Lady Gaga has always been an icon for strength, empowerment and general badassery. In Born This Way, she sang about the empowerment of racial minorities and the LGBT community. This time around, she has collaborated with Diane Warren to write a gut-wrenching ballad about the rampant cases of campus rape and the repercussions of such attacks on the survivors.
Appearing in the end credits of Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering ’s documentary The Hunting Ground , Gaga’s music video titled “Til It Happens to You” depicts a series of sexual assaults that occur in a college setting, synonymous with the theme of the movie itself.
Both the documentary and the poignant music video were released in order to raise awareness about sexual violence on campus.
Rape of women, men and trans people, is rampant in college campuses across the world.
The video, quite understandably, begins with the following disclaimer:
The emotional ballad belted out by Gaga is accompanied by a gut-wrenching depiction of young women raped by men from their own social circles, and their struggles to come to terms with the assault. Shame and, eventually, self-isolation envelops each of them, but they find solace in their respective network of friends.
While the depiction of sexual assault and the way the emotional turmoil of the survivors is captured in the video might cause some amount of discomfort, it does infact reflect the reality that is plaguing college campuses. What the documentary, and the music video aim to do is dilute the stigma and soul-crushing shame surrounding cases of sexual assault and campus rape.
Lady Gaga, who has previously spoken about being sexually assaulted at the age of 19, tweeted: