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This Friday was defined by a visual treat courtesy of Lady Gaga: a surrealist music video for “911,” a song from her album Chromatica. But the short film also came with a mindbending twist in keeping with the song's mental health-inspired message.
In a May interview with Apple Music, Gaga shared that “911” is about an antipsychotic medication called Olanzapine which the pop star is prescribed. “[…] it’s because I can’t always control things that my brain does. I know that. And I have to take medication to stop the process that occurs,” explained Gaga. In film guise, this translates to Gaga stranded in a barren desert landscape, blindfolded and surrounded by halved pomegranates. Then comes a mysterious masked rider, a tripped-out village, and a myriad of beauty looks—an aquamarine mane twisted into a variety of updos, coordinated painterly eye makeup, an over-the-glove manicure, and headpieces that veer from menacing to angelic. But all of these eye-catching elements culminate in an upending revelation: The scene is a dream built of surrounding factors, induced after Gaga lost consciousness in a car accident. “I didn't have my pills,” sobs Gaga as EMTs attempt to calm her.
In an Instagram caption promoting the film, Gaga shed further light on its significance. “This short film is very personal to me, my experience with mental health and the way reality and dreams can interconnect to form heroes within us and all around us,” wrote Gaga. She went on to thank her devoted fans. “I’m awake now, I can see you, I can feel you, thank you for believing in me when I was very afraid. Something that was once my real life everyday is now a film, a true story that is now the past and not the present. It’s the poetry of pain.”