With the release of A Star Is Born inching closer, Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga are deep in the throes of one of the most extensive press tours in recent memory. In other words, these two really want you to see their movie. So much so, in fact, that they might even drop in on a screening, which is exactly what Gaga did in New York on Wednesday, October 3.
Decked out in a shimmering red turtleneck dress, the singer turned actress greeted the audience after a brief introduction from Tyler Oakley. “I love you so much,” she said, per a clip from Good Morning America. “Thank you so, so much from the bottom of my heart for being here tonight.”
PHOTO: Dave Allocca/Starpix/REX/Shutterstock
Then, as she’s done throughout the whirlwind press circuit, Gaga heaped praise on her costar and director, Bradley Cooper. “All you need is just for one person to believe,” Gaga told the audience. “So, I have to say thank you to my incredible director, Bradley Cooper. This is the moment that Bradley gives the film over to you and to the world. I am so grateful and so humbled that it is moving people and that’s all that matters. So, this our gift to you. We love you.”
PHOTO: Composite. Dave Allocca/Starpix/REX/Shutterstock
Unless you’ve recently signed a year-long lease for a sensory-deprivation tank, it’s been impossible to ignore the enormous hype surrounding this movie. It currently sits at a sparkling 94 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, and is considered by many to be the front-runner at this year’s Oscars. Beyond the merits of the film itself, Gaga’s ultra-devoted fan base has been crucial in elevating A Star Is Born to the top of the pop-culture pyramid. So naturally, she also thanked her Little Monsters for helping to get her to this point.
“It would be a lie to not think each and every one of you who has supported me over the years, I would not be here without you,” she said. She added, perE! News, that she will “never forget when I looked into the eyes of my fans for the first time and I saw myself,” and added that “you are fighters. You are beautiful, and I love you.”
That’s going to be one helluva an Oscars acceptance speech.
The wait is over, people: A Star Is Born, the highly-anticipated remake directed by Bradley Cooper and starring Lady Gaga (and Cooper!), comes out this Friday, October 5. What? You haven’t been counting down for this moment since June? Just me? Cool.
In all seriousness, this movie is going to be all anyone talks about after the weekend. With an impressive 94 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, it’s already won the hearts of critics, not to mention Gaga’s legion of fans. How will it fare with the general public, though? We’ll have to wait and see.
There are other exciting movies and TV shows dropping this week, as well. Below, a non-exhaustive list.
God Friended Me: An atheist receives the surprise of a lifetime when actual God sends him a friend request in Facebook. Yeah, the title is pretty on the nose. 8:30 P.M. ET on CBS
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Queen of the World: Meghan Markle and her wedding dress make an already-iconic appearance in this new documentary about Queen Elizabeth II. 8 P.M. ET on HBO
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Broken Things: From bestselling author Lauren Oliver comes this new mystery about three young women whose friendship is tested after suspicious events happen in their town. Book available now
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RBG: This moving documentary about Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is now available for your streaming pleasure. Streaming on Hulu
Will & Grace: Season two of the insanely popular Will & Grace reboot kicks off tonight. Here’s hoping it includes another episode of Will explaining to 23-year-old gays why Madonna is important (something I, a 25-year-old gay, do on a daily basis). 9 P.M. ET on NBC
I Feel Bad: The first season of NBC’s new show, from producer Amy Poehler, about a mom constantly plagued with unnecessary guilt, officially begins tonight after a preview from September 19. 9:30 P.M. ET on NBC
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In the Dark: From Jason Blum comes a new anthology horror series that will air new super-sized installments every month. Good luck sleeping. Streaming on Hulu
The Man in the High Castle: This dystopian alternate history series is truly nerve-wracking, and it starts its third season today. Alexa Davalos and Rupert Evans star. Streaming on Amazon
Super Mario Party: Because who doesn’t need another Mario game to pass the time?! Video game now available
A Star Is Born: Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper star in the fourth remake of this classic story about a male star on the decline who helps a female performer achieve fame beyond her wildest dreams…at a major cost. In theaters
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Falling for You: A local radio DJ hosts a Bachelor Bake-Off to raise funds for her station in this charming new movie from Hallmark. 9 P.M. ET on Hallmark
After Lady Gaga sang the national anthem at the 2016 Super Bowl, Twitter was flooded with people expressing their genuine shock at her voice. “Who knew [Lady Gaga] could sing like that? No hiding in [the] national anthem,” one user wrote. “I had no idea lady gaga [could] sing like that,” another praised.
