tell I tell her but you will care less than I do or you will live off the land and I will keep squinting at my screen my screen my screen the brightness the wannafightness if there's a line to step over then that's transgressive if there's a pose you don't wanna pull then that's transgressive but they want to see your tits don't they they want to see your undies
Judging relative transgression is an interesting assignment.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me that something transgresses or it does not.
Which of Jo's disrobings is more transgressive? Which is more instructive? Which is more practical? Which is more titillating? What do Jo's disrobings transgress?
There's this colleague of mine, male and sort of strapping in a Disney Princeish way, who, when I mentioned liking Lady Gaga, asked me if I thought Lady Gaga had a cock. I can't remember what word he used, if it was cock or not, but this rumor still exists, is believed in even by youngish academics. And people care, whether Gaga has a cock or not.
What does it mean, if Gaga has a cock? How does it change her gender?
Sometimes I teach excerpts from Gender Trouble. People get caught up in the difference between sex and gender, become obsessed with distinguishing the biological thing that's real—sex—from the thing that’s' performed—gender. This need to define sex vs. gender always feels defensive, like establishing what sex is is a way to relegate gender to something like a Halloween costume, a make-believe game.
We say things like, "all the world's a stage," or everything's "a copy of a copy of a copy" but then we still wanna know about Truth, and if we're not Christians, Truth probably comes from science. We think we can tell, from people's parts, what they are really.
If Gaga has a skin-and-glands, biological, birth-attached cock, what can my Disney Prince colleague know? Can he know then, what belongs to the world of pretend play, and what is real? Would it explain why Gaga's able, even with wigs and lipstick and glitz, to have an impenetrable gaze, to have swagger, without making him think too much about how gender is made and unmade and remade?
Jo shows us his chest. It is flat with binding material on it. Jo shows us what's in his pants. Jo has a cock. Jo's body muddies (as do many queer bodies) the line between "sex" and "gender," between body parts and performance. How much do we want to know about someone's genitals before we feel satisfied that we know their real gender, or their real sex? Would we be satisfied if we saw the straps attaching the cock? If we saw it and it were blue and glittered and could therefore be relegated to Halloween-land? Or what if it were real? Real in the way Gaga's cheekbones in the "Born this Way" video are real? Real in the way we assume the U.S. President's cock is real? Would we demand to know how it got there?
People pack and people bind. For some, the transgression is fun. For some, breasts are embarrassing and painful and cause people to interpellate them in ways that feel violent and treat them in ways they don't like to be treated. For some, fucking with a strap-on cock is silly fun. For some it's powerful. And for some, packing provides just the right doses of some ineffable whatever to allow them to walk around with confidence and them-ness.
Binding helps change the public body—tits make the world treat you differently. The flat-chested Jo is far less likely to be called "honey" or "ma'am" by a stranger than would a Jo-with-tits. If it can sense it, the world loves to remind those with tits of their biological femaleness, loves to remind them that their social role should be sweet like honey or maternal like ma'am. Whereas the cock helps change the private body, helps define the body to itself. Its weight between the legs, its presence there, ready to fuck.
For me, more questions this video brings up are: What is the relationship between body parts and social role? How much must the body change in order to accept its chosen or actual social roles as legitimate, or real?
The endless questioning in the media about Gaga’s sex frames her body as an object that we, the public, are entitled to view and categorize. After revealing his bound breasts, Jo’s middle finger shields his body from being shaped by the onslaught of judgment that he knows is coming his way. The finger frames the revealing as an empowered act that he has chosen, rather than an act in submission to the demanding omnipresent gaze of the media.
ReplyDeleteBy revealing his body on his own terms and resisting categorization, Jo maintains his subjectivity in defiance of an objectifying gaze. This act says “You can’t hurt me. You can’t shape me, and you can’t define me.”
Gaga/Jo has revealed what is demanded, but on his own terms. In doing this, he defies the premises of our entitled gaze.
We can’t quantify transgression, nor can we separate these two acts or separate Gaga and Jo. And this inability to separate or to quantify, to label or categorize, is exactly where the transgression lies.
-Jennifer MacLatchy
Most of us were introduced to Jo Calderon at the 2011 Video Music Awards. He came out smoking a cigar, and probably reeking of alcohol. He was working up an argument about Lady Gaga's unhealthy obsession with fantasy.
ReplyDeleteHe had said, "But how am I supposed to shine? I mean I think I’d be okay with it, you know, if I felt like she was really being herself with me, and maybe she is. I’m starting to think that’s who she is, you know, maybe that’s who she is. Because when she gets on that stage she holds nothing back."
And that's exactly it. She holds nothing back, and that includes stripping off her clothes, or in this case his clothes. Letting the omnipresent spotlight shine on his bare chest, and crotch.
When Jo takes off his pants he transgresses a reality that takes the form of a new reality where Jo Calderon is a real man with real male genitalia. It's the classic Pinocchio transformation. At first, he was Pinocchio, the wooden puppet, but now he's turned himself into a real boy by showcasing his "real boy" parts to the world.
An act so intimate and yet executed in such a crass manner, that it alters the reality into fantasy, and the fantasy into reality.
However, the real question we should be asking is: Will Jo Calderon be able to "shine" in a reality where transgender people are frowned upon, or will he become the stigmatic savior of his people?
To me, there is barely even a contest here. The raising of the shirt is infinitely more transgressive.
ReplyDeleteThe cock is part of the fantasy, the illusion. We believe it, we are fooled. It's Jo Calderone. In that way, the cock is real. In the reality of Jo Calderone that Gaga creates, there needs to be a cock, the epitome of straight dominant maleness. The presence of a cock--Jo's cock--doesn't break the fourth wall, so to speak. It's logical--and hardly transgressive. The part is merely being played to the nth degree.
However, in the logic of Jo, the reality of Jo, the truth of maleness, there is no need for duct tape. And it's the raising of the shirt that's the transgression here. In it we see the fakery, the illusion. We see Gaga under Jo. The cock has, as far as we have seen, not been faked. We don't know what's under the white briefs. But now we know the flat chest has been flattened. And now we have to understand Jo as performance. Jo as Jo is not transgressive--without this glimpse of Gaga, Jo is plausible as merely Jo Calderone, we could believe it.
For some, seeing the taped breasts might be reassuring. "Oh alright,it's just Gaga." But once you truly understand the power of acknowledging Jo as performance, it's the taped breasts that are the most radical. If Gaga had created a totally convincing male Jo, so what. She acts, she plays a part. The terrifying balance created when the performer shoves the artifice of performance in the audience's face, down the audience's throat, while still playing the role impeccably...that's transgression.
If the apparent cock is less transgressive than the taped breasts, would it have been more transgressive for Jo to drop his pants and reveal men's underwear sans bulge? Or women's panties? Of course not. The presence of the cock is what makes the taped breasts transgressive. If there is no cock, it's just another one of Gaga's crazy costumes. It's dress up, it's Halloween. The cock makes it real, the taped breasts tell you it's fake. There's a knife-edge between artifice and life here. Jo is fully realized as a real person, a real MAN...we want to believe in him, we can believe in him, he's fuckable...however Gaga ruins our belief, showing Jo's? Gaga's? bound breasts. We can't totally believe because of the breasts, but we can't disbelieve because of the cock.
The two together are transgressive. Taken separately...the revelation of the cock without the breasts, the revelation of the breasts without the presence of the cock...there is debatably no transgression. Gaga's genius is that together, they become the ultimate genderfuck, totally real and totally performed.