[ot-caption title=”Lady Gaga performed her latest single at the Oscars in an impassioned performance. (via, Tony Bennett/Wikimedia)”]

The 88^th Oscar Awards premiered on February 28 with a variety of awards and preforming artists, but one artist in particular stole the show. Lady Gaga spectacularly performed her most recent single, “Til It Happens To You.”  The performance was filled with emotion as Gaga captivated her audience in what critics say was one of the best Oscar performances of all time.

Lady Gaga co-wrote the song with Dianne Warren, which addresses the topic of rape on college campuses. This song is very personal to Gaga because when she was just nineteen years old, she was sexually assaulted and raped. After the incident, Gaga was very reluctant to open up and talk about her experience until just recently when she released her single. The lyrics of the song portray the emotions Gaga felt during and after her incident by saying that, “your world burns and crashes.” This line portrays the dark place that Gaga was in after she was raped, but seeing her perform at the Oscars shows how she has overcome her assault and is no longer a victim.

When Gaga released the song, it was accompanied by an equally powerful music video that focuses on three instances of rape on college campuses and follows three different girls getting raped. After the girls were raped, the video shows them cooped up in their dorm rooms unable to cope with the situation. Each of the girls has a message written on her arm about how she is worthless or to blame for the situation. As the video progresses, the girls are able to overcome their rape experience with the help of friends and the messages on their arms turn from the negative phrases of blaming themselves to positive phrases of self-confidence. The last scene of the video is very powerful where the girls are exiting their dorm rooms, hand in hand with their friends symbolizing them overcoming their rape. The girls are not letting their experience define them, and this is Gaga’s way of saying that her experience will not define her. She has overcome it.

With this powerful message written into the lyrics of the song, Gaga was asked to perform at the Oscars and in Gaga fashion, she had a performance to remember. Not only were her vocals amazing, but the visual she brought to the stage was inspiring. Even though her song uses three girls in the music video, the message is not solely about girls, and it focuses on rape at college campuses as a whole. With this in mind, as Gaga gave her emotional performance on the piano, the curtain lifted and fifty rape victims walked forward. The rape victims had messages on their arms similar to the video on how their experience has not defined them. Throughout the song, Gaga was on the verge of tears and when it ended, she stood up, linked arms with the rape victims, and they all raised their arms symbolizing their new found strength; the visual led many of the audience members to tears.

Overall, the song is inspiring, and it spreads awareness about rape on college campuses. About one in four women have survived rape or attempted rape on a college campus. Gaga hopes the message in her song will decrease this number and others  will not have to experience what she and many others have had to go through.

Sources: oneinfourusa.com, slate.com, azlyris.com, huffingtonpost.com, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Gaga#/media/File:Tony_Bennett_%26_Lady_GaGa,_Cheek_to_Cheek_Tour_06_edited.jpg