One could argue that there’s not a large overlap of Lady Gaga fans and NFL viewers—and I’ll get to why that’s frustrating—but a similar situation also happened the year prior, at the Oscars. Gaga performed a Sound of Music medley dressed in a simple gown with her hair long and flowing. After, the reviews on Twitter were clear: She brought the house down with her powerful pipes. “Lady Gaga can actually sing. Who would’ve thought of that? #Oscars,” a new fan wrote.
But these comments are a bit perplexing, because Gaga has been singing “like this” for years. It just took her covering two American standards for the general public to notice.
Before this, Gaga was seen as a shock-and-awe pop provocateur whose skill took a backseat to spectacle. People didn’t pay attention her good voice at the 2009 VMAs because of the whole bleeding outfit thing. Her soulful rendition of “Poker Face” and “Speechless” at the 2010 Grammys was completely lost on them until Elton John showed up. Both instances clearly showcased Gaga’s abilities, but it wasn’t taken seriously by some until she took on the national anthem.
Now, she’s winning the masses over again with A Star Is Born. The Bradley Cooper-directed movie isn’t even out yet, but Gaga’s turn as a struggling singer named Ally has critics completely floored. One reviewer describes Gaga as a “nuclear bomb”, while another says she “positively soars.” An article from Noisey predicts A Star Is Born will cement Gaga’s position as an all-time Hollywood great. The problem with that assessment, though, is that Gaga’s already proven herself to be great time and time again. So why is the world just now noticing?
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The answer is a bit frustrating and, to be clear, has nothing to do with the music community’s perception of Gaga. To me, this is about people we all know: the strangers sitting next to you at a bar, the drivers in front of you in bumper-to-bumper traffic, the Twitter users stunned by Gaga’s singing. They’re the ones who don’t see the value in her work—or Britney Spears’ or Taylor Swift’s, for that matter. My theory: Female-focused entertainment is still viewed as frothy, whimsical, and lighthearted. It’s something to enjoy but not take seriously, like a slice of key lime pie.
This rings especially true for pop music. The genre is led by female artists, so I don’t think it’s a coincidence that it’s often dismissed as hollow and overproduced. Swift, for instance, had to combat accusations that she was selling out when she dropped her pop-oriented record 1989 four years ago. “What my fans in general were afraid of was that I would start making pop music and I would stop writing smart lyrics,” she told Barbara Walters in 2014, as if “smart” and “pop” are mutually exclusive.
Gaga herself even shut down a journalist in 2009 for suggesting her music deflected her talents. “If I was a guy and I was sitting here with a cigarette in my hand, grabbing my crotch and talking about how I make music because I love fast cars and f—king girls, you’d call me a rock star,” she said. “But because I’m a female, [and] because I make pop music, you’re judgmental and you say it’s distracting.”
Evidence that female pop isn’t taken seriously also exists in A Star Is Born. Gaga’s character (Ally) has a meteoric rise to fame that eclipses in the latter half of the movie when, according to critics, she’s abandoned her singer-songwriter roots for glossy dance-pop. The implication here is that Ally is no longer an artist when she goes pop, but just a cog in the machine. “Can music movies chill with this whole ‘pop = soulless crap, singer-songwriter rock = real artistry’ nonsense? As if Lorde and Beyoncé don’t crush that false dichotomy on a bad day,” tweeted A.V Club critic A.A. Dowd after seeing A Star Is Born.
