At long last, this week marks the shift from The Fall Season into the full-on holidays. At least in my imagination, the week of Thanksgiving is when everyone forms a cultural reset and begins to look fondly towards the end of the year. It starts with a get-together that mostly exists to take tabs on what you want for Christmas, settling in by the TV to watch Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade before getting the turkey finished. Then, in the evening, when the food has been eaten and the cheer has reached a fever pitch, everyone begins to relax, navigating themselves to the TV to find a special way to end their night. And, in the case of Thanksgiving 2013, it involved two worlds coming together to sing songs and shamelessly plug their work.
I’m, of course, talking about Lady Gaga and The Muppets Holiday Spectacular
To be totally fair, it wasn’t that weird of an idea on paper. In 2011, A Very Gaga Thanksgiving aired with moderate success and featured Katie Couric interviewing her about her life. It’s your typical mythmaking special that also allows her to flaunt her talent with renditions of “White Christmas” and prove that she was much more than an eccentric pop star. The question from here is where things could possibly go, and it’s a bit of a mess to fully explain. I’ve written at length about the cultural impact of “Artpop” before for those who are interested, but just know that while “Born This Way” was a maximalist masterpiece of self-expression, it was no match for the absurdity that followed.
As the years have carried on, I’ve found myself admitting one thing: I kind of love the “Artpop” era. It may even be the most interesting moment in mainstream music of the past decade. Stop and think about it for a moment. While it’s by no means a massive success like any album on either side of it, it may be the most organic look into Lady Gaga’s vision of herself. It’s not just in subject matter, but how she created this elaborate commentary on consumerism that has so many baffling metaphors. You’re left wondering “what did she mean here?” After all, this is the album of “Sexxx Dreams,” where she has erotic fantasies that are pretty lustful.
It was the album that convinced her to make flying dresses and an app that incorporated a ton of art history references. Some could see it as self-parody, but I believe the earnestness of songs like “Dope” and “Swine” as her trying to escape her artifice and talk about drug addiction and sexual assault. She’s not quite there, but it’s transitioning into something more raw and honest that she’d explore on albums like “Joanne.” Even on “Chromatica”, she seems more comfortable mixing heightened image with depth in compelling ways. “Artpop” is messy yet vital.
Another reason that it’s among the most appealing moments of her career for me is because of this collaboration with The Muppets. On the surface, The Muppets have always seemed cool because they are accessible to evolving trends. Every generation finds celebrities they admire making a cameo alongside them, playing out a fantasy that we all have. However, there’s always been something that’s irked me a bit about the contemporary run that was always there but has become even more blatant: this is no longer geared at kids.
I’m sure kids can watch The Muppets (2011) and enjoy the songs and comical gags, but something bugged me about watching it. Writer and star Jason Segel cast himself as the lead, playing a figure who was obsessed with The Muppets. While he’s an entry point for the story, it feels patently false in subliminal ways. This wasn’t a Muppet movie, it was an example of hero worship that felt desperate, relying more on recognizable cameos to save the story from ever getting too dull. By the time of the short-lived TV series, they gave up the charade and simply admitted that they wanted to skewer older, including featuring a rather adult affair between Kermit and an employee who looks vaguely like Miss Piggy.
The Muppets are more for adults these days, and I’m a bit mixed on how I feel about that. They’re more relevant for hopping on pop culture trends and looking cute doing it than coming up with an exciting, original idea. It’s both what makes their work in this Holiday Spectacular perfect and a bit confusing. This is a show that will air on ABC in primetime. At 90 minutes, it would be a blend of Lady Gaga and The Muppets, who would work together on Muppets Most Wanted (2014) – which also received a promo midway through the special.
Most of what you need to know about it come in the bawdy artwork that they used in transitions. While it was a reference to her “Artpop” album cover, it still is a compelling piece of madness. Yes, there are Muppets. Yes, they have Lady Gaga in a variety of wardrobe decisions. What’s more confusing is how busy it all is, not allowing for any good focal point. The viewer was practically encouraged to get lost in one corner of the frame, looking at whatever Photoshop madness the creators had bestowed upon unsuspecting eyes. Sure, a lot of it was alluding to elements of the show. It’s just that as one conjoined picture, it felt like a collage you make in middle school to present all of the different things you’re interested in.
To be upfront, I don’t believe that this special works at all. While I only watched a truncated 44-minute version on YouTube, it was abundantly clear that none of the ideas were allowed time to really establish. This wasn’t like watching Pee-wee’s Playhouse invite Annette Funicello over for a few minutes and everything’s cheery. It mostly existed like a warped version of The Muppet Show where Lady Gaga is waiting to perform backstage, talking to various Muppets as she figures out how to plan the big finale.
