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Tag: Madonna 90s

  • There Would Be No “Bad Girl” Video Without Diane Keaton

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    Of all Madonna’s many videos, perhaps one of the most standout (while still being simultaneously underrated) for its cinematic qualities is 1993’s “Bad Girl.” And yes, of course, its cinematic nature is due, in part, to David Fincher serving as the director—though Madonna did originally ask Tim Burton to do it. Perhaps because this was fresh off Burton directing Batman Returns, which had just the kind of “dark,” “gritty” aura that Madonna was seeking in order to capture a concept based on something as unflinching as 1977’s Looking for Mr. Goodbar (with a key plot device from Wings of Desire thrown in for good measure).

    In many ways designed to be a cautionary tale against the pratfalls of being a “wayward” woman that dares to sleep with whomever she pleases (and as often as she likes), Looking for Mr. Goodbar was also meant to tap into the stigmas that remain, to this day, lobbed at any woman with the audacity to be so “free.” That is to say, sexually free. And to “punish” her for that freeness, Looking for Mr. Goodbar holds up Theresa Dunn (Diane Keaton) as the perfect example of what “can and will” happen to such a salope. At the time, this messaging resonated immensely with Madonna (even more so than usual), who was being torn limb from limb by the media for her “diabolical” trifecta of sexually-charged releases (no ejaculation pun intended): Sex, Erotica and Body of Evidence. All three projects seemed to prove to the masses that Madonna had not only run out of/overused her material, but that she was crossing an unspoken line of “good taste” that was not meant to be crossed.

    A line crossed in much the same way as Theresa in Looking for Mr. Goodbar, with her story based on the real-life murder of Roseann Quinn. A murder that ultimately compelled Judith Rossner to write a book inspired by it. Released in 1975, it became a bestseller that quickly led to its adaptation into a film by Richard Brooks. In the lead-up to the film’s release, Keaton took an “oath of secrecy,” as it were, about the finer points of the film’s content, commenting to The New York Times, “Richard Brooks, the director wants it that way. I still don’t know why he chose me for the part. He saw some footage of me in Harry and Walter Go to New York, which didn’t exactly get good reviews. Anyway, it’s done now.” And when it was done, oh how it shocked audiences. Particularly the pearl-clutchers. Even if many of those types would have liked to interpret the film as a “morality plea.” Not just that, but a warning to all women of what “free love” a.k.a. sexual pleasure will result in. Of course, for the viewers, like Madonna, that really understood the core of the film’s message, it isn’t saying that at all.

    No, instead Looking for Mr. Goodbar aims to remind people that, for women, true equality isn’t really possible. Is perhaps as much of a fantasy as any far-fetched sexual one. This because men, beasts that they are, can’t seem to tolerate a woman being free in any way, least of all sexually. It drives them insane, to the point of murder. And hearing a woman mock or berate him in the same way that a man freely does to a woman? Fucking forget it. For that’s what apparently set off John Wayne Wilson, the real murderer of Roseann Quinn, whose account of the events leading up to her murder state that when he couldn’t get hard, she insulted him. Something that, to use understatement, clearly set him off. In the film version of events, it plays out mostly the same way, with Gary Cooper White (Tom Berenger)—yes, the nod to John Wayne Wilson is apparent—also failing to “deliver” as they start fooling around in Theresa’s apartment. Except that, in the movie, they make it so that Gary’s sexuality is homo-leaning to add to his sense of “needing” to overcompensate for that “masculine lack” by being hyper-toxic. Ergo, his over-the-top reaction to Theresa telling him it’s fine that he can’t perform. This “condescending” (from his skewed perspective) comment is what sends him on a tirade that includes the rebuke, “Goddamn women. All you gotta do is lay there. Guy’s gotta do all the work.”

    Theresa quickly loses patience for his “hot takes” about women and sex, telling him to leave. Instead, his rage continues to escalate and he proceeds to overpower her, leading her back onto the bed, stripping her of her clothes and choking her with her own bra (this aspect appearing in the “Bad Girl” video by way of “Louise Oriole” [Madonna] being strangled by a pair of her own stockings). All of this is what ends up arousing him enough to get an erection—violence, evidently the go-to aphrodisiac for men of all sexual orientations.

    As he proceeds to rape her, he asks, “This is what you wanted, right bitch?” Because that’s what it is, to the toxic male, for a woman to want hard dick. It’s for her to be a bitch or a slut who deserves to be treated roughly and cruelly because she wants sex in the same way that men have always been able to get it. And, more than women being “allowed” to make not only their own money, but also more money than men (rare as it is), the idea of a woman being “allowed” to have sex like a man is even more appalling to the quintessential toxic male.

    For Madonna, in 1993, there could have been no such message more appropriate to interweave into one of her videos. Because no one on Earth at that moment in time was being as maligned for their sexual freeness and candor than Ms. Ciccone. So while Madonna may have never formed a direct relationship with Keaton—apart from the direct relationship of Warren Beatty’s “special appendage” slipping into each of them at separate times (Keaton in the late 70s and early 80s, and Madonna in the early 90s)—the actress’ work clearly informed one of her best videos. And though, sure, Looking for Mr. Goodbar could have existed without Diane Keaton, it’s plain to see the movie wouldn’t have had the same impact on someone like Madonna without the subtlety and nuance she brought to the part. Able to convey the underlying missive—that women and men are never going to be “equals” so long as violence informs everything that men do and every reaction that they have—in a manner that obviously spoke to Madonna. In short, there would be no “Bad Girl” video without Diane Keaton.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Comparing Madonna’s “Right On Time” to the Nature of Some of Taylor Swift’s Recent Lyrical Offerings

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    At a time when Taylor Swift’s lyrics have never been so glaringly cringe, Madonna, funnily enough, chose to release one of her own “From the Vault” tracks (though, of course, that’s not what she calls them) from 1994’s Bedtime Stories. This in honor of the forthcoming EP celebrating the album’s thirtieth anniversary, Bedtime Stories: The Untold Chapter. And, of “all” the songs (though the word “all” makes it sound as if the album is far more robust than its mere eight tracks) Madonna might have chosen to release from it as a single, she opted for the hyper-mushy “Right On Time.” This being more than likely because the other songs on it have been released/heard before by the die-hard fans in some way or another, including the supposed fellow “rarities” on it: “Freedom,” “Let Down Your Guard” and “Love Won’t Wait.” And what all of these previously unreleased tracks have in common with the ones that actually made the cut for Bedtime Stories is that the overarching motif is one of love, amorousness. Which was very much aligned with the fact that she met Carlos Leon in September of ‘94, a month before the album would come out.

    So, although, logically speaking, Leon might not have been a direct influence on the lyrics of the songs seeing as how Madonna had been working on them prior to meeting him, it was almost as though she “conjured” him with such lyrics as, “Who needs the sun/When the rain’s so full of life?/Who needs the sky?/It’s here in your arms/I want to be buried/You are/My sanctuary.” Quoting Walt Whitman (for she was also doing that long before Lana Del Rey), Madonna speaks an intro to the track from “Leaves of Grass”: “Surely, whoever speaks to me in the right voice, him or her I shall follow.” Evidently, it was Leon who spoke to her in the right voice that September day in Central Park. As the lore goes, he was on his bike and she was running. He had noticed her a few times prior to this day before deciding to approach her. Ah, the glory days of when a person could get cruised, with no apps to make it “easy” (though actually much harder) to meet someone.

    And perhaps in that instant, Madonna really did think to herself, “It seems like I’ve been waiting/All my life for you to rescue me [a blatant nod to her 1990 track of the same name]/And there ain’t no hesitating/This is right/Boy, I was meant to be/With you.” Which does somewhat beg the question of when “Right On Time” was actually written—perhaps not “tacked on” to the album because it was too rushed. Then again, the generic sentiments of the lyrics don’t necessarily mean Leon was the catalyst for them at all. Not like Swift being oh so specific about Travis Kelce’s supposed “redwood” of a wang on The Life of a Showgirl’s “Wood” (arguably the most challenging track to endure). Or just about any other over-the-top-in-its-corniness song that’s aimed at him.

    Even though, in truth, Kelce is ultimately a blurred-out shape to Swift, who can use just about any of the men from her past as a composite for describing “love,” whether in its “positive” state (e.g., “Lover”) or its heart-wrenching, post-breakup one (e.g., “All Too Well”). But with the content (and that is the word to describe it, for every song on the album sounds decidedly “churned out”) on The Life of a Showgirl, Swift is worse off for trying to be “specific in her generalness.” For example, the unfortunate part during “The Fate of Ophelia” during which she sings, “Pledge allegiance to your hands, your team, your vibes.” The only thing “specific” about that might be alluding to, as usual, how Kelce plays football, but it’s certainly enough to amplify the ick factor.

    In (very slight) contrast, Madonna decides to keep her mawkishness more “catch-all” when she sings something like, “With you, you’re like a lucky charm that I just found/You, you’re like a ray of sunshine [so close to ‘ray of light’] on a cloudy/Day, you always make the darkness lighter/You, you’re right on time.” And yes, there’s no denying that if someone saw those lyrics without being aware that Madonna had penned them, they could easily attribute it to Swift. While some M fans might take that as an insult, perhaps it’s actually more of a testament to how underrated the Queen of Pop has been when it comes to writing “romantic” songs. Indeed, for the most part, she’s flown under the radar as a romantic because the majority of love songs by her that have been her biggest hits are more about unrequitedness and/or tragic loss (hear: “Live to Tell,” “Take A Bow” and “The Power of Goodbye”). It’s been very rare for Madonna to ever go totally “all in” on the saccharine front. Unless, of course, one is talking about her early 80s-era work, when she was more willing to play the “slighted ingenue” (case in point, “Burning Up,” “Think of Me” and “Pretender”).

