Born This Way

The music video was released on Monday, February 28, 2011.⁹⁸ The video begins with a brief shot of a unicorn’s silhouette in a steamy alley, inside a pink triangle frame. The triangle transitions to a shot of Lady Gaga sitting in an ornate glass throne amidst a star-filled space. Bernard Herrmann’s prelude to the movie Vertigo plays while Gaga declares, “This is the manifesto of Mother Monster,” and she begins telling the prologue of the video—a story of the creation of an extraterrestrial race which “bears no prejudice, no judgment, but boundless freedom.” Gaga is shown sitting in the throne above a planet, with her legs spread apart, giving birth to a “new race within the race of humanity.” But as she continues, Gaga explains that on the same day the new race was born, evil was also born. As a result of the birth of evil, Gaga is split in half while being pulled between the two opposing forces of good and evil. Her new half gives birth to an assault rifle and begins to fire it. The prologue concludes with Gaga questioning, “How can I protect something so perfect, without evil?”

As the song begins, numerous people are shown on their hands and knees in a motionless, organized pattern in a seemingly endless black space. Gaga appears in a black bra and underwear with shoulder and facial protrusions. She begins walking in an eccentric manner amongst them with raised “paw”, before contently nodding her head and crouching on her hands and knees to join them. When the first verse begins, everyone raises their heads and begins dancing to elaborate choreography. The scenes alternate between Gaga and her dancers and Gaga singing on her throne in space. As the second verse begins, Gaga and model Rick Genest are both shown wearing tuxedos, with her face painted to mirror his full-body zombie tattoos. Alternating clips show Gaga caressing and attempting to dance with Genest while he stays expressionless and motionless for the most part. When the chorus plays for the second time, Gaga sings in a room of mirrors, while her head is displayed in a glass box among several oddly distorted mannequin heads. In the succeeding shots, she is once again shown on her throne giving birth to more members of the new race. Several more choreographed routines are performed by Gaga and her dancers, and when the song ends, they all gather in a circle and embrace in a hug.

In the video’s conclusion, a person’s silhouette dances and struts in an alley, a tribute to Michael Jackson’s “The Way You Make Me Feel” video. The silhouette is revealed to be Gaga, though her face is drastically misconstrued, with sharp horns protruding from her face, glowing eyes, uneven hair, and a distinct Madonna-esque gap between her front teeth.⁹⁹ She sheds a single tear while still looking blissful nonetheless. The pink triangle frame appears again, and inside it, a silhouette of Gaga sitting atop the sparkling unicorn seen at the beginning of the video is shown. A city is seen in the background and a rainbow appears above her and the unicorn. The final shot is a closeup of Gaga in her zombie makeup, chewing bubble gum and blowing a bubble, and the pink triangle zooms away.

— Wikipedia