From “Madonna: Finally, a Real Feminist” by Camille Paglia, in an article from 1990 in the New York Times:

“Madonna has a far profounder vision of sex than do the feminists. She sees both the animality and the artifice. Changing her costume style and hair colour virtually every month, Madonna embodies the eternal values of beauty and pleasure. Feminism says, ‘No more masks.’ Madonna says we are nothing but masks.”

Paglia is notoriously anti-Gaga, perhaps fearing that Mother Monster may be stealing the waning spotlight from Her Madgesty.

It’s funny that this was written 21 years ago, because it could very well have been written only recently, in relation to Gaga: “she sees both the animality and artifice” of sex. She changes “her costume style and hair colour” one better than Madonna; every day, it seems. And Gaga, as I have written, exists as something of a mask, while espousing the importance of being yourself.

So it’s not just the novelty bras and “Express Yourself” tune in “Born This Way”…

Related: Gaga Ooo La La?

Elsewhere: [The New York Times] Madonna: Finally, a Real Feminist.

[The Sunday Times] Lady Gaga & the Death of Sex.

Image via Gale Chester Whittington.