    Yet such a “persona” never really “fit” Madonna to a tee the way that it has for Swift (and served her so well, too). Because Madonna’s message was always one that fundamentally traced back to empowerment. And for most women (who aren’t lying to themselves), a sense of true empowerment usually means being single. Or “going through men” the way that Madonna does now with her rotating crop of boy toys. This in itself being so much different that Swift’s “serial monogamy” style. And then, of course, when one thinks of Madonna’s most well-known hits, none of them are pining and whining anthems in the Swift vein. “Like A Virgin,” “Express Yourself,” “Vogue,” “Ray of Light,” and “Music” are just a few of the non-woe-is-me instances of Madonna’s typical form of chart success.

    And this is, in large part, what made (and makes) Bedtime Stories such a departure from most of the other work in her catalogue. One that is, inarguably, much more varied (both musically and lyrically) than what Swift’s usual themes have to offer. Yet with the release of “Right On Time,” it’s difficult not to feel as though this is one song that’s perhaps better left in “the vault.” For it doesn’t show off Madonna’s standard deviation from what pop stars like Swift tend to come up with when it comes to describing newfound love. In other words, listeners aren’t getting a track that innovatively compares this “tingly feeling,” as it were, to being “like a virgin.” Instead, the lyrics sound as though they were made to complement the possibility of Madonna synergistically promoting a watch brand. Which would also be very Swift-ish in nature.

    But, again, this is where it bears reminding that Madonna was doing “Swift shit” long before it all seemed to become attributed solely to said “Boring Barbie,” with M not only perfecting the art of marketing and PR, but also self-branding when it was still in its infancy for musicians (and celebrities in general). And, of course, commodifying something “underground” and making it mainstream (as Swift is trying to do with this whole showgirl shtick; granted, such a shtick is far less “underground” than vogueing was at the time when Madonna released the signature song paying homage to it).

    Perhaps by unleashing “Right On Time” just after The Life of a Showgirl, Madonna also wants to remind the masses that she was writing these types of mushy, “so in love” lyrics before her as well. Except, unlike Swift, Madonna had the good sense not to release the track until now. As a kind of afterthought. A “postscript” on her varied, typically overlooked range. But even Madonna wouldn’t have the audacity to put out the voice memos that Swift has for certain The Life of a Showgirl variants (oh so many variants) and sell them to an increasingly skeptical fanbase.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Madonna Chooses the Right Time to Release “Right On Time”—Because It Would Have Been a Disservice for Her to Include It on Bedtime Stories in 1994

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    On the same day as announcing that her Bedtime Stories: The Final Chapter EP is actually real, and not just another tease (like, thus far, her much-talked about biopic, in all its various iterations), Madonna opted to casually drop one of the “rarities” from the record (of which there are actually none apart from this), “Right On Time.” A title that, in many ways, is only too appropriate for someone like her, who not only “burst onto the scene” just as the world needed/was ready for the first modern female pop star, but whose entire career has generally been guided by a “right place, right time” kind of luck. 

    “Right On Time,” however, seems to indicate that Madonna was aware it wasn’t the right time at all to release a track like this, awash as it is in the kind of syrupy lyrics that she might have been sooner caught singing in the early and mid-80s (e.g., the unbridled saccharineness of 1984’s “Shoo-Bee-Doo,” during which she sings, “Why don’t you dry your eyes, try and realize?/Love can open any door, and maybe/If you trust in me I can make you see/Shoo-bee-doo-bee-doo, ooh la la, come to me, baby/Shoo-bee-doo-bee-doo, ooh la la, don’t say maybe”). And although her intent with Bedtime Stories was to veer away from the oversexed aura that pulsated from Erotica’s very core, she probably didn’t really want to go this far on the other side of the spectrum. Hence, waiting only until now to show the extent of what she was willing to do in order to win back the favor of John Q. Public (namely, the type of people that could be classified as her own Midwestern brethren). Or rather, prove to the critics and the masses at large that, as she once pointed out, they couldn’t handle dealing with their own sexual fantasies, let alone talking frankly about sex at all. And so, as it was once said on VH1, Madonna, to paraphrase, simply picked up her clothes and put them back on. 

    And she did so, you guessed it, right on time. Because it just so happened that she wanted to embody a certain “softer” look and persona in order to throw her hat into the ring for the part of Eva Perón, writing an eight-page letter to Alan Parker in 1994 to express her ardent interest in portraying the simultaneously loved and hated Argentine political icon. To even more succinctly convey her acting abilities on that specific front, the concept behind the “Take A Bow” video would prove to be extremely instrumental. In it, Madonna goes for a 1940s-styled look (from the top [her hat with face veil] to bottom [her Christian Louboutin—then an unknown designer—heels]) meant to channel her inner Evita. A woman who could be both vulnerable, vixen-y and a little wrathful.

    That woman is nowhere to be found at any point during “Right On Time,” wherein Madonna is more unnecessarily worshipful than “vulnerable.” For example, “This is it, I know there’s so much more/With you, you’re like a dream that came true/Oh you, you’re like a fantasy that came into my life/And every day is so much brighter/You, you’re right on time.” And then, of course, there are the very “Till There Was You”-reminiscent lyrics, “Birds are singing just because they’re next to you/Bells are ringing, maybe you’re my dream come true/This groove keeps swinging, all the little things you do/The joy you’re bringing, maybe I’m in love with you.”

    Needless to say, a song like “Right On Time” does not possess the same subtlety or intelligence as some of the other love songs on the record (of which there are many), including “Inside of Me” (produced by Nellee Hooper), “Sanctuary” (produced by Madonna, Hooper and Dallas Austin) and, of course, “Take A Bow” (produced by Babyface, and who many said should have gotten a full-on “featuring” credit). In truth, it has all the lyrical subtlety of an anvil, which is out of character for the Madonna songwriting style of the post-early to mid-80s. And this is part of why “Right On Time” makes it more glaringly apparent than ever before that Bedtime Stories was M’s willful clawing back into the good graces of the public. This while, at the same time, proving her depth of range in musical styles. Glomming onto the R&B sound at a time when most (white people) remained focused on grunge, Madonna was also then still showcasing her ability to have her finger on the pulse of the next trend (meanwhile, Mariah was still either recording cheesy ballads or secret grunge albums). 

    To achieve that sound, Madonna turned to the likes of Dallas Austin to infuse the record with the, let’s call it, “flavor” she wanted (no doubt in part thanks to the influence of “canoodling” with 2Pac during that period). With the previously unreleased tracks from Bedtime Stories that have come out in the years since, it seems that Austin wasn’t in a musical variation kind of mood when it came to producing for M. At least if the backing track similarities between “Your Honesty” (which was unveiled on 2003’s Remixed & Revisited) and “Right On Time” are anything to go by.

    While Austin might have worked with her on this particular track, an official press release announcing the EP was sure to mention, “Madonna collaborated with Stuart Price to shape this EP, editing and mixing previously unreleased versions into a cohesive new chapter.” Price, a fan favorite producer, also worked with Madonna on Confessions on a Dance Floor, and now, for its “sequel,” slated for a 2026 release. And this is a reassuring piece of news, as one can’t help but get afraid when Madonna, who had once always stated that she hated looking back and only wanted to move forward, is in a “revisiting” mood like never before, having also released Veronica Electronica earlier this year. And, looking back on the record that came before Ray of Light, a track like “Right On Time” makes it abundantly clear that Madonna was still finding the “voice” for the next phase in her career. 

    Bedtime Stories was a through line to the recording of the Evita Soundtrack, the recording of which required Madonna to take some rigorous voice lessons in order to project in a certain way (hear: “Don’t Cry For Me Argentina”). Ergo, the noticeable and permanent shift that happened in the sound of her voice when Ray of Light came out. Marking the then longest period of time—four years—that she went without releasing a studio album (though she’s well surpassed that precedent as of 2025, with her last album, Madame X, being released in 2019). 

    That wait, too, was a matter of perfect and right timing on Madonna’s part, who tapped into the electronic music zeitgeist after already doing so with R&B in ‘94. Releasing an “untold chapter” of Bedtime Stories in honor of its thirtieth anniversary also feels like it could be “right on time” in terms of reminding listeners that songs by pop stars not only used to be musically layered and dense, but that they could actually go on for longer than three minutes. Though, fittingly, Madonna’s “Right On Time” is only two minutes and thirty-seven seconds. Perhaps a testament, once again, to how she has her finger on the pulse, knowing full well that nobody, even “older audiences,” has the attention span for a “long” song anymore. Though she doesn’t seem to quite grasp that no one has the wherewithal for a schmaltzy love song either. 

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Caught Stealing: Darren Aronofsky Might Call It a “Love Letter” to New York, But It’s More Like a Requiem (Not for a Dream)

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    It’s been three years since Darren Aronofsky proceeded to break audiences’ hearts with The Whale (written by Samuel D. Hunter, and based on his 2012 play). In that time, of course, the world has only become a darker place. And so, with that in mind, perhaps there was a reason Aronofsky felt compelled to go “back in time” (that is, to “a simpler time”) via Charlie Huston’s screenplay adaptation of his own novel, Caught Stealing (released in 2004, ergo having a fresher perspective on the 90s after the decade had just ended). For yes, it appears that Aronofsky is actually at his best when directing someone else’s material (in other words, there aren’t many “fans,” per se, of Requiem for a Dream or mother!). Accordingly, Caught Stealing signals a marked tonal shift for Aronofsky.

