Thank You for This Halloween Treat, Mother Monster

Us Little Monsters are prone to declaring she's "back" every three years, but between the lyrics and visuals (very The Fame Monster), it really does feel like it this time.

By Audra Heinrichs | October 31, 2024 | 12:06pm

Photo Credit: Lady Gaga/YouTube Music

Thank You for This Halloween Treat, Mother Monster

Well, Joker: Folie à Deux might’ve bombed, but Mother Monster’s return to dark pop is brewing just in time for Halloween! This week, Lady Gaga released the highly anticipated music video for “Disease,” the latest single from LG7—her forthcoming seventh studio album. And after watching? My paws are very much up!

LG7 is still largely a mystery save for the month of its release (February) but let us recall Gaga’s fiancé’s encouragement. In September, as she was promoting Joker, she told Billboard that he’s the one who told her to return to her roots. “Babe, I love you. You need to make pop music,” she recalled him saying. Far be it from me to validate literally anything a man says, but if that doesn’t constitute as husband material…

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In the video, Gaga’s being pursued by her own inner demons in the form of some very grotesque, terrifyingly glamorous actual demons, of course. For four minutes, she wriggles, she writhes, and ultimately, she relinquishes herself to what I interpret to be a yassifed grim reaper (also played by Gaga) in the middle of monotonous suburbia. Then she runs away again. (Is the metaphor here that, even in the midst of a queer pop renaissance, the scariest foe she could possibly face is herself?)

In an Instagram announcing the video, Gaga shared that “Disease” was inspired by her “inner darkness” and the recent realization that, regardless of how hard she tries, she can’t flee from it.

“Disease is about facing that fear, facing myself and my inner darkness, and realizing that sometimes I can’t win or escape the parts of myself that scare me,” she wrote in the caption. “That I can try and run from them but they are still part of me and I can run and run but eventually I’ll meet that part of myself again, even if only for a moment.”

In dancing with her demons, Gaga said she’s learned that they’re “essential, inextricable parts” of what makes her the artist and individual we know and love.

“I save myself by keeping going,” she concluded the post. “I am the whole me, I am strong, and I am up for the challenge. Happy Halloween.” If that didn’t give you goosebumps, well, this is me telling your demons to get their shit together.

Now, some more about this video…

We open on the aforementioned yassified grim reaper staring at what I think is the actual Gaga splayed out on the hood of its car. She wakes up, their eyes meet, and Gaga’s dragged into a confrontation with a peroxide-blonde version of herself. They go head-to-head and Gaga very much looks like she’s winning. Then, we cut to what appears to be an American Horror Story-esque observation room in which a hand-cuffed Gaga faces off against a clone of herself. Again, she triumphs (I think?), but that’s not even what I’m paying the most attention in this sequence—in short, it’s shot almost entirely from above. It’s all very Kill Bill meets John Wick, and if the Oscars offered an award in Most Cunt Cinematography, she’s taking it.

Fans (not just me) are gagging over this video, too. “BREAKING NEWS: Lady Gaga’s new music video Disease just received a 55 minute standing ovation from me in my bedroom after watching it for the 200th time,” tweeted one user. “the depiction of depression + the claustrophobia of the realisation that only yourself has the upmost power to face your own fears to rebirth out of the darkest trenches…LADY GAGA THIS IS IS CINEMA!” wrote another.

The “Disease” video concludes with a battle with the final boss (the reaper) in the middle of the neighborhood that sees Gaga give her shadow self a hug. Honestly? The visual has done more for me than any recent therapy session. As Gaga noted in her caption, she saves herself not by succumbing to her darkness but by continuing on. So she takes off running again.

Now, I know us Little Monsters are prone to declaring she’s “back” every three years, but between the lyrics and visuals (very The Fame Monster), it truly does feel like it this time. Happy Halloween, indeed.