But this “false dichotomy” only applies to female artists, in my opinion. I’m having trouble recalling any male pop singer who’s had to defend the intelligence of their work like Gaga or Swift. Case in point: The late Michael Jackson was viewed as an artistic visionary with otherworldly dance skills and an impeccable ear for music. Compare him to Madonna, his female contemporary. She spent actual decades battling the idea she was a talentless manipulator who “reinvented” her image to stay current—despite the fact she’s also an amazing dancer with writing credits on all her records. “I felt [the word ‘reinvention’] trivialized what I did,” Madonna said in 2004. “People would say, ‘Oh she’s just reinvented herself. By the way, it’s not that easy because it requires investigation. It requires work.”
Simply put, female-focused entertainment straight-up isn’t respected in the same way male-focused entertainment is. It’s why “chick flicks” like How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days or Sex and the City are branded “guilty pleasures.” (Hell, it’s why the terms “chick flick” and “guilty pleasure” exist in general.) “A quote ‘girly’ movie is taken less seriously than an action movie where people are just shooting people left and right and there’s no deeper thematic message,” Sierra Burgess Is a Loser screenwriter Lindsey Beer said when Glamour talked to her in July about romantic comedies. “For some reason, less muscular fare is taken less seriously.”
Hollywood’s power structure is certainly one reason why this disparity exists. The industry is still majority led by men placing emphasis on male-driven music and movies, and that no doubt affects public perception. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is still mostly comprised of men, which means testosterone-laden films get the most Oscar buzz. Movies led by women, meanwhile, are labeled as “niche.” This is slowly but surely changing, but for decades we’ve been programmed to think masculinity is mainstream and femininity is fringe. It’s a baffling concept, seeing as how women make up more than half the population, but it’s prevailed nonetheless. Our society literally has no problem paying women unequally, so of course it doesn’t place the same value on works made by (or for) them.
PHOTO: Getty Images
Lady Gaga singing the national anthem at the 2016 Super Bowl.
It’s only when Lady Gaga stepped into more masculine and traditional worlds that she was universally praised. In 2016, it was for her take on the national anthem, arguably the song for rough-and-tumble American ambition. And now it’s for A Star Is Born, a whiskey-soaked tale as old as time with an Oscar-nominated man steering the ship. The trend is clear: In many cases, female performers are only taken seriously when they play not with the boys, but like them. Anything too colorful or too flamboyant is perceived as lesser-than. For women, talent is often ignored if there’s too much tinsel. Gaga’s Oscar campaign is well-deserved, yes, but she shouldn’t have needed it for people to see her as a tour-de-force. She’s been one since 2008. We were just too distracted by her meat dresses to notice.
Christopher Rosa is the staff entertainment writer for Glamour.
I feel it’s imperative you all know what Lady Gaga is wearing to attend the London premiere of A Star Is Born tonight.
The pop singer-slash-actress-slash-meat dress connoisseur wore an Alexander McQueen gown—not just any gown, but a ruffled, gilded one from the brand’s Fall 2013 collection that’s giving off major Shakespearean vibes. A midsummer-but-really-early-fall night’s dream, indeed! We know Mother Monster loves a theme: She channeled a fifties Italian actress at the Venice Film Festival earlier this summer, wore a patriotic get-up to sing the national anthem in 2016, and now looks like the chicest extra in a U.K. Shakespearean production ever. And look at how she’s posing, almost as if she’s saying, “Look at my ruffles! I’m a Thespian!” (And she is! She’s a favorite to win Best Actress on GoldDerby.com!)
PHOTO: Getty Images
Shakespeare Gaga might be the best Gaga ever. (Yes, even better than phone-on-her-head Gaga or Beyoncé Gaga or Muppets Gaga. You see, Shakespeare Gaga isn’t here to play games—she’s here to pose, talk about how much Bradley Cooper can sing, and snag all your Oscar votes. Behold…
PHOTO: Getty Images
You know William Shakespeare would’ve given her all the roles.