    For, although the material is still quite, shall we say, heavy at times, Caught Stealing has “probably more jokes in the first ten minutes of this than in my entire body of work,” as Aronofsky told The Guardian. Plus, as a native New Yorker, Aronofsky has a certain kind of nostalgic slant to bring to the distinct period he’s depicting: late 90s on the Lower East Side. And, to immediately indicate this is “B911” (Before 9/11) epoch, a shot of the Twin Towers, in all of its romanticized glory, is proudly displayed at the beginning of the film. This being a seminal downtown view belying the seedy goings-on at a joint like Paul’s Bar (which is actually the Double Down Saloon on Avenue A, near the corner of Houston). The joint where Henry “Hank” Thompson (Austin Butler) makes his way in life as a bartender subjected to such jukebox picks of the day as Smash Mouth’s “Walkin’ on the Sun.” The type of bop (or is it the type of MMMBop, in this case?) that can now put the bar at risk thanks to Rudy Giuliani’s “quality of life” campaign that extended to outlawing dancing in bars without a cabaret license (and, of course, most bars weren’t trying to shell out for something like that). Yes, that’s right, Giuliani “Footloose’d” NYC bars starting in 1997—this being just one of many harbingers of doom that his mayorship heralded. Yet another portent of the unstoppable gentrification that Giuliani further aided in opening the floodgates for.

    To be sure, the late 90s was arguably the last time anyone can remember truly seeing some glimmer of what they call the “old” New York. This being why the fall (to put it mildly) of the Twin Towers in 2001 further demarcates a “before” and “after” period for the city and what it once used to “mean.” Thus, Aronofsky and Huston’s organic wielding of these types of details, like Hank telling customers to stop dancing (lest the bar get shut down and/or fined), lends further insight into this period. And it’s part of what makes Caught Stealing feel authentic to the time. 

    Indeed, this form of Giuliani shade-throwing was used even in the era when his “sweeping changes” (read: implementation of a police state) went into effect. One need look no further than the first season of Sex and the City for proof of that (with Miranda [Cynthia Nixon] being the most prone to insulting Giuliani). In fact, it could be said that the season one “look” (a.k.a. how it actually looked in New York at the time) of SATC served as a kind of “mood board” for cinematographer Matthew Libatique, another New Yorker on the crew who has been with Aronofsky since his 1998 debut, Pi. A film that, per The Guardian, “he says could almost be his parallel-universe first movie, given that it’s set in 1998, around the time he was shooting his actual first film on the same East Side streets” (back when Kim’s Video didn’t have to be added into the set design, because it was still there).

    Caught Stealing, instead, has a much greater sense of “levity,” even amidst all its darkness. That “dark aesthetic” of the city, however, is still there. And further aided by the fact that bartenders (and other assorted “shady” characters) live by night. But, more than anything, it seems that with this dark cinematography, Aronofsky aims to more than just subtly convey how much grittier the city used to be. And, as Caught Stealing makes quite clear, that grittiness was most palatable within the crime and corruption sector. With every “organization” from the Hasids (or Hasidim, if you prefer)—played by none other than Liev Schreiber and Vincent D’Onofrio—to the Russian mob to the cops to Bad Bunny (playing the Russians’ “Puerto Rican associate,” Colorado) thrown into this blender of “antagonistic forces” who all suddenly have it out for Hank after his British, cantankerous punk rocker of a next-door neighbor, Russ (Matt Smith), leaves for London in a hurry. And sticks Hank with his equally surly cat in the process. (On a side note, viewers detecting some major overtones of Quentin Tarantino-meets-Guy Ritchie [the latter being an obvious acolyte of the former] stylings wouldn’t be incorrect in making that comparison.)  

    Needless to say, the greater sense of levity in this particular Aronofsky film is supported almost entirely by the presence of this cat named Bud (played by a Siberian forest cat named Tonic). From the start, Hank makes it known he “prefers dogs for a reason.” Luckily for him, Siberian forest cats are described as having a “dog-like” temperament. But it takes his girlfriend, Yvonne (Zoë Kravitz), encouraging Bud’s stay for Hank to fully get on board with the unwanted task. As for Yvonne, a paramedic (hence, her and Hank’s work schedules being perfectly aligned), it’s obvious from the outset that, even apart from her profession, she has a thing for rescuing people.

    And no one is in more need of being saved from himself than Hank, who, much like Henry “Hank” Chinaski (a.k.a. Charles Bukowski), has an alcohol problem. Albeit one that stems from trying to outrun the demons of his past, which, at the time, seemed to foretell an impossibly bright future. Back then, when he was still in high school, Hank thought he would be a shoo-in to play for his favorite baseball team, the San Francisco Giants (because, as it should go without saying, the title Caught Stealing has a baseball meaning too). This very possibility marveled at as he drunkenly drove through some backwater roads of Stanislaus County while his friend and fellow ball player, Dale (D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai), rode shotgun, talking up this future before Hank swerved the car at the sight of a cow and wrapped the car around a pole, launching Dale through the windshield and killing him instantaneously. 

    Hank’s own fallout from the accident, apart from a guilty conscience, was injuring his knee so badly it was never going to be good enough for the major leagues. And so, what would a California boy running away from his problems and looking to forget about his past do but move to New York?—the antithesis of his home state on the other side of the country. The irony being, of course, that his beloved Giants moved from NYC to San Francisco (not unlike the Dodgers moving from Brooklyn to LA). In any case, Hank runs as far as he can from the scene of the accidental crime (/car crash) without leaving the country entirely—that will come later. In the meantime, he thinks he’s going about his business, living his life as “minimally” (read: with a disaffected “90s slacker chic” aura) as possible, only to have every heavyweight of every crime organization on his ass in the wake of Russ’ departure. 

    With no one else to harass/beat to a pulp for answers, Hank is left holding the bag. Or rather, the key. A key he finds in a decoy piece of shit in Bud’s litterbox (this after dealing with another human’s shit in his own toilet since, again, the Sex and the City [de facto, And Just Like That…] connections to Caught Stealing abound). Considering his discovery occurs after two scary Russians (always the Russians, n’est-ce pas?) land him in the hospital for two days, Hank is unsure what to do with the newfound item. Worse still, while at the hospital, doctors removed his kidney because the Russians fucked him up so bad that it ruptured. Which means that, now, alcohol—the one thing that was getting him through it all, holding everything together and making New York seem like the nonstop party it really isn’t—must be off the menu. Otherwise, it’s at his own health risk to imbibe. And certainly a risk to do so with same intensity he did before. 

    Alas, all that resolve, all those promises to Yvonne (and the cat, for that matter) that he has it in him to quit cold turkey, go out the window when he walks into Paul’s Bar to show his boss, the eponymous Paul (played by a man considered a “New York institution,” Griffin Dunne) the key. Walking into the bar as Madonna’s “Ray of Light” resounds through the space (because it was the song of ’98), it’s apparent that Hank is doomed to go down a rabbit hole. The kind that happens after he experiences the adage, “One drink is too many and a thousand never enough.” From the looks of it, as the night goes on, Hank does seem to have very well close to a thousand, getting up on the pool table to sing along with another prime tune of the day: Meredith Brooks’ “Bitch.” This moment amounting to his version of Kat Stratford (Julia Stiles) in 10 Things I Hate About You drunkenly dancing on the table at Bogey Lowenstein’s (Kyle Cease) party to Notorious B.I.G.’s “Hypnotize.” 

    Saddled with “picking him up” is Yvonne, who quickly loses her patience or sympathy for him when he starts drunkenly ranting about how everything in his life is garbage (by the way, yet another band that gets played on the soundtrack), and that he used to have it all. Everything ahead of him. So much promise, so much potential. The dramatic irony here is that the same can be said of New York, seeing it through the lens of the present as compared with the past. This late 90s past, so evocatively shown in Caught Stealing. 

    Of course, there are literally millions who will swear up and down that the New York of the present remains just as viable, as “vibrant.” More so than ever, they’ll insist. Take, for instance, when Taffy Brodesser-Akner told Vulture, in an article discussing the issues of filming Fleischman Is in Trouble in a manner that would make it look like 2016, “The New York you live in now is the best version of New York. You have to keep out the noise from people like me lest you come to think you missed the whole thing by arriving so late—either by being born or moving here more recently than the person you’re talking to.” But no, she’s wrong…and so are all the others who try to maintain their “positive outlook” (a.k.a. daily application of denial) about “the greatest city in the world.” The New York you live in now is patently not the best version at all. 

