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While many things unrelated to the remarkable nature of the tour itself have made headlines (including a certain tumble in Seattle) since Madonna kicked off The Celebration Tour in London back in October of ‘23, one of the least likely to be foreseen on the proverbial bingo card was wheelchair-shaming by none other than Madonna herself. Unintended of course. But it nonetheless still made for some cringeworthy content. During which Madonna, upon approaching the audience to get a closer look at who dared not to stand up when she told them to, made the quick apology, “Politically incorrect. Sorry about that.” Ironically, though, Madonna has made her entire career out of being politically incorrect—perhaps only now coming to realize that it no longer works as effectively in the rigid, faux-woke climate of the present.
The foray into needlessly putting a spotlight on an audience member using a wheelchair started “innocently” enough as she shouted to the Los Angeles crowd, “…take this ride with me! What are you doing sitting down over there? I—what are you doing sitting down?” Appearing genuinely affronted by the perceived “lack of enthusiasm” where most performers might have left it alone, Madonna, ever the “pushy broad” she’s known for being, kept pursuing the matter, subsequently taking her mic off the stand so she could walk to the edge of the stage and better berate the person.
Alas, upon closer examination—and as the crowd cheered her on for her beratement (themselves not knowing the whole story either)—she saw the reason why the person “chose” to remain seated, immediately reacting with, “Oh. Okay.” She then added, in something resembling a Valley Girl accent (it was, after all, at one of her L.A. performances), “Politically incorrect. Sorry about that.” She quickly followed that up with the insistence, “I’m glad you’re here.” Which somehow came across as more demoralizing than welcoming, as though calling out the fact that somebody in a wheelchair shouldn’t be able to engage in such “regular person” activities as concert-going. Not “shouldn’t” from, like, a “societally shunned” perspective, but “shouldn’t” from a “oh it must be so hard for you to get by at all” perspective. Something that not only invokes the kind of pity Madonna herself would abhor, but also fails to take into account that California—the milieu where she was performing—is among the most accommodating states for people with a physical disability (with San Francisco and L.A. topping the list of the most wheelchair-friendly cities in the United States). However, considering that Madonna is still of an era when it was acceptable to say “handicapped” and managed to fall into the trap of being the very thing she once accused Lady Gaga of being (“reductive”) by calling Californians at the March 9th show, “You flip-flop, short-wearin’ motherfuckers!,” perhaps her view of the physically disabled is still entrenched in the past. Hence, her surprise at seeing someone of the kind at her show.
Funnily enough, it was also during the March 9th date at the Kia Forum that Madonna mentioned the importance of having an avatar, so to speak, of her 1982 “incarnation” onstage with her so as to remind herself what she stood for, and what she has always stood for. This, in theory, is tolerance and acceptance for everyone—making everyone feel as though they belong and are in a “safe space” so long as they’re with her (whether via her music or in person at a live show). Unfortunately, the exact opposite of that was displayed by Madonna in this brief but mortifying (for all involved) exchange.
And it’s not just people who use a wheelchair that Madonna might end up making feel uncomfortable with such behavior, but also anyone with the “gall” to enjoy a concert without standing up or screaming/singing along to every word throughout the show. Sometimes, even a select few performers admit to despising this, as it prevents their own ability to sing the songs very well over the din of the crowd (something Lorde went viral for a while back, during an instant when she shushed the audience while trying to sing an a capella version of “Writer in the Dark”).
The performer’s argument, though, usually aligns with Madonna’s long-standing spiel about how she feeds off the visible/audible energy of the crowd, hence her contempt for anyone she sees in the audience and instantly clocks as “not having a good time” (these reactions immortalized in Truth or Dare when she tells her manager of the L.A. crowd, “Somebody stuck some big fat man up in the front to give me dirty looks. I swear to God. There was only industry people in the first two rows… They totally bummed me out. They sat there with their arms folded, dirty looks on their faces. I swear to God… It was so distracting and so depressing to me to have two rows of people looking like they weren’t there to have fun”). But what if some people don’t feel that displays of “having a good time” need to mean that you’re screaming or smiling like a goddamn idiot?
Indeed, that’s one of the worst parts (nay, the worst part) about concert-going for introverts and generally shy people—the pressure to conform to how you’re “supposed to” act at a show (some people will even opt to miss out on seeing their favorite musician precisely because of these warranted phobias). Especially when the very performer putting it on is directly pressuring you to do so. Madonna and the “wheelchair debacle” highlights many important conversations about how to amend the concert-going experience in the future for those who don’t fit into the so-called norm of what’s “right,” or “expected” of someone just because the majority acts a certain way at a show.
Interestingly, at the March 5th date, she shaded L.A. once more by remarking, “This is probably too intellectual for a show at the Forum.” But Madonna proved herself to be unwittingly anti-intellectual by making “one size fits all” assumptions about her audience members. This, again, being the very thing her brand has gone against since its inception. Dichotomously, though, Madonna’s music has reached so many people and become so popular over the decades that she herself has become “one size fits all,” the way most juggernaut icons do (e.g., the increasingly problematic yet still pervasive Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson). Perhaps when that happens, it does an icon some good to be rudely awakened by a scenario such as this.
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Genna Rivieccio
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