Well, this is discouraging. Lady Gaga’s label has apparently decided that, rather than ordering costumes for the singer’s tour that suit her body, or letting her decide what she looks good and comfortable in, the pop singer needs to lose weight:

Executives at Universal Music Group saw recent pictures of the singer bulging out of her too-tight clothes and were forced to order a better-fitting wardrobe for the remainder her of her world tour, according to a RadarOnline report. “The tight, skimpy outfits weren’t doing anything for Gaga’s new fuller figure, so Universal ordered more flattering and better fitting costumes for the rest of the tour,” a source told the gossip site.

They allegedly told the “Born This Way” singer to lay off her favorite high-calorie foods, pizza and pasta. “Gaga has an incredible appetite for Italian food, which stems largely from her roots. It’s very easy on tour to get hooked on a diet of pizza and pasta because they are comfort foods—and when you are away from home you always long for something that reminds you of where you came from,” the source said. “She loves to eat, but because of her tiny frame it shows if she doesn’t work out as much as normal. Executives told her to quit gorging on her favorite foods.”

Did they like her better when Gaga was talking about being on the so-called Drunk Diet promoted by her then-boyfriend Luc Carl? Are some of the stranger things she’s worn during her time in the public eye actually less attractive than the sight of her with curves? There’s something pretty depressing about an environment where it’s easier for a woman to get away with wearing a dress made of raw meat than a body mass index that’s outside what the corporate definition of acceptable.

Fortunately for my sanity and good cheer I consumed far more culture that I liked in 2011 than culture that raised my blood pressure. But there were some things that got me really irritated, whether because they’re noxious on their own or because they’re wasted opportunities. Here are ten of them:

1. Red Riding Hood is miserably conventional: The previews implied that Catherine Hardwicke’s Twilight follow-up twist on a fairy tale would have Red Riding hood be the wolf, a parable of the violence of female desire and a throwing off of restriction. Instead, it featured a totally traditional love triangle, some impressively terrible dialogue, and a torture elephant. Good lord.

2. Lady Gaga’s incredibly terrible immigration reform song “Americano”: I love me some Gaga, one of the few major stars with any sense of how to use her platform to advance political goals. But this song was a hot, condescending mess. If she wants to dip back into these waters, she might want to take notes from Emma’s Revolution’s “If I Give Your Name.”

3. True Blood goes racist, incoherent:: Alan Ball should know that just because you say your show isn’t a political metaphor doesn’t mean you’re not responsible for the ideas your show expresses. And he should be pretty embarrassed by the way his show handled rape, gender identity, and the South’s racial history this season.

4. Colombiana is totally incoherent: Man, I want to adore Zoe Saldana as a badass tiny action heroine, but this movie featured laughable dialogue, fueled the idea that Ponzi schemers are solely responsible for the recession, and had what is possibly the least plausible romance on screens this year.
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Lady Gaga may have topped Forbes’ annual list of the highest-earning celebrities, but when it comes to the rest of the list, it’s good to be a white guy. Sixty-seven of the 100 celebrities or groups on the list are men, 32 are women, and 1, the Black Eyed Peas, is made up of men and a woman. Seventy-six of the 100 are white, 23 are black or Latino (there are no Asian individuals on the list), and the Black Eyes Peas are, again, the lone representative of mixed-race groups.

These results aren’t really that surprising, and I feel some temptation to dismiss them as telling us what we already know: that white men have a lot of financial power. But at the same time, it’s worth noting that if you pull this kind of bank, you have power beyond your pocketbook. As a proven earner, you’re likely to have more creative power than someone who is critically acclaimed but not necessarily commercially successful, or someone at the start of their career. And that means you can take time to do prestige projects, get your own ideas greenlit and have someone else pay to make them happen, or pay to make your own projects happen without the requirement that you listen to anyone. If Tyler Perry’s the only black movie producer on this list, then we’re probably going to get a lot more Tyler Perry-style characters on movies and television and not much else. If we want mass entertainment to get more interesting, supporting your favorite artists with your dollars actually matters. It doesn’t just support them. It can help buy them creative freedom.

Vulture wants to know if Lady Gaga’s dudely alter ego, Jo Calderone, is “interesting? Or just exhausting?” The persona, which she stayed in throughout her appearance and performance at MTV’s Video Music Awards over the weekend:

Lady Gaga – Yoü & I (as Jo Calderone) MTV VMA 2011 from Öktem Usumi on Vimeo.

isn’t actually new. She premiered him on the cover of Vogue Hommes Japan in 2010:

And of course, he provides an opportunity for Gaga to make out with herself in the video for “Yoü And I”:

I don’t think it’s necessarily revolutionary that she’s cross-dressing or anything. What I do think is interesting about is how ordinary Jo is. The character isn’t presented as terribly attractive or together. The clothes don’t fit particularly well, and even if they were loose to conceal Gaga’s figure, they’re not stylish, or even necessarily clean-looking.

When pop stars come up with alter egoes, they’re usually about kicking things up a notch. Sasha Fierce is meant to be an even more badass version of Beyonce. Slim Shady is a way for Eminem to work out abhorrent ideas. But Jo Calderone is actually a step down from Gaga’s high-level performance of femininity, a presentation that’s often so extreme that it verges (I think intentionally) into the grotesque. And it seems like Gaga’s using Calderone as an way to critique her day-to-day performance of Lady Gaga-ness, in particular the part of her VMA monologue where Calderone explains that it’s inexplicable to him that Gaga gets into the shower in heels. I think I liked that because I thought it was an interesting and gentle way of presenting the kind of “Women. What is up with them?” questioning that shows up in pop culture a lot without an implied value judgement about the way women present themselves (even if those presentations are determined by perceptions of what men prioritize).

Gaga’s always kind of been an ouroboros of a performer. I used to joke that she’d reach a point where the most revolutionary thing she could do would be to get all Michelle Branch on us. Now, I wonder if she’s doing it by turning herself into a version of her own audience.