    And, perhaps as a testament to how effective a job it does as a “period piece,” Caught Stealing is sure to remind viewers who still cling to, er, live in New York (and even those who never have) that such a statement simply isn’t true. Sometimes, the reality is that it really was better before. This is one of those instances. Even so, it doesn’t stop Regina King (as a cop named Roman), meant to be existing in one of the city’s primes, the 90s, from delivering a beautifully bitter monologue that details how she won’t miss anything about New York other than the black and white cookies once she makes her escape. Because “escape from New York” isn’t just a movie, but a wise person’s motto. Besides (barring that traitor, Joan Didion), Californians like Hank never really commit to New York, eventually turning it into just another base stop on the way home.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Sabrina Carpenter Does Dress Homage Right—By Not Wearing the Original

    Sabrina Carpenter Does Dress Homage Right—By Not Wearing the Original

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    Despite the numerous reports that, for her red carpet appearance at this year’s MTV VMAs, Sabrina Carpenter wore the original Bob Mackie dress famously showcased by Madonna at the 1991 Oscars (where her ensemble was complemented by a white stole and an almost white Michael Jackson), it was actually an identical sample gown from the Mackie archive. Which is just the first step in how to succeed in the art of “paying respect” to an iconic look without offending. Unlike Kim Kardashian, who remains the “gold standard” for how to decimate the integrity of a dress originally worn by someone far more legendary.

    And we’re not just talking about Marilyn Monroe’s scandalous Jean Louis number (made more scandalous by seductively singing “Happy Birthday, Mr. President” to JFK while wearing it), but also the very Marilyn-inspired gown that Madonna paraded in ’91. Because, yes, Kardashian additionally sought to ruin not only said Mackie dress in AHS: Delicate (by going on about a dress that looks nothing like it to her character’s client, Anna Victoria Alcott [Emma Roberts]), but also the song Madonna performed at that Oscars ceremony, “Sooner or Later” (which won the Academy Award that night in the category of Best Original Song). This by repeatedly singing it with Anna as the two look at themselves in the mirror and fantasize about Anna’s eventual big Oscar win.

    As for Marilyn being patently more “icon” than Kim, Madonna, too, is more legendary and influential than Carpenter ever will be. Even if the duo has occasionally been aesthetically compared to one another—with Madonna’s “curtain bangs” look at the LadyLand 2024 event for NYC Pride getting her linked to Carpenter more than the other way around. And yet, the VMAs is hardly the first time that Carpenter has paid tribute (sartorial or otherwise) to the Queen of Pop. For she also stepped out earlier this year (at Vogue World in Paris) in another dress that Madonna wore for the purposes of gracing Glamour’s cover in December of 1990. Specifically, a Michael Kors (that’s right, Madonna “High Fashion” Ciccone once deigned to wear Kors) beaded rhinestone slip dress.

    Indeed, it seems that Carpenter has a certain fondness for M’s early 90s (but pre-Erotica) fashion era. Perhaps because M herself was heavily embodying the look of Marilyn Monroe at that time (again, without fucking up one of the icon’s dresses like the abovementioned Kardashian did). And yes, obviously Carpenter is tapping into both women for her “effortless pastiche” purposes (something that also extended to emulating Britney Spears while she performed a medley at the 2024 VMAs).

    However, Carpenter was also deft in her tribute because for two key reasons: 1) she didn’t try to exactly replicate it with the same jewelry, pearl-studded handbag, fur stole and satin heels and 2) it was sanctioned by none other than the original wearer herself. Even if, like Blake Lively donning Britney’s Versace butterfly dress from 2002, the gown was reportedly acquired through Tab Vintage. According to Carpenter’s stylist, Jared Ellner, “Madonna still has the custom gown Bob Mackie made for her in her archive, but the other sample piece is the [dress] I believe we have.” And, for those wondering how the dress managed to “fit” Carpenter, whose height is notoriously short (“five feet, to be exact”), a closer look at where the gown falls shows it pooling around her ankles, bolstered by extremely high platform heels (in white, of course).

    Though, to be fair, Madonna isn’t much taller, with her average height being cited at around five-foot-three or five-foot-four. Which is precisely why she once said, “I’ve always wanted to be taller. I feel like a shrimp, but that’s the way it goes. I’m five-foot four-and-a-half-inches—that’s actually average. Everything about me is average.” This sentiment, in turn, also prompting her to declare, “My drive in life is from this horrible fear of being mediocre.” To be sure, if Madonna wasn’t a much “bitterer” person than Carpenter, she might have called one of her own albums Short n’ Sweet long before the former Disney star decided to. But no, Madonna’s not really bitter, once quipping during her 1993 The Girlie Show tour, “Life’s too short to be bitter…I’m too short to be bitter!” And besides, how could she be when considering the ongoing, far-reaching influence she still so clearly has on each new generation of pop stars?

    For, yes, despite Carpenter’s inherent Gen Z limitations in terms of having good pop culture taste, she still understands the meaning of Madonna. That much was made apparent when she performed a cover of “Like A Virgin” during several dates on her Emails I Can’t Send Tour. In a June 2024 interview with Rolling Stone, Carpenter would also mention Madonna as an essential lesson for any “Intro to Pop” class she might teach, commenting, “Those were some of the first pop songs I ever heard and they raised me when I was five and helped me find my own version of that. This would be a really long course. I should never teach a course.”

    But, actually, maybe she should. Not only Intro to Pop for the daft Gen Z ilk, but also Intro to How to Properly Pay Tribute in Someone Else’s Iconic Dress. Kardashian really could have used that class before the Met Gala in 2022. Or even before she decided to dress like Madonna at the ’91 Oscars herself for one of her many Halloween costumes in 2017.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Madonna’s Satan Year

    Madonna’s Satan Year

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    It seems fitting that this is the year Madonna turns sixty-six—her “Satan year,” as it were. After all, satanic panic is chic again, what with the Christian vote that Donald Trump is trying to “appeal to” in this election, along with the release of Longlegs, a movie where Nicolas Cage plays a Satan-worshipping serial killer, and Maxxxine, a movie that revives satanic serial killer Richard Ramirez as part of the narrative. Madonna herself has, needless to say, always been rooted in religion. Not just because of her name, but her expectedly Catholic upbringing. Accordingly, Madonna had an early sense of what it was to be terrified by the fire and brimstone rhetoric of the Bible.

    And yet, that didn’t stop her from defiantly going against it. Starting from an early age, Madonna saw that rebellious acts—usually of a sexually provocative nature—were what got her the attention she was so sorely lacking in a household of seven other brothers and sisters, two of which arrived soon after Madonna’s father, Silvio, remarried in the wake of Madonna Sr.’s death in 1963.

    With the influence of Catholicism so deeply ingrained within her, it’s no wonder that those themes of good versus evil crept so frequently into her work. And yes, many would come to view Madonna herself as “satanic.” As she put it during a 1996 interview promoting Evita, “Many people see Eva Perón as either a saint or the incarnation of Satan. That means I can definitely identify with her.”

    Over the years, Madonna would come to be known for doing many “devilish” things. Below are some of her most memorable brushes with being “damnable,” though there are many other instances in between, particularly depending on who you ask.

    ***

    1984, “Like A Virgin” performance at the First Annual MTV VMAs: This was the “devilish” controversy that launched Madonna’s reputation for scandal in the first place. Although she would later state that the whole thing was an accident and she was just trying to make the best of a bad situation after her shoe came off, the result was immortally iconic (even if the excuse sounds like more typical Madonna lore). As she stated in 2015 of that performance and its “shock value” on the public, “Everyone’s showing their butt now, but back then, nobody saw anyone’s butt.” So, for the first of many times, Madonna was left no choice but to light the way with her “heathenism.”  

    1985, Playboy and Penthouse publishing Madonna’s pre-fame nude photos: Staying on-brand for what would become Madonna’s enduring sense of controversy, her next major one after the VMAs was a matter of “vintage” nude photos. Specifically, ones that were taken during her starving artist days in New York. It was Lee Friedlander and Martin H.M. Schreiber who sold one set of photos to Playboy, and Bill Stone who sold another to Penthouse. The expected result in Reagan’s “moral majority” America was outrage and consternation. That is, until Madonna did what no woman before her had tried: not caring. Indeed, just a year earlier, Vanessa Williams was forced to relinquish her Miss America crown (after becoming the first multiracial contestant to win) after her own pre-fame nude photos were sold to Penthouse. But rather than following suit by kowtowing to the moral outrage, Madonna hit back with two words, “So what?” And with that, shaming women was never quite as satisfying to the patriarchy that was quaking in their boots over this “Jezebel.”

    1986, “Papa Don’t Preach” song/“Open Your Heart” video: Even after becoming a married woman (albeit to as much of a wild child [in his own way], Sean Penn), Madonna hardly fell into the role of “staid wife.” In 1986, she continued to evolve her political form of pop stardom by releasing her third album, True Blue. The instant classic of a record featured two singles that would serve as Madonna’s “antichrist” bread and butter: “Papa Don’t Preach” and “Open Your Heart.” With the former, the controversy stemmed more from the lyrics themselves than the accompanying video wherein Danny Aiello played Madonna’s Tony Ciccone-inspired father. With the latter, it was Madonna’s unbridled presentation of androgyny, homosexuality, “pedophilia” and general sexual perversity that had the proverbial censors up in arms (MTV even tried to suggest “edits,” as though they had never met Madonna before).

    Directed by Jean-Baptiste Mondino (who Madonna would also turn to again for some scandal with 1990’s “Justify My Love” video), “Open Your Heart” remains one of M’s most famous career visuals, presenting her as a peep show star in a black bustier with gold tassels. Though the bustier has a conical bra, it was actually designed by Marlene Stewart, not Jean-Paul Gaultier, who would furnish Madonna’s cone bra era during the Blond Ambition Tour. And while some might think that’s what got the then thirteen-year-old boy in the video (played by Felix Howard) all “titillated,” the fact of the matter is that he simply wants to emulate Madonna, mimicking her dance moves and looking longingly at the photo of her outside the venue (topped off by a giant cutout of Tamara de Lempicka’s “Andromeda” painting). Indeed, the most controversial aspect of all about “Open Your Heart” is Madonna very clearly acknowledging that gay men are probably more Single White Female-prone than actual women.

