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| -by Sassafras |
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I love Madonna and have always been a fan. I feel like we grew up together. She has been in my music collection since I was ten and I have suck with her through all of the phases: cone bra, thrift store virgin, Marilyn-esque glam, material girl, ghetto cowgirl, geisha, club girl, French Cabaret performer, enlightened yoga diva, a blonde with ambition, eurotrash fetishest and her surprisingly complete transformation into Evita Peron.
I know that music purists or people who have at some point been offended by her don't comprehend this adoration. They have been saying since the beginning of her career that she is a flash in the pan, that she will hang herself with her own ambition, that her music is mediocre, flashy-trashy, pop garbage and her voice is less than that. I agree with them on one level; she is not an "artist" in the strictest sense of the word, and I am not sure that what she creates could be called art (though who is the best judge of that?) regardless of her Grammy awards. I know that she has delusions of artistry, but I don't buy it. She is the Grand Poobah of performers and might be the second most overall competitive person on the planet (I would say #1 is Michael Jordan). But she is without a doubt fascinating to her fans and critics alike. These facts make her compelling. I never doubted, never wavered in my devotion. Though not a rabid fan, having only three CDs out of the 20 or more released, I was always on board to see whatever she was going to do next. Just this August I made it to my first Madonna concert. In the last seat of the last row of the highest section in the arena, I watched the 43-year-old singer, actor, dancer, musician, songwriter give a show of epic proportions. I had caught clips of the show on HBO when it had aired earlier that week, and she had said she and her amazing crew were "limping through the show at this point". It didn't look like limping as she did a series of 12 deep-knee bend jumps in the middle of two straight hours of performing, and twirled around the stage inhabiting four or five separate personas, keeping the audience on its feet screaming for more the whole time. I was blown away. As a woman I can appreciate Madonna on many levels. She has a very firm grasp of what her gender has done. She wields it like a battleaxe or a piece of silk depending on what she needs it to do. She was quoted as saying: "I came to the realization that a strong female is frightening to everybody, because all societies are male-dominated--black societies, poor people, rich people, any racial group; they're all dominated by men. A strong female is going to threaten everybody across the board... I know the majority of Americans think I walk around my house [with] jodhpurs on and a whip...that I eat men for breakfast and send out my limousine driver to pick up bushels of young men and women, and I let everybody else make my business decisions for me. Even really successful, intelligent men are so fucking scared of me and buy into the hype." She is a woman that understands what makes her world tick, but I don't think that this gender-centric point of view explains Madonna's seventeen-year career. She has not stuck around this long with all of us watching to see what she will do next, waiting for the next show, talking about her non-stop, damning her, praising her, because she is a strong and intelligent woman. There are many such women in the entertainment and artistic fields that have not had the impact that Madonna has had on our collective consciousness. The difference is not as easy as saying she pushes the envelope, re-invents herself, shocks us and we are watching like it is a train wreck that you can't look away from. All of that is true, and there has been an undeniable train wreck quality to a few of her personas or phases. This is not a quality unique to Madonna, and it would not be enough to keep us interested. Throughout the seventeen years, I imagine we have watched Madonna grow, learn, and try to figure out who she is. I imagine, also, she is watching us grow just as much. Madonna and I have just one tiny thing in common: yoga. I didn't start taking yoga because Madonna does, though it does let me indulge in a tiny bit of hero worship of Madonna and my wonderful yoga instructor Andrea (and make countless juvenile jokes about the word asana which means "pose"), but was yoga that made me think about Madonna's career. Andrea tells our class to find a place in whatever pose we are in that is interesting. Not a place that is in any way painful, but one that pushes us and would make us go back there and explore again. Thinking about "downward facing dog" as interesting was a new idea for me. Usually I just loathe it. It hurts my fingers (which are unnaturally rigid and inflexible), my legs and feet, and generally makes me very unhappy. Burrowing into the idea of finding something interesting about the pose was trying but rewarding in the end, perhaps like Madonna's career? I'm sure there are many people out there who are not the slightest bit interested in what Madonna is doing or saying or becoming this month. They have more important things to worry about, and bless them for it, but most people I know are, at least somewhat, in the thrall of pop culture. It's Britney Spears/Christina Aguleria cola wars, Gap ads with nattily dressed, attractive music stars crooning old Supertramp songs, and the ubiquitous Harry Potter marketing machine are the background music of our lives. It is this group that worship at the alter of Madonna, without even knowing it most of the time. We tune into her specials and read her interviews. We, with damnation or praise, talk endlessly about her concerts, mental health, cover songs, videos, costumes, movies, stunts, ambition, children, and husbands. Even the most ardent of Madonna haters can probably quote the bible of her career, chapter and verse. We cannot help ourselves. We are interested. She has made her career a model of staying in the public eye by not always shocking or changing or doing what we expect her to do to be unexpected. She has remained interesting and it feels like she has done it as much to keep herself interested as to keep the world interested. Though it may sound like a simple idea, it has yet to be duplicated. We challenge ourselves with the ideas she presents, and accept or reject them but we do think about them. We return to the place she has made for us, through the sheer force of her personality, talent and drive. |
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