Madonna Dolce & Gabbana The One

The last time Madonna was in a commercial of an actually filmed nature, it was 2023 and the “brand” in question was Itaú a.k.a. the largest Brazilian bank. Trying to sell her audience on the “multifacetedness” of a bank, she opens the commercial (filmed in Palais Garnier) by saying, “I’ve always reinvented myself. So that I can keep being myself. It’s not about who I am, it’s about how many I am.” For her latest foray into advertising, Madonna is saying something both similar and totally antithetical. To the latter point, the product in question is Dolce & Gabbana’s fragrance, The One (after all, there are few things that Madonna will shill for, and Italian haute couture labels have always made the list). This phrase meant to connote the romantic notion of there being a “one true love” for every person (or at least a few people). Yet the commercial, directed by Mert Alas (missing his “other half,” Marcus Piggott, for this particular project, though Madonna has tapped the duo for many other things, including her album covers for MDNA and Rebel Heart), aims to illuminate a concept that hardly touts that principle in practice.

While the ad might briefly start out with a few rapid-fire images that promote the idea of “the one” as Madonna laughs with the man embodying that love interest for her (Alberto Guerra), in addition to “canoodling” with him in a darkened room, it soon pivots to the idea that, in fact, there are so many more (lovers, that is) than just “one.” Especially when you’re Madonna and you founded your early image on a belt that said “Boy Toy.” Only Madonna has never been the one to be toyed with (except by Guy Ritchie), instead collecting men in almost the same way she collects art. Using them to glean what she needs and build on her sexual and cerebral arsenal. In this sense, the commercial hardly speaks to what she was saying in the one for Itaú about “reinventing” herself. This, instead, is what one might call “reheating her own nachos,” visually and thematically, as Guerra brings in another, overtly younger man into their, er, fold. And yes, at this point, Madonna is synonymous with dating younger men (ever since the aforementioned Ritchie did a number on her trust/faith in more “age-appropriate” men), with her current “toy-boy” (as the Italians “translate” it) being Akeem Morris (and before him, there was Josh Popper, Andrew Darnell, Ahlamalik Williams, Kevin Sampaio, Aboubakar Soumahoro, Brahim Zaibat and Jesus Luz [the boy toy that kicked off her pattern post-divorce from Ritchie]).

Pairing this well-trodden “romance trend” of hers with another familiar visual from 1990—the video for “Justify My Love”—Madonna engages in her own The Dreamers-esque fantasy throughout the one-minute commercial (minus the incestuous element of said film; after all, there are perhaps some taboos that even Madonna won’t fuck with, leaving that instead to the Italians who are actually from Italy [i.e., Bernardo Bertolucci]). This includes a gratuitous close-up of the younger man’s groin as Madonna looks on like she’s about to pounce while removing one of her black lace gloves (again, familiar territory, as this fashion accessory has been a staple of hers since the early 80s). Meanwhile, all the dude is doing is reading (adding to “oh so sexual and intellectual” The Dreamers vibe of it).

In the next scene, Madonna sits at the head of the dinner table while her “main squeeze” sits to her right and the “interloper” sits to her left. To heighten the “Italianness” of it all (as her rendition of “La Bambola” is also supposed to [but, thanks to her pronunciation, does not]), plates of pasta and red wine are flowing freely. And then, “of course,” there’s the sudden presence of an apple, with the youthful male embodying the Eve trope as he bites from it sensually while watching Madonna and Guerra be affectionate with one another. Indeed, Madonna’s usual brand of “subverting gender cliches” here is that she is very much acting in the “conventional” masc role, treating these two men like a man would treat his concubines. So it is that, in the scene after this, she’s playing the Jack Dawson (Leonardo DiCaprio) role, so to speak, by painting the model like one of her French boys.

Subsequently, a few rapid-fire cuts to her general sexual satisfaction transpire, including being looked at by the younger man as she loves up on Guerra in the bedroom. He soon joins them as another scene of Madonna being blindfolded (it’s all very Body of Evidence) seems to heighten her general aura of ecstasy, as further underscored when she throws her head back with open-mouthed glee.

In fact, by the end of the commercial, it was more than the blindfold that intensified both Madonna and Guerra’s sexual chargedness. It was the presence of the “interloper” they summoned to be a part of their relationship, with Guerra having brought him to Madonna like a gift. In this regard, too, there’s plenty of parallels to The Dreamers, with Matthew (Michael Pitt) being the “extra man” in the relationship that Isabelle (Eva Green) and Théo (Louis Garrel) “needed” to cement their own bond (both of the brother/sister and lovers variety). For, ultimately, the younger man is cast out into the rain (this also being reminiscent of a specific scene in The Dreamers), not let back in again as Madonna and Guerra laugh together anew, with the concluding shot returning to them in the bedroom together as they turn off the light. The younger man served his purpose in arousing them, and now all they want is to be alone with each other, with their respective “the one.”

So it is that Madonna returns to a safer message, and one that George Michael paraded in lipstick written on Kathy Jeung’s thigh and back in the video for 1987’s “I Want Your Sex”: “Explore Monogamy.” More to the point, Madonna is reinforcing some specific lyrics from that song: “Sex is natural, sex is fun/Sex is best when it’s one on one.” And with “the one.” A monogamous missive that Lily Allen, despite having once called Madonna overrated, could definitely get on board with (hear: “Nonmonogamummy”). Because, che sorpresa, Madonna is a more traditional woman than she’s given credit for, thanks in part to the values imparted by her Catholic/Italian-American upbringing.