With that said, I am personally amazed by what they decided to do. At the end of the day, this wasn’t designed to be a timeless holiday tradition. ABC has practically disavowed knowledge of it only seven years later. What this was is a feature-length commercial for both “Artpop” and the upcoming Muppets Most Wanted. Much like Disney’s brand deposits in their live-action remakes, it was more to remember that you liked these things and that you should pump more money into their product.
It wouldn’t be the only cross-promotion Lady Gaga did during this album, including shameless cameos in Machete Kills (2014) and one of the most notorious episodes of The Simpsons. Similarly, The Muppets were more viral video stars at this point than genuine content creators.
Nowhere is that more apparent than in a subplot where Miss Piggy gets mad at Lady Gaga for potentially forming a relationship with Kermit. It’s a recurring gag that builds to a very strange duet of “Gypsy” where Kermit isn’t sure if he knows the words. In one soliloquy, Miss Piggy talks to the camera about how she feels ripped off by Lady Gaga, claiming that she only got a free copy of her new album. It’s a piece of Marketing 101, but as she says “It’s pretty good, but still…” it’s clear that even The Muppets are kissing up to their guest star, and Kristen Bell’s there for reasons that aren’t entirely clear, also worshiping Lady Gaga by asking for her autograph.
I understand that according to Muppets Wiki that there were more segments with our favorite puppets, but those criticizing this as just being a long advertisement had a point. While the Lady Gaga plot lacked any essence of Christmas themes outside of the occasional “I get lonely during my tours” rhetoric, the choice to have Muppets discussing their holiday wishes would be a nice touch if it at all informed the other components of the special. They were amusing and Pepe especially gets to have some fun comedic beats, but again… there’s not really any glue to this thing.
My suggestion is to just go along for the ride. I personally imagine this as an extension of her “Artpop” project, where she uses media to comment on our addiction to consumerism and vanity. The idea that The Muppets being involved never makes sense, and yet there is something about Lady Gaga opening up to Kermit. It’s deeply affecting and is only undercut by the fact that “Gypsy” as a song doesn’t compliment his singing voice, so it looks like he’s just being flung back and forth during the chorus.
Still, it’s amazing to compare that to the other Lady Gaga-centric numbers. The opener “Venus” featured her dancing with Muppets as back-up dancers carried around large orbs meant to symbolize the planets. It’s quite something because she does rhyme Venus with “Don’t you know my ass is famous?” and it has to be censored. By some miracle, they found a way to make this outright horny album barely suitable for audiences coming out of a rerun of A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. Her outfits are as bold as you’d expect, her big diva wigs hanging well into the rafters. This was what you’d expect. Then again, I’m personally impressed that they got away with “MANiCURE,” where she suggests “Touch me in the dark/Put your hands all over my body parts.” It’s a fun number, especially if you love the bombast, but we come back to the question:
What does this have to do with Christmas?
For what it’s worth, this does feature a fun piano duet of the song “Artpop” with Sir Elton John. It may also be the most self-indulgent moment in the whole special, finding her singing from under glasses resembling soda can lids. If you’re not on board with this concept, the idea of a bloated song about consumerism seems out of place on Black Friday Eve. The only thing that seems more awkward is the big finale, where Lady Gaga invites everyone onstage to dance to her big single “Applause” while outtakes play. Half of the song is cut off by bloopers and there’s a forced sense of enjoyment happening.
To be fair, there are a few Christmas songs in the mix. Miss Piggy gets the dullest moment in the whole special with the choir Youthful Praise as she sings “Santa Baby.” It lacks any personality, any deeper kitsch that would match everything else. At most, she yells at the back-up singers for stepping on her lines. There’s also a gender-reversed version of “Baby It’s Cold Outside” between Lady Gaga and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, which is cute for those who tire of arguing whether or not it’s “problematic.”
Along with RuPaul singing a version of “Fashion!” this is an incredible time capsule of a moment, where Lady Gaga’s hubris knew no bounds. I love that she thought this was a good idea, and the sincerity actually makes it compulsory, finding ways to turn a 90-minute advertisement into an enjoyable art project that I doubt anyone even remembers anymore. Does this put you in the Christmas cheer? If it does, you got more out of it than I do. I’m more enamored with how this moment will never be replicated. For anyone who thinks that “Chromatica” is weird, just know that “Artpop” exists, and it has flying dresses and Muppet duets. She was willing to go there, and for that, I think she deserves some applause.
In closing, I want to also say something sad. For the time being, I am discontinuing my Sales Rack column. I don’t know if I will retool it as a monthly column or a seasonal one, but I am having trouble keeping up with it right now and need to take a break. Thank you to everyone who has read and enjoyed it. I’m sure it will be back. So long as wacky sodas, toys, and TV specials continue to exist, I will be there talking about it. For now, I just need some free time to work on other projects. Thank you for your understanding.
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