Lady Gaga Talks Hidden Meanings In Epic ‘Telephone’ Clip

Lady Gaga wears a series of barely there outfits in the nine-and-a-half-minute video for “Telephone” that debuted on Thursday night, including one that’s no more than discretely applied electrical tape and a pair of torn fishnets. But the singer said despite the acres of provocative flesh (not to mention copious product placement) on display in the “Thelma and Louise”-style revenge fantasy co-starring Beyoncé, her aim, as always, is to embed some deeper, less obvious meaning in her videos. “There’s certainly always a hidden message in my music videos,” Gaga told E! News in a sit-down during which she wore her signature round sunglasses and a lingerie-like black leather and lace bodysuit. “But I would say most predominately, I’m always trying to convolute everyone’s idea of what a pop music video should be.” After hooking up with Beyoncé on the set of “Video Phone,” Gaga said she was excited to re-team with the R&B diva, who shows off a more foul-mouthed, edgier persona in the clip than she has in the past, including the pivotal scene in which she poisons co-star Tyrese Gibson and calls him a compound nasty name. “We had an amazing time working together on her video and it just kind of works out because we both like women,” Gaga said provocatively of the “Telephone” clip, the first half of which takes place in the sexiest/scariest women’s prison on the planet. Gaga also explained how the infamous “Pussy Wagon” from Quentin Tarantino’s “Kill Bill Vol. 1″ ended up making a very prominent cameo. “We were having lunch one day in Los Angeles and I was telling him about my concept for the video and he said, ‘You gotta use the Pussy Wagon!,’ ” she said of the director’s reaction to the pulpy look and feel of the video. “There was this really amazing quality in ‘Paparazzi,’ where it kind of had this pure pop music quality but at the same time it was a little bit of commentary on fame culture,” she said of her first hook-up with director Jonas Åkerlund, who also helmed the “Telephone” mini-movie. “I wanted to do the same thing with this video — take a decidedly pop song, which on the surface has a quite shallow meaning, and turn it into something deeper: the idea that America is full of young people that are inundated with information and technology and turn it into something that is more of a commentary on the kind of country that we are.” MTV.com