Lady Gaga Shares a Story of Trauma in ‘911′ Music Video

Lady Gaga Shares a Story of Trauma in ‘911′ Music Video

From her latest album ‘Chromatica,’ Lady Gaga releases a powerful music video for her single ‘911’ in which she takes you on a psychological journey of trauma. 

In a recent interview with Apple Music 1, Lady Gaga revealed to host Zane Lowe how ‘911’ reflects her struggles with mental health. “I wrote a song on Chromatica called ‘911,’ and it’s about an antipsychotic that I take, and it’s because I always can’t control things that my brain does,” she said. “I have to take medication to stop the process that occurs.”

The music video begins with her waking up blindfolded in a bay of white sand scattered with tomatoes and a broken bicycle. She spots a man riding a horse from afar and follows him into a local village where she witnesses  a plethora of odd behavior such as a man repeatedly banging his head against against a pillow, a woman rocking back and forth on the ground cradling a mummy, a priest waving a hand mirror, and a man tying a rope to her ankle, etc. 

Throughout the video, Gaga is dressed as a goddess sporting lavish headdresses and elongated gowns while belting heavy lyrics such as “I can’t see me cry” and “My biggest enemy is me, pop a 911.” In one crucial scene, the camera hints at a painted mural that illustrates a tragic accident of a vehicle that collided into a bike. As a result from the crash, a woman is depicted laying on the ground littered with tomatoes suffering from her injuries.

We later find out that the mural was a precursor for the revelation towards the end of the video where Gaga is shocked back into a grim reality panicked and weeping. It turns out she was resurrected from what was a dream all along. In reality, she is that woman in the painting who was in a tragic accident now being treated by EMS. The odd behaviors and surroundings in her dream tie to the what was depicted in her moment of reality.

These are just a few of the symbolic imagery portrayed throughout the video which represents overall how one can process trauma. In Gaga’s case she processed trauma by using what she saw in her last moment to create a better “reality.”

Check out the full video below.