Somehow in the midst of research elsewhere, I stumbled upon this photo of Gia Carangi at the Storm Models website. Immediately, I realized that old photo reminded me of Madonna’s Frozen video. So in addition to plagiarizing the song itself, which I wrote about last year, it seems that the video for 1998’s “Frozen” was also heavily ripped from the stylebook of Gia Carangi.

For those in need of background information, Gia was an 1980s supermodel and the first reported woman to die of AIDS as detailed at the Gia Carangi Project. Angelina Jolie starred in the biopic film of the supermodel’s life, Gia, which first aired on HBO in 1998. Also that year, Madonna released her “Ray of Light” album, which contained the song “Frozen” among other weirdness associated with Madonna’s then newfound interest in a hybrid form of Kaballah mysticism, along with ashtanga yoga and those hand gestures seen in the video (otherwise known as “mudras”). After Googling the most relevant keywords I could think of, none of the search results lead to any indication of a tribute to Gia.

Coincidence? I think not.