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Me? Why, yes, I did almost release a song called “Onion Girl!” How nice of you to remember!
PHOTO: Getty Images
The icons room is this way, right?
PHOTO: Getty Images
What a time to be alive, people! At this rate, you better believe she’ll wear a sleek gold dress at the 2019 Oscars—ya know, to look like the literal statue.
A Star Is Born isn’t out yet, but Lady Gaga‘s already receiving rave reviews for her performance in Bradley Cooper’s directorial debut. Now we know why: The first full song from the movie’s soundtrack, “The Shallow,” just dropped—and it’s phenomenal.
Of course, you’ve already heard part of “The Shallow” in the first trailer for A Star Is Born. It’s the part where Gaga lets out that euphoric “AHHH-AH-HA-AH-HA” before exclaiming, “I’m off the deep end. Watch as I dive in.” You know the one. I myself have watched it exactly one-zillion times at this point and cried imagining what the full song sounds like. And, no, that’s not an exaggeration. Just ask my co-workers or my roommate or my mother about my passion for this movie. It’s off the charts.
But “The Shallow” certainly won’t be if Gaga’s fans have anything to do with it. Little Monsters will no doubt stream this song enough times for it to make an impression on Billboard‘s Hot 100. It’s just the type of gritty, acoustic track that fits well with radio’s current climate. Authenticity is very much in, and “The Shallow” has it in spades.
That’s not just because Gaga and Cooper sang the song live on film, either. Every second of this song is stuffed with passion—the kind of passion Gaga’s fans have seen in her career since day one but casual listeners may be surprised by. Make no mistake: “The Shallow” will be a serious contender for Best Original Song at the Oscars next year. It may even win.
Listen to the song for yourself, below, and purchase it here:
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That’s not the only gift we got today. Check out these Oscar-worthy images of Gaga that were released with the song:
PHOTO: Peter Lindbergh / Warner Bros / Interscope Records
PHOTO: Peter Lindbergh / Warner Bros / Interscope Records
The music in A Star Is Born is very much a character in itself. It starts out raw and instrumental but transitions to polished dance-pop as Gaga’s character skyrockets to fame. DJ White Shadow, who worked with Gaga on her ARTPOP and Born This Way albums, helped craft the pop-oriented songs for the film—so get excited, people. We have some bops on the way.
PHOTO: Courtesy of Warner Bros / Interscope Records
The track listing for the ‘A Star Is Born’ soundtrack.
Lady Gaga has worn many hats in her career: pop star, jazz singer, Kermit the Frog enthusiast, “Italian girl from New York”—the list goes on and on. Her latest role, though, quite literally has the whole world talking.
This October, Gaga will make her movie lead debut as Ally in Bradley Cooper’s remake of A Star Is Born, and her performance is receiving extremely positive reviews. One critic from IndieWire says Gaga is “unreal” throughout the entire movie. Another from Yahoo! wrote that she shines “pretty damn bright.” The movie currently has a 95 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and it keeps on climbing. (I should know—I’ve been tracking it religiously.)
The universal acclaim carried over to the Toronto International Film Festival, where the movie screened. Initial TIFF responses were off the charts, and the momentum continued during a Q&A with the cast. During the chat, Lukas Nelson, one of Gaga’s costars, complimented her for “destroying” every scene she’s in. The crowd applauded at this comment, and then gave her a standing ovation. This prompted Gaga’s cast members on stage to also stand up and clap, leaving her shocked and holding back tears. At one point, she buries her face in her hands and starts crying. It’s incredibly moving. Watch it for yourself, below:
“Please stop,” she asks her costars and the audience, who continue to clap. “Thank you,” she says, eventually, blowing a kiss to the audience and hugging Cooper.
What’s that I hear? Fifteen Oscar nominations for Lady Gaga just for this one performance? Wow!
