Over halfway into Netflix’s Lady Gaga documentary Gaga: Five Foot Two, we’re shown a montage of the singer giving promotional interviews for her new album, Joanne. Zane Lowe interviews her about the trauma of “the public announcement that your marriage is breaking up [when] you’ve got to go make a record”, about “paranoia”, “fear”, “alcohol”, “drugs”, “anxiety” and “the deepest pain”. We hear a whole host of other interviewers ask her similar questions. “It’s very personal in a way that I just haven’t been,” Gaga says of her record. And then, “It’s so personal.” And then, “It’s a very personal title.” And then, “When it comes to revealing something so personal…” And then, “I’ve never been that personal with my fans.”
Celebrity interviews are a strange breed of manufactured intimacy. They are tightly controlled affairs that offer audiences the performance of revelation, without actually revealing anything awkward, unlikeable or even surprising about their subject. Unfortunately, the same can be said of Five Foot Two.
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