    1989, “Like A Prayer” music video and its timing with the Pepsi commercial: In a move that has continued to endure as one of her most controversial, Madonna’s “Like A Prayer” video was conveniently-timed, in terms of upping the “scandal quotient,” to be released around the exact same time as her Pepsi commercial premiered. Already paid five million dollars for the joy of her presence, Madonna naturally kept the cash after Pepsi decided to pull the plug as a result of her then too blasphemous “Like A Prayer” video, directed by Mary Lambert (who had also previously directed Madonna’s “Borderline,” “Like A Virgin,” “Material Girl” and “La Isla Bonita” videos). The most offending imagery to “Middle America” (a catch-all term for any part of the U.S. beyond San Francisco-New York-Los Angeles)? Madonna getting sexual with a Black saint in between dancing in front of some burning crosses. Oh yeah, and her stigmata hands indicating her “Christ-like” nature. It was all too much for Pepsi to deal with, as the company was threatened with boycotts and general moral outrage. So yes, long before Lil Nas X’s “Montero” video, there was Madonna causing a religious commotion with “Like A Prayer.”

    1990, “Like A Virgin” performance during Blond Ambition Tour: Although some might have thought “Like A Virgin” could never be as risqué as it was during the 1984 VMAs, Madonna challenged herself on that front in 1990. While she could have bypassed the song altogether (already, by that point, rather sick of it) for the Blond Ambition Tour, Madonna chose to up the ante on the sexually charged nature of the song by performing it on a red velvet bed. “Boudoir antics” indeed. As if it weren’t enough to have Luis Camacho and Jose Gutierez making lurid gestures while standing on either side of her in their own special cone bras, Madonna offered the pièce de résistance of the performance by “simulating masturbation” at the very end of the raunchy rendition—just before her voice for the opening of “Like A Prayer” asks, “God?” As though to indicate that perhaps the divine really does exist in the form of orgasm. Police in Toronto didn’t seem to agree, famously threatening to arrest her if she went through with the performance as usual during her dates at the SkyDome. Madonna was undeterred, with her adamance about doing the show as usual being humorously documented in Truth or Dare. In the end, the police didn’t have the cojones (or a viable reason) to arrest the biggest star in the world.

    1990, “Justify My Love” video: Continuing to test the limits of what boundaries she could push in the early 90s, Madonna’s next major scandal arrived thanks to yet another video collaboration with Jean-Baptiste Mondino: “Justify My Love.” In 2013, Madonna would say that it was her favorite video to make, and not without good reason. After all, what could be more fun than renting out the entire top floor of a posh Parisian hotel and being told there are “no rules,” for the cast of characters in the video to do whatever and act however they wanted? Usually, in a sexy manner.

    Although Madonna had toed the line between socially acceptable and too taboo before, “Justify My Love” ended up marking the first time that MTV put a kibosh on her freedom of expression, insisting the video was too racy to be aired. Some would go on to say that Madonna got the video to be banned by design, so that it would cause more controversy, therefore more publicity. Plus, it prompted her to sell it as a video single, after which it became the first short-form video to go multiplatinum in the U.S. After all, people needed to see what was so scandalous about the content, and how else were they going to if MTV wasn’t airing it?

    Madonna even found time to make a political commentary on Nightline about the whole thing, schooling Forrest Sawyer on the hypocrisy of America and how it would rather let children and teenagers watch gratuitous violence than be exposed to anything sexual. Least of all anything “too” sexually taboo (which, at that time, included bisexuality and sadomasochism) or anything where a woman is not being exploited or violated within a sexual scenario.

    1990, “The Beast Within” B-side: As though to drive home the point that she has no problem being associated with “hellfire” and that religion did a number on her thinking as a child, Madonna opted to read select passages from the Book of Revelation as the lyrics for a remixed version of “Justify My Love” called “The Beast Within.” Among her “eternal damnation” selections for the lyrics are, “Do not fear what you are about to suffer/Behold the devil is about to throw you into prison” and “But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the polluted/As for the murderers, fornicators, sorcerers, idolators/And all liars/Their lot shall be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone/And he said to me/He said to me, ‘Do not seal up the words of the prophecy’/For the time is near/Let the evildoers still do evil/And the filthy still be filthy.” According to many people throughout Madonna’s career, she falls into the latter category.

    And yet, she is arguably among the most well-read when it comes to the Bible, telling her musical director, Stuart Price, in 2005’s I’m Going To Tell You A Secret, “There is some poetry in the New Testament.” She also explains, via voiceover, “To me, ‘the beast’ is the modern world that we live in, the material world, the physical world, the world of illusion that we think is real. We live for it, we’re enslaved by it and it will ultimately be our undoing,” then saying aloud to Price, “I like the juxtaposition of telling people they’re all gonna go to hell if they don’t, um, turn away from their wicked behavior” (for “The Beast Within” would serve as the opening song to the Re-Invention Tour, also showing up during The Girlie Show and The Celebration Tour in an interlude format). Again, it’s ironic when taking into account that so many of M’s detractors have felt she’s the one who needs to turn away from her wicked behavior.

    1992-1993, Erotica/Sex/Body of Evidence/The Girlie Show: It was also Forrest Sawyer who said, during the intro to the abovementioned Nightline episode, “It’s become virtually a seasonal affair. The weather changes, and there is a new Madonna controversy.” In 1992, Madonna proved that in spades by unleashing a quartet of projects that, when absorbed together by the public, reinforced, once and for all, her reputation as a “satanic presence” in America. It began with releasing Erotica and Sex back-to-back, with the former, er, coming out on October 20, 1992 (back when albums were still released on Tuesdays), and the latter on October 21, 1992. The two were thusly received as “twin” projects. Viewed as “more of the same” from Madonna, whose only goal, in the public’s mind, was to shock and appall rather than saying something that was actually meaningful. But of course her intent was always to hold up a mirror the U.S. and its false declarations about being the place for freedom of speech and open dialogue. Though at least it never really claimed to be sexually liberated.

    The music of Erotica was quickly lost in the scantily clad shuffle of the Sex book, which sold 500,000 copies in its first week and topped The New York Times Best Seller list for three weeks. As Madonna would later remark of the book, “[It] was sort of the pinnacle of me challenging people and saying, ‘You know what? I’m gonna be sexually provocative and I’m gonna be ironic and I’m gonna prove that I can get everybody’s attention and that everybody’s gonna be interested in it and still be freaked out by it.’” That they were, especially the conservatives of American government that were still enjoying power thanks to the Bush administration (ultimately just a continuation of the Reagan one).

    While others might have “toned it down” in response to the backlash, Madonna kept releasing content of a highly sexual nature, including the Uli Edel-directed Body of Evidence, released on January 15, 1993. Indeed, it was no coincidence that Body of Evidence should be released during such a “dead” month for new movies. But even that didn’t help it win at the box office, with its worldwide gross being $38 million to the $30 million budget it cost to make the movie in the first place. Madonna’s performance was, quelle surprise, the most panned thing about BoE.

    And yet, because you can’t keep a good woman down (no matter how much everyone insists she’s Satan), Madonna kept on truckin’ in 1993, taking her sex act on the road with The Girlie Show. However, in a sign of just how fraught her relationship with the United States was at the time, Madonna opted to only perform tour dates in New York, Philadelphia and Auburn Hills (just outside of Detroit, proving Madonna’s ongoing commitment to her Michigan roots). Though she claimed the general bypassing of the U.S. was because “I am going to the places where I have the most enemies,” there could be no denying that the majority of those “enemies” were in the “Land of the Free.”

    1994, saying “fuck” fourteen times on the Late Show with David Letterman: The Girlie Show’s final date was on December 19, 1993 in Tokyo. This meant that, on March 31, 1994, Madonna didn’t exactly have any new projects to promote when she went on The Tonight Show with Davide Letterman. Other than, of course, her “demonic agenda.” Infecting the minds of Americans with her “filth,” etc. And, in this instance, it was her filthy mouth that did viewers in. Though, to be fair, Madonna is the woman who once said, “I hate polite conversation. I hate it when people stand around and go, ‘Hi, how are you?’ I hate words that don’t have any reason or meaning.” “Fuck,” in Madonna’s mind, is not one of those words, having already told audiences during the Blond Ambition Tour, “Fuck is not a bad word, fuck is a good word. Fuck is the reason I am here…fuck is the reason you are here.” For Letterman and the rest of America that night in 1994, fuck also became the reason they were there.

    In the wake of the “fuck scandal,” Madonna would send Dave a letter in mid-April cheekily saying, “Happy Fucking Birthday Dave! glad you could get so much mileage out of the fucking show. Next time you need some fucking publicity, just give me a fucking call. love the anti-christ M. xx.” Ah, there’s that allusion to being demonic again, with Madonna knowing full well the public’s perception of her, particularly during this period in her career…

    1996, playing Eva Perón in Evita: It was precisely because her image had become a “liability” by the mid-90s that Madonna, some might cynically say, “orchestrated” her next image shift. The one that would soon lead to her being rebranded as the “Ethereal Girl.” It started in 1994, with the release of Bedtime Stories, an R&B-infused record with plenty of slow jams including the beloved final track, “Take A Bow.” While Madonna might have “softened” her image with Bedtime Stories and a follow-up compilation of ballads called Something to Remember in 1995, not everyone was sold on her continuing to “soften” that image through the persona of Eva Perón. Not just because many people (specifically, Argentinians) don’t exactly have “pleasant” thoughts about Perón, but because, as Madonna put it, “Many people see [her] as either a saint or the incarnation of Satan. That means I can definitely identify with her.”

