The Latest Trend in Boobs

Stars like Lady Gaga and Katy Perry have been mixing their mammaries with traditionally male symbolism. What's going on?

If you caught the MTV Video Music Awards recently, you’ll no doubt have noticed how the big winner, Lady Gaga, switched outfits a number of times – including into a dress that appeared to be made of cuts of meat. Weird, right?

Hey, at least nothing shot out of her bosom – as when she appeared at last year’s MuchMusic Awards. You may recall images of the controversial singer with a shower of sparks shooting from each of her breasts – or, as some on the internet dubbed them, her “exploding t---.”

Lady Gaga fans know this wasn’t the only time she has called attention to her breasts by using them as weapons. In the video for her song "Alejandro," she appears with the barrel of what looks like an M-16 machine gun strapped to each side of her chest, although nothing actually shoots out of them. I don’t know about you, but I’m getting to the point where my head hurts whenever I try to figure out the statement she’s making with her whacked-out fashions.

That said, I couldn’t help but notice that another young singer, Katy Perry, joined Gaga this summer in utilizing her, um ... assets ... in the same way. In the video for her pop hit "California Gurls," Perry first appears with two massive cupcakes mounted on her top half – in keeping with the video’s theme of sweeter-than-sweet confections.

Later in the promotional clip, she pushes the idea a step further when she takes a can of whip cream in each hand, mounts them in place of her nipples, then – within seconds – two streams of sticky white liquid issue forth as Perry squeals with joy. I’m sure I’m not the first person to suggest the image looks like the money shot from a porn flick.

So what’s going on here?

The one precedent I can come up with for this burgeoning trend is the Mike Myers comedy Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery. Readers with good memories will remember how Dr. Evil’s robotic legion of Fembots had actual guns embedded in their ... guns ... and used them to lethal effect.

Breasts represent female power in any number of ways. For starters, since they produce milk, they are the source of human life. And as sexual objects, they attract the gaze of adoring males. And there are a million other meanings. In fact, it’s hard to find symbols that are more potent. Female artists like Gaga and Perry are riffing off some of these associations. I’m not sure exactly what they’re up to (I’ll leave that to the grad students out there), but they seem to be taking their ta-tas and mixing them with male symbolism – in motion pictures, guns have traditionally been a phallic symbol, a stand-in for the penis.

I don’t know where this trend is headed, but I'm eager to find out. All we need to do is keep our eyes riveted on the boobs of female celebrities, which shouldn't be hard.

This article originally appeared in the London Free Press.