Excerpted from a letter to Camille Paglia on salon.com:
Let's forget about politics for a minute. What did you think of Madonna's new face at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductions?
Stephen Smith
Sigh. You do put a gal on the spot. Madonna fans of the world (among whom I number myself, despite my sniping) should view her as a very grand architectural monument in slow stages of repair and restoration. As with the bitterly controversial cleaning of the Sistine Chapel ceiling, we will all have our opinions about whether the conservators have gone too far or not far enough. But Madonna's still out there kicking, so she needs as much lamination as she can get. We don't want her retiring like a creaky recluse to her flat, as her role model Marlene Dietrich had to do at the end in Paris. So go for it, Madge, but we won't be surprised if one of these days you smash into a thousand tinkling shards right onstage.
20 comments:
She looked SOOOOO much better before.
...and would probably look much better as time goes on if she had just let it be.
Its totally depressing to me that someone who's built her career on the notion of female empowerment and pushing boundaries proves herself to be just like every vain, aging celebrity. Pathetic!
Agreed 100%, Simo. Feminism at it's best (or worst, rather).
let's also not forget the 'i work out all the time because my husband likes his women cut' comment. that has so many weird connotations i don't even know where to start . . .
open for discussion:
was/is madonna really a feminist? is female empowerment of any kind synonymous with feminism?
thoughts?
Damn! I just spent like 20 minutes typing up a great response to your topic of discussion, Paul, but something happened and it disappeared.
Maybe Madonna was never actually a self-proclaimed feminist (or was she? I don't actually know) but I do think she embodied the potential power of women. She reinvented herself countless times only to show she wouldn't be pigeon holed into any one category of woman, and feminists publicly celebrated that about her and welcomed her into their circle. Now, it's possible she only reinvented herself because she wanted to sell more albums to new audiences, and who can blame her. But in doing so, she showed women that they too can be whatever it is they want to be, and then they can become something else the next year if they fucking feel like it. Whether or not she wanted the title of feminist, she got it AND she used it to her advantage.
Until today, I would have said she was an inspiration to women who wish to age gracefully, but that theory is busted now.
So maybe she's not a feminist, and maybe she doesn't owe anything to the female population, but I still think it sucks because I thought she was cooler than that.
...and yes, I do think that female empowerment is synonymous with feminism. Lake Effectors - please feel free to debate this!
I agree and appreciate everything you say about the breadth and impact of Madonna's long career. The thing that has always troubled me about her (and it's a broader question) is on the sexual side. where does feminine empowerment stop and exploitation start? yes, madonna owns her own sexually and uses it as she sees fit--to express herself (pun intended), to sell records, to sell Target stuff, whatevs. But i wonder if the GirlsGoneWild generation (male and female) loose sight of the difference between being sexual and owning your own sexuality. are we post-feminist? is 'dressing like a whore' empowering, as many say? have you been out on halloween in the last 10 years (slutty nurse! slutty betty rubble! slutty condi rice!)? or is it just another gender pigeon hole where a woman's sexuality is her primary indentifier?
now, i don't suggest that madonna is responsible for any of this, but i wonder if the continued praise of her in this culture is a bit wrong headed.
as bill maher (whom i generally don't like) said, 'someone tell madonna that three decades is the limit for dressing like a whore.'
yes, i know women are sexy/sexual their whole lives and she's still 'working it,' but she's 50 years old and just released a record called 'hard candy' because, in her words, she's 'tough and sweet.' does she diminish herself with this? or is it empowering as long as it SELLS? it's confusing.
and i still think she's sexy.
1. You can't exploit yourself. Is Stephen Hawking "exploiting" his intelligence? Is Barack Obama "exploiting" his charisma?
2. Madonna is no longer sexy. She looks like a cross between Carrot Top and the clown from "It" with Iggy Pop's 1973 body. Groh-dye to the maxxx.
3. The reason she qualifies as a feminist icon is that she was widey credited as the brains behind the operation - arguably the first female music superstar without some creepy dude lurking in the shadows calling the shots. She was the architect of her own invention and countless re-inventions. She doesn't win points for showing her labia in a coffee table book, but she does for the wedding dress with the rubber bracelets. Dig?