    As such, Madonna had been petitioning director Alan Parker for the role since at least the “Take A Bow” video (helmed by Michael Haussman), which amounted to an audition tape for the part Madonna said she had been dreaming of playing since the late 80s, when she first secured meetings with Robert Stigwood (the original producer of the Broadway musical), Oliver Stone (then signed on to direct the film version) and Andrew Lloyd Webber himself. Alas, Madonna appeared to rub Stone the wrong way, with the director recalling, “At the time she hadn’t done many movies, and she was insisting on script approval. I said, ‘Madonna, you can’t have script approval.’ And she wanted to rewrite Andrew Lloyd Webber! Here she was making these demands, and I said, ‘Look, there’s no point in our meeting anymore; it’s not going to work.’” Needless to say, Madonna had the last laugh. Even though many Argentinians were still less than thrilled about Madonna playing their precious Evita, with one former secretary of Evita’s reportedly saying, “We want Madonna dead or alive. If she does not leave I will kill her.” But Madonna doesn’t “leave,” least of all because she’s been given a death threat.

    2001, “What It Feels Like For A Girl” video: With the advent of the twenty-first century, Madonna decided to try her hand at marriage again. And Guy Ritchie was quick to mold Madonna in his laddish image after the two were married in December of 2000. It took little time for the two to collaborate on M’s video for “What It Feels Like For A Girl” in 2001. Something of an ironic song choice when taking into account the misogynistic nature of Ritchie’s work. To be sure, there’s no denying a fair amount of gay and female fans alike might have felt betrayed by Madonna’s decision to marry someone who so overtly represented everything she didn’t. Including ageism, “light-heartedly” represented in “What It Feels Like For A Girl” as Madonna takes a joy ride with an elderly woman that she picks up from the “Ol Kuntz Guest Home.” While Ritchie might have meant “no harm” with such a phrase, it would become particularly poignant as the ageism lobbed against Madonna continued to augment as the 00s wore on. But that term was hardly what offended MTV enough to, yet again, ban Madonna. This time, for something she was entirely unaccustomed to being banned for: the portrayal of violence and abuse. Of course, it probably would have been totally acceptable if Madonna were a man engaging in these behaviors.

    2003, “American Life” video/“Die Another Day” video: As has been noted repeatedly, the most shocking thing about the “American Life” video was Madonna’s decision, ultimately, to censor it. Although she had originally intended to go through with the “X-rated” version that shows George W. Bush and Saddam Hussein lookalikes at the end, the invasion of Iraq changed her mind. In one of the original versions, however, it shows Madonna throwing a grenade into a fashion show audience, with Bush catching it only to end up using it as a means to light his cigar. In another version (of which there are many), a Saddam lookalike lights the cigar for Bush. All of which is to say that these two men are ultimately in one big boys’ club together. A club that happens to run the world on violence and destruction.

    The theme of torture was on-brand for the early aughts, what with Guantánamo Bay opening in January of 2002. Which also happened to be the year that Madonna released the video for “Die Another Day,” a visual that might have been “controversy-free” were it not for Madonna’s rampant use of Hebrew words and wrapping a tefillin around her arm at the end of the video. The tefillin being, in Orthodox Jewish communities, solely reserved for men—and certainly not designed to be paraded in relation to a pop song. But leave it to Madonna to subvert religious paraphernalia whenever and wherever possible…

    2003, kissing Britney and Christina (but mainly Britney) at the VMAs: For some, the “queerbaiting shtick” of Madonna kissing Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera during the 2003 VMAs hasn’t necessarily stood the test of time. But even if one feels that it was all done solely for “shock value” (rather than a symbolic “passing the baton,” as Madonna suggested at the time), it can’t be denied that it was a bold move to test out on the mainstream during a period when conservatism ruled over America yet again (courtesy of one, George W. Bush and his puppeteer, Dick Cheney). And a lesbianic kiss, in 2003, was just the ticket to momentarily shock the U.S. out of its puritanical coma.

    2004, Re-Invention Tour: Just because Madonna had become “the missus,” it didn’t mean she was prone to “tame” her act, particularly since it became apparent fairly early on in the marriage that Madonna couldn’t (and wouldn’t) stop being an artist just to appease Ritchie’s retro ideals of what a wife “ought to be.” Nor was she wont to tamp down her rampant allusions to Kabbalah and religion in general throughout the tour, making political statements that were often uncomfortable for those concertgoers who foolishly expected her to “shut up and play the hits.” But even during what constituted her first “greatest hits” tour, Madonna would never do that.

    2009, Michael Jackson tribute speech at the VMAs: It’s not often that someone can be controversial for their projection of narcissism, but Madonna managed to achieve that during the 2009 VMAs, when she was tasked with giving a tribute speech to her contemporary, Michael Jackson. Although, in the past, Jackson had often expressed his disdain for Madonna, it didn’t stop her from blithely making comparisons between her and the fellow pop royal, opening the speech with, “Michael Jackson was born in August 1958. so was I. Michael Jackson grew up in the suburbs of the Midwest. So did I. Michael Jackson had eight brothers and sisters. So do I.” Of course, that brief “running off course” from the subject at hand would pale in comparison to her eventual Aretha “tribute” speech…

    2012, The MDNA Tour: Letting it all hang out during her post-divorce-from-Ritchie era, Madonna went balls to the wall with her controversy-courting during The MDNA Tour. From placing a swastika over Marine Le Pen’s head during the “Nobody Knows Me” interlude to toting firearms during “Gang Bang” (even more controversial when she still performed with the guns after the Aurora, Colorado movie theater shooting) to “promoting homosexual propaganda” during her Russian concerts, every step of the way during The MDNA Tour was beset with the old line about Madonna being a devil woman.

    2014-15, calling the Rebel Heart leak “terrorism,” Rebel Heart social media snafus: Rebel Heart, Madonna’s thirteenth studio album, was plagued with difficulties from the start. For, in addition to working with more producers than she ever had before (even during Bedtime Stories), early demos of the songs were illegally hacked and leaked online, forcing Madonna to release six songs way ahead of schedule, in addition to bumping up the album’s release date before she was ready. As a result, the album’s concept was altered in a way that prevented Madonna from more fully representing the duality of the “rebel” side and the “heart” side. So yes, she was in a bit of a fragile state when she likened the hack to “terrorism,” particularly at a time when the Sydney hostage crisis and Peshawar school massacre had just occurred. Madonna would also further ruffle feathers by likening the violation to “rape,” a word that fewer and fewer were comfortable with throwing around lightly. Indeed, one woman who didn’t let use of that word go was Vanessa Grigoriadis, who, in her “Madonna at Sixty” profile, commented, “It didn’t feel right to explain that women these days were trying not to use that word metaphorically.” In response, Madonna clapped back, “[That article] makes me feel raped. And yes I’m allowed to use that analogy having been raped at the age of nineteen.”

    Of course, worse than anything was Madonna’s “promo campaign” during the Rebel Heart rollout. The one that found her using images of Black men that included Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela and Bob Marley with the same black wires wrapped around their face as the ones featured on Madonna’s album cover. Not only did people feel it was in “poor taste” for Madonna to use such freedom fighting icons as a means to promote her music, but they also pointed out the fact that putting Black men in what amounted to chains was really not a good look for a white woman.

    2017, announcing that she “thought an awful lot about blowing up the White House”: This remains one of Madonna’s riskier moves in the past ten years, perhaps underestimating just how much the America she came of age in is no longer one that values or upholds the tenets of so-called free speech at all. To boot, in the time since Madonna rose to stardom, the world’s sense of humor has only become more nonexistent as a result of how literally everyone takes things. Madonna tried to break it down for those offended by saying, “I spoke in metaphor and I shared two ways of looking at things—one was to be hopeful, and one was to feel anger and outrage, which I have personally felt.” Alas, you can’t explain language to people who bastardize it as much as the 1984 government.

    2018, Aretha Franklin tribute speech at the VMAs: Falling prey to a more rambling speech than the one she gave after Michael Jackson’s death, Madonna made matters worse for herself at the 2018 VMAs by showing up in highly appropriative garb traditionally worn by Amazigh women. Having freshly stepped off the plane after her sixtieth birthday party in Morocco, Madonna didn’t seem to remember what planet she had reentered when she proceeded to give a long-winded “early days in New York” story before finally tying it back to Aretha with one sentence at the end of the speech. The Aretha fans were not happy.

    2019, shrimping Maluma in the “Medellín” video: After Madonna took a four-year pause from making another studio album (usually the longest she would ever go, up until now, with five years already passing between 2024 and the release of Madame X), it was the music and mood of Lisbon that inspired her next one. Madame X would become, arguably, Madonna’s most eclectic album to date, with a wide range of sounds, musicians, voices and instrument styles permeating the record. One such example being Maluma’s presence on the album’s lead single, “Medellín.” Maluma ended up being approached about a collaboration at the 2018 VMAs (so, not a total loss for Madonna) and the two quickly struck up a rapport that would last well after finishing their collaboration. Indeed, so “warm” were their feelings toward one another that Madonna even felt obliged to suck Maluma’s toe during their “bed scene” together in the video. After all, this is the woman who famously promoted shrimping on the back cover of her Erotica album.  

