Essay
Topic : Discuss the meaning of the Trickster figure. Do you think the transgressive artist is a contemporary embodiment of this figure ? In mythology, and in the study of folklore and religion, a trickster is a god, goddess, man, woman, or anthropomorphic animal who plays tricks or otherwise disobeys normal rules and conventional behaviour. According to Lewis Hyde, if trickster "stirs to life on the open road, if he embodies ambiguity, if he steals fire to invent new technologies, if he plays with all boundaries and so on, then he must still be among us". Transgressive artists nowadays appear to present many characteristics of this mythological figure through the way they play tricks on popular culture, at once criticizing it and exploiting it, Lady Gaga being a convincing example. The singer represents a spectacle of American pop music and fame culture. Since the release of her debut album The Fame in 2008, her presence has flooded world culturescapes. While her music has certainly attracted pop culture’s fleeting attention, it is her persona that has secured the most lasting fascination. The artist explained her will to deconstruct the very pop culture that creates and worships her, and to explore and make problematic the cliché of the pop icon while flourishing in the role itself. We'll explain in this essay in what Lady Gaga can be assimilated to a modern trickster figure, by discussing her persona in relation to mythological tricksters characteristics. To begin, all standard tricksters appear to be males. First, because they belong to patriarchal mythologies. Second, there might be female tricksters who have been ignored. Finally, it may be that trickster stories articulate some distinctions between men and women, so that even in a matriarchal society this figure is a male. However, it is often said that famous tricksters are not male but androgynous or of "indeterminate sexuality" (1998,p335). For instance, in various myths Loki and