I see your point too, Paul. I do think there is a general confusion out there today amongst (mainly) young women who use the pioneering mechanisms of people like Madonna for their own excuse to show a little T & A. But that's not female empowerment. Madonna certainly opened the door for the acceptance of this kind of behavior, but I don't think she did what she did solely to be able to dress like a slut and sell records (unlike Brittany Spears, Christina Aguilera, and countless others). Of course, sex sells and she needed to sell to be successful, but at least she did so in an original and thought-provoking way back in the day. I also think she could sort of start dressing her age but until I saw that hideous picture yesterday, I would have said she looked better than half of 30ish year old female entertainers out there.
of course you can exploit yourself. example: joan rivers and her daughter playing themselves in a TV movie about their own lives and the suicide of the husband/father.
and if you use negative stereotypes about a group you belong to for your own gain, isn't that exploitative? or at least extremely cynical?
and at least christina aguilera can actually sing.
True, but she sings the exact same way all the freaking time.
EKM 's been uncharacteristically quiet during this debate, she must be planning a big event or something
Bingo. My feminist ass is too busy planning centerpieces to chime in on actually interesting matters.
i find EKM's comments calling 'centerpieces' not 'interesting' to be reductive, boorish, and borderline misogynist. oh, it's uninteresting because wedding planning is woman's work? jeez, ella. i know you live in utah but come on . . . it's the 21st century.
it's important as the only Phd. in the group that you way in on this vital issue of Madonna's face lift.
New comment record by the way!
I believe you mean weigh in, dbag.
And the Joan Rivers analogy - not exploitation, just overly simplistic execution. Could have been good, just wasn't. Did Joan Didion exploit her own misery or explore it?
But then again, I didn't see the Joan Rivers thing. Maybe it was AMAZING. Did they find some sort of prehistoric bird to play Joan?
I guess I have been quiet on this front because I think Madonna stopped being a feminist icon (supposing she ever was) a long, long time before she butchered her face to resemble an elderly Olsen twin. I mean, I could be persuaded that way back when “Like a Virgin” came out, she was doing something original by presenting herself as a self-assured woman taking control of, and finding pleasure in, her sexuality. The thing I’ve never understood is why, since then: a) everyone talks about Madonna “re-inventing” herself and b) this is treated as clear evidence of her feminism. So, first off: what re-inventing are we talking about? That she changed her clothing style over the course of 2 decades, wearing a man’s suit here and a bustier there? Or that she hired someone new to play synthesizer on her album? That she acquired a silly quasi-British accent she didn’t have before the age of 30? That she didn’t have kids, and then she did? Seriously, can someone explain this to me? What’s being reinvented and how? Moreover, what’s the answer to that question got to do with whether she’s a feminist or not? Vague, even superficial, change = radical sex politics? Huh? On the point of her status as a feminist figure, I tend to agree that there’s something troublesome – or at the very least, ambivalent – about a brand of contemporary pop feminism that regards any public representation of a female celebrity to be empowering, somehow. As far as I can tell, Madonna still packages herself mainly as a sexual object and just ‘cause she’s the one doing the packaging doesn’t really make it transgressive or new.
Love all the comments--way to kick off a good discussion, Shecky.
I'm totally with Stella on this point: I don't think Mo's done much actual reinventing--having a new hairstyle/mode of dress to go with your new album is not reinvention.
On a separate but related note, I'm starting a small business called "Reductionist Centerpieces"--it will be a wholly-owned subsidiary of Transgressive Packaging, LLC.
Madonna becomes an icon for feminism because she is a monstrously successful business woman, unabashedly outspoken and therefore powerful despite being a woman. The paradox comes with her messages - "I have to be cut for a man to love me", "An aging face and body is bad", "I'm powerful because I'm a sexywhorebabygirl." She is actually the perfect portrait of popular feminism in America right now, whether we like it or not. She is not the ideal, but perhaps she is the truth. Woman can wield great power, speak out and live independently, and because of that a whole generation of GGW believe that sexism is an antiquated idea. BULLSHIT. Exploiting or not exploiting yourself has nothing to do with whether or not you're a feminist. It's all in how you do it. Madonna is not a satisfying feminist role model because she doesn't talk the talk and walk the walk. She's an un-evolved feminist and she's an important reminder of what we must work against.
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