    2020, quarantine diaries and hydroxychloroquine post: Among the least sexual of her controversies, there was a period throughout 2020 where Madonna would provide little “snapshots” into her quarantined existence, billing these Instagram videos as her “quarantine diaries.” While some could appreciate the campiness of the content and production, others took offense to Madonna saying things like, “Covid is the great equalizer.” This said from a posh bathtub filled with rose petals.

    To make matters worse, in terms of Madonna coming across as tone deaf and uninformed about Covid, she posted a highly controversial video that promoted the use of hydroxychloroquine as means of curing coronavirus. In other words, she was touting the same remedy as Donald Trump. It definitely wasn’t her finest hour vis-à-vis types of controversy.

    2021, VMAs introduction: Not one to let the next generation forget that she will forever remain the queen of “baring it all” at any age, Madonna showed up to the VMAs in 2021 to give a nod to the fortieth anniversary of the network, telling the audience, “And they said we wouldn’t last. But we’re still here, motherfuckers” before turning around to flash her ass for the camera, 2015 Grammys-style. As usual, Madonna’s exposure of her “illicit” body part got the tongue-wagging reaction she wanted.

    2023, introducing Sam Smith and Kim Petras at the Grammys: Less desirable for Madonna on the tongue-wagging reaction front was her appearance at the 2023 Grammys. Tapped to introduce Sam Smith and Kim Petras performing “Unholy” (which she would also incorporate into the opening of “Like A Prayer” during The Celebration Tour), few were focused on the words Madonna was actually saying as much as they were her face. Of course, it wasn’t the first time comments had been made about her plastic surgery-happy visage, but this backlash over her appearance was among the most merciless to date. So tireless was the commentary about Madonna being “unrecognizable” that it prompted a barrage of think pieces on the subject, including “Madonna’s Face and the Myth of Aging Gracefully.” But if “graceful” means “covering it up” and surrendering to “acting your age,” then, obviously, it’s not for Madonna.

    2024, “daring” to still bare her skin/be sexual during The Celebration Tour: Speaking of not covering it up, while some were likely hoping that Madonna would “stay down” once she was felled by a bacterial infection in the summer of 2023, she got right back up again to parade her body for The Celebration Tour. Unlike the Re-Invention Tour, this was her first all-out, fully admitted greatest hits tour, celebrating a forty-year career that few others, least of all any female pop stars, have rivaled. Continuing to explore her old favorite themes, religion, sexuality and double standards for women, Madonna also incorporated many nostalgic touches into the show, reflecting on her past in a way she never had before, and certainly not during a tour. Of course, for those who might believe that it was a sign of Madonna “slowing down” or “accepting her fate with the reaper,” they have another thing coming. For this “devil woman” isn’t liable to ever stop.

    ***

    Madonna once remarked, “We live in a very puritanical country.” Something she’s seen time and time again in her decade-spanning career. And while it might have seemed that such puritanism was at its peak in the Reagan 80s, it’s no secret that the United States, at its core, has not fundamentally changed with regard to its attitudes about sex and sexually empowered women. As a result, it’s no wonder that Madonna has been branded as “the devil” repeatedly throughout her various “eras.” But at least, by turning sixty-six, she can finally give conservatives “the mark of the beast” to match that accusation.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Mondo Bullshittio #47: Madonna Not Being on the “yes, and?” Remix, Or: Mariah Carey Not Only Brings Nothing to the “yes, and?” Remix, But She Also Sounds Like An AI Version of Herself

    Mondo Bullshittio #47: Madonna Not Being on the “yes, and?” Remix, Or: Mariah Carey Not Only Brings Nothing to the “yes, and?” Remix, But She Also Sounds Like An AI Version of Herself

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    In a series called Mondo Bullshittio, let’s talk about some of the most glaring hypocrisies and faux pas in pop culture…and all that it affects.

    As Mariah Carey has been trending with “the kids” these days (mainly because Miley Cyrus bowed down to her while being presented with the Grammy for Best Pop Solo Performance, even though Carey announced her name as “Mirey” instead of “Miley”), it’s only natural that Ariana Grande should return to collaborating with her (having previously featured on yet another remix in 2020…for Carey’s 2010 song, “Oh Santa!”). Except that, well, it’s not really natural at all for a remix of “yes, and?,” which, if anything, should include contributing vocals from Madonna, the pop star that Grande borrows most heavily from for the single (apart from Paula Abdul…but only for the accompanying music video’s visuals). Because, needless to say, “yes, and?” is extremely influenced by “Vogue.” Which Madonna herself borrowed from the gay Black and Latino community of ballroom dancers in the late 80s. Because, as many are still aware, Madonna was the only mainstream artist at that time willing to showcase, promote and generally associate with gay men during a period when it was anathema to do so thanks to the AIDS pandemic. We all know Mariah damn sure wasn’t doing that shit, especially since she was doing her best at the outset of her career to not be branded as a Black artist, least of all liberally associate in public with gay Black people.

    Accordingly, Mariah, while Blacker than Madonna (obviously), doesn’t really have a place to comfortably assert herself within the spirit of this song. Not just because it’s evident that she’s struggling to find a moment on the remix where her vocals can actually shine (without fully upstaging Grande’s—though upstaging has never seemed to be a problem for Carey), but because she also comes across like an AI-sounding version of herself. Perhaps in a bid not to be compared to Grande, Carey goes a few octaves lower than we’re used to hearing as Grande hits all of her usual high notes. Sure, the two harmonize at the beginning for an effect that could bring all the dolphins to shore, but, as the song commences, Carey gets totally lost in the shuffle of Grande’s dominating voice. 

    While the point of adding Carey into the equation might have been, among other reasons (apart from making certain gay men splooge), to highlight their comparable vocal stylings and talents, the result is, instead, underscoring Grande’s vocal prowess compared to her “mentor’s.” An effect, as many snarky critics would be quick to point out, that wouldn’t have happened with the likes of Madonna contributing to the track. And no, it’s not “just” because she doesn’t have the same vocal range as Carey, but because her voice is different enough from Grande’s to actually complement it. And since the implications of a remix are that a song is actually going to stand apart from its original with either different music or a collaborator that’s noticeable (as was the case on Grande’s “34+35 Remix”), “yes, and?” falls short in many regards. 

    Being that Carey’s genre range has never gone far beyond the limits of “adult contemporary,” pop and R&B (while allowing occasional rap features on her pop songs), she seems totally at sixes and sevens when tasked with blending in seamlessly to the dance-centric rhythms of house music. Her one additional verse contribution also lands flatly with regard to “serving,” and, indeed, even reads like it was generated by AI as well: “I’m so done with sharing/This hypocrisy with you/Baby, you have been rejected/Go back, no more pretending, bye.” It’s almost like a bad imitation, lyrically, of Beyoncé shouting, “Tell him, ‘Boy, bye’” on “Sorry.” 

    The fact that nearly every outlet that’s reviewed the original “yes, and?” has called out the noticeable homage Grande gives to Madonna on this song adds to the overall feeling of how thudding this remix sounds. Because, (yours) truly, if anyone was going to help with the remix, it ought to have been Madonna. Carey could have easily been put on ice (something she’s used to vis-à-vis Christmas storage) for a different remix of another song that might have actually worked better for her vocals. What’s more, while Grande may have already paid the ultimate compliment to Madonna by casting her as God for the “God Is A Woman” video, that Grande selected someone for “yes, and?” who has been so blatant about her contempt for the Queen of Pop in the past (as recently as all the shade thrown in her autobiography, The Meaning of Mariah Carey) is yet another pouring of salt in the wound of not “tapping” M to be involved with this homage to “Vogue” more directly.

    In any case, perhaps Madonna is still too busy with The Celebration Tour/riding high on the success of her feature on The Weeknd’s “Popular” to be concerned with this rather overt slight/misjudgment.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Madonna’s “Take A Bow” Video As Harbinger of Technosexuality and Obsessing Over a Simulacrum of a Person

    Madonna’s “Take A Bow” Video As Harbinger of Technosexuality and Obsessing Over a Simulacrum of a Person

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    By the time Madonna’s Bedtime Stories album came out in 1994, the postmodern era was well into effect. Indeed, one might say Madonna single-handedly created its peak in the 1980s (Don DeLillo merely wrote in its style). Not just with her own career being birthed at the same time as MTV (where she became more known for her visuals than her music), but with her unapologetic commitment to “synergistic efforts” that were previously balked at by most musicians who felt their job simply ought to be making music. Madonna, in contrast, was the first truly “multimedia” icon. Even if that Pepsi commercial only did air twice in the United States. A truly profligate waste of five million dollars, which Madonna pocketed without looking back.

    In fact, “not looking back” was her modus operandi for a long time. And when the 90s arrived, she was determined to change her musical and aesthetic tack with the new decade. That meant a mélange of house and R&B “flavors,” which started to manifest on 1992’s Erotica before Madonna more noticeably softened her tone (e.g., no more talk of teaching us how to fuck) on Bedtime Stories. That softness being most marked on “Take A Bow,” the second single from the record (following “Secret”). Co-produced by Babyface, the track remained at number one on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 for seven weeks, and saturated the culture so much that it was played during the season one finale of Friends. To add to the instant classic nature of the song, Madonna filmed a Michael Haussman-directed video for it in Ronda, Spain. And, being Spain, M naturally thought to incorporate bullfighting. Along with a steamy real-life bullfighter named Emilio Muñoz (Madonna never being shy about parading her enthusiasm for Latin men…or women, for that matter).

    Although the internet became available for public use the year before, in 1993, it was still too “germinal” to consider in mainstream pop culture. That’s why Madonna and most others continued to suck firmly on the TV titty—wielding that as the beacon of modern life more than computers/an “online presence” just yet. Accordingly, in the “Take A Bow” video, Madonna taps into the trend-turned-way-of-life that is obsessing over a simulacrum of a person via television. Even though she might have had a love affair with The Bullfighter in actuality, their botched romance has rendered her into little better than an obsessive ex who scrolls through their erstwhile boyfriend’s social media profiles as we see her watching him on TV and caressing his Screen Face.

    Despite The Bullfighter breaking her heart, she can’t seem to let go of the prototype, as it were, that she fell in love with. The “edition” of him that lured her in the first place. And that’s the trap many fall prey to after a breakup: still romanticizing a relationship by remembering the honeymoon period and wondering where it all went wrong. Why it couldn’t stay as it was in the beginning. But with screens, whether attached to a TV or, now, phones, the simulacrum is able to provide the version of a person that one wants (mainly because the public images and videos that people choose to parade tend to show them at their “best”). Or rather, the version that they want to believe in, for projections can thrive long after being disillusioned in real life by the person in question. So it is that we see Madonna both depressed and aroused in a Ronda hotel room as she touches the screen with her ex on it as lovingly as she would to his actual cheek. Perhaps more lovingly, because he can’t talk back a.k.a. say anything that might break the illusion of his “perfection.”

    The rise of technosexuality in our current landscape was something Madonna foretold as well in this video, slipping under sheets in her lingerie with the TV. Where a pristine version of a person she can project all of her fantasies onto resides. If there is one single image from the twentieth century that embodies the coalescing of (wo)man with machine, it is this. For it is the indelible representation of there no longer being a real distinction between a person and an “apparatus,” with the former having made itself merely an extension of the latter. And since fetishizing the non-real version of people has only ramped up in the twenty-first century, it’s easier than ever to sexualize a simulacrum (see: OnlyFans). This then becomes a fine line between actually wanting to fuck a person versus the very machine they’re being viewed on.

    To that point, Madonna places her crotch near the screen where The Bullfighter goes about his bullfighting pageantry. She wants to fuck him again so badly, that the machine with his image on it becomes an adequate enough substitute. In this fashion, Madonna builds on the so-called sci-fi element of J. G. Ballard’s Crash, which also foretold of the human “fusing” with machinery to the point of seeing it as a viable sexual outlet (this tends to include vibrators, one would posit). To boot, she appears far more satisfied with the simulacrum than the real thing when Haussman finally does cut to a scene of them “consummating” in the flesh toward the end of the video. The tryst is violent and messy—something that would never happen with a screen. Nor would an-all-too-abrupt splooge, as we see The Bullfighter orgasming from Madonna’s perspective beneath him. This shot quickly transitions to him walking away from her as she cries against a wall. Her tangible experience, ruined by his callous, detached approach, was just so upsetting compared to the imagined form of it. For whatever reason (maybe just to feel something), The Bullfighter subsequently walks through a stream of broken glass in response. Pain is pleasure for some people, after all.

    Upon finishing his “glass walk,” the tables are turned on The Bullfighter as he adjusts his head to glance back at the TV where, presently, Madonna’s own image is on it. This reversal infers that it’s his turn, at last, to have no choice but to fetishize the simulacrum—because that was the last time she was ever going to give him any pussy (confirmed by the sequel to this video, “You’ll See”). So he, like her, caresses her Screen Face before the switch is made back to his Screen Face on TV, followed by Haussman panning out to reveal Madonna, once more, leaning against the wall in her room with his bullfighting image still playing on what appears to be a loop. Now, they can both be mere projections that each one can return to whenever they want as a source of pain-pleasure. Because that’s what it is to have access to a simulacrum of a person: constant self-torture thanks to the irresistible option to revisit their onscreen effigy.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Madonna Takes A Bigger Risk on Dredging Up the Sex Book in the Present

    Madonna Takes A Bigger Risk on Dredging Up the Sex Book in the Present

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    While it’s nice to see #JusticeForErotica happening after thirty years, Madonna’s decision to dredge up her accompanying project of the day, Sex, proves, perhaps more than anything else, that she might truly believe herself immune to cancel culture. Presumably because of the “carte blanche” that is imagined to come with being amid the last of the living legends. But as a film like Tár recently proved, it doesn’t matter who you are or what you’ve contributed to society—there’s always an occasion to be cancelled.

    As something of the “companion” to the Erotica album, Sex was originally published in October of 1992 by Madonna’s then-new company, Maverick, in collaboration with Warner Bros. and Callaway. And the images and excerpts pulled from it caused even more of a stir than Madonna getting her drag on in the “Erotica” video as a riding crop-toting dominatrix named Dita (an alter ego inspired by actress Dita Parlo). Although her publisher was concerned about unleashing the content—afraid that they had possibly given Madonna too much “free rein” (no riding crop pun intended)—the coffee table book was an immediate success.

    In mere days, it sold over a million copies worldwide (no small feat considering its cumbersome design) and topped The New York Times Best Seller list for three weeks. It all seemed to prove what Madonna wanted to hold up as a funhouse mirror to conservative America (itself the biggest “undercover” batch of pervs) worked like a charm. She would go on to assert in a 1998 episode of Behind the Music (complete with a talking head segment from Harvey Weinstein), “I was really being explicit about my own sexual fantasies, turning my nose up at the whole idea that, you know, women aren’t allowed to be sexual and erotic and provocative and intelligent and thoughtful at the same time.” Yet, that was a bit of a “smokescreen” for a more authentic underlying motive. As for the “fantasies,” Madonna has appeared to execute one of them throughout most of her real life—this being a strong penchant for younger, non-white men. Which she’s displayed with every boy toy since her divorce from Guy Ritchie, from Jesus Luz to Brahim Zaibat to Timor Steffens to Ahlamalik Williams.

    Within the pages of the Sex book itself, this is where she continues to take the greatest risk in the present in terms of having her words used against her in a more crescendoing way than before. Specifically, such assertions as, “One of the best experiences I ever had was with a teenage boy… He was Puerto Rican.” The specification of his ethnicity adding to the notion that this isn’t really “just” a fantasy. For Madonna was known for prowling the Lower East Side in the 80s to pick up underage Puerto Rican boys with her then go-to cohort, Erica Bell.

    In 1998, when Madonna was still in the process of perfecting her “softer” side in the wake of all that bond-age rage, she positioned the Sex book in the same Behind the Music interview as being less a political statement and more an act of rebellion, noting, “It was an act of rage on my part. In the beginning, everyone agreed that I was sexy, but no one agreed that I had any talent. And that really irritated me. And the Sex book was sort of the pinnacle of me challenging people and saying, ‘You know what? I’m gonna be sexually provocative and I’m gonna be ironic and I’m gonna prove that I can get everybody’s attention and that everybody’s gonna be interested in it and still be freaked out by it.” Yet, hadn’t she already done that many times over by 1992? From “Like A Virgin” to “Like A Prayer” to “Justify My Love,” her visuals had consistently been sexually provocative while incorporating an ironic tone. Which is why the excuse she gives for doing it doesn’t quite track. Complete with her assessment, “And it was sort of like my way of saying, ‘See? The world is hypocritical.” But who among any of us is truly immune to a little hypocrisy? Which Madonna engaged in a lot during the early 90s when she grafted much of her work from other, far less famous people (usually BIPOC and/or queer).

    Enter another reason the book is a sore/risky subject to bring into the light again so flagrantly: the salt in wound it might add to someone like Judith Reagan. An editor at Simon & Schuster in 1991, it was Reagan who approached Madonna with the idea for the book. Madonna likely thought what she had in mind was too “staid” and decided to take the bare bones of the project and go to another publisher: Callaway. The entity that would also go on to publish Madonna during her children’s book phase in the 00s. Reagan would later state in one of the few comprehensive biographies of Madonna (written by J. Randy Taraborrelli), “She had obviously taken my concept, my photos and ideas and used it as a proposal to secure a deal with another publisher. I never heard from her, not a word of gratitude, or an apology, or anything. Frankly, I thought it was in poor taste.” But, as is no secret by now, Madonna has never given much of a fuck about “good” taste when it comes to advancing her career.

    Indeed, by essentially admitting, beneath all the posturing about making a political statement, that she wanted the attention, Madonna played right into her long-standing psychological analysis. The one that dictates when a child loses a parent too early, they’re destined to spend the rest of their lives testing boundaries, seeking approval and wanting to be lavished with an amount of adoration that only fame can vaguely fulfill. You know, interminable void-wise.  

    With the reissuing of Sex in conjunction with Yves Saint Laurent curating an exhibit for it at Art Basel, Madonna, once again, appears to be courting the attention she can’t resist, even at such a dangerous time in the history of U.S. witch-hunting. To be sure, the book does continue to push the envelope, even to this day. Unfortunately, its “reboot” comes at a time when the Gatekeepers That Be would prefer that envelope to remain firm in its place—ironically, even more so than in 1992, at a theoretical height of oppression. However, with only eight hundred copies reprinted at a price of almost three thousand dollars, maybe Madonna is actually playing it safe. Re-releasing Body of Evidence, on the other hand… that would be bold.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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