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  • Madonna’s Interview for On Purpose with Jay Shetty: A Reminder That She Considers Herself the Queen of Kabbalah Before the Queen of Pop

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    If Madonna has been consistent about one thing since 1996 (though, to outsiders, it’s more like 1998, when Ray of Light came out), it’s her commitment and devotion to Kabbalah. Through all the “reinventions” and various physical “adjustments,” she has continued to incorporate the “teachings” into the majority of her work. Especially her music. And, of course, in her interviews. In her latest, the one billed as not only her “first podcast interview,” but also her “first interview in nine years” (which, of course, doesn’t really track when taking into account all the promotion she did for Madame X six years ago in 2019), she continues to do the same. And yes, one can understand why Madonna being on a podcast is momentous, considering such things are a bit too “low-budget,” so to speak, for her usual tastes. At the same time, one of Madonna’s greatest skills as an entertainer has always been to find a way to disseminate her “highfalutin” ideas while still managing to appeal to the “lowest common denominator” (see: “Vogue”).

    This time around, Madonna is attempting to once again get people on board with Kabbalah, just as she was able to with the majority of celebrities in the early 2000s (e.g., Britney Spears and Demi Moore). Indeed, whereas many who glommed onto the “Kabbalah Centre trend,” complete with the “red bracelets” a.k.a. scarlet thread intended to ward off the evil eye (which, to be fair, many celebrities do have a hard time avoiding), left it behind by the end of the 00s, Madonna never abandoned it, diving in deeper as everyone else seemed to gradually pull away.

    Granted, the 00s saw one of the pinnacles of Madonna’s support for the philosophy cemented in the form of her 2005 documentary, I’m Going to Tell You a Secret, directed by one of her go-tos for music videos (including “Ray of Light”), Jonas Åkerlund. It is in this documentary that a large bulk of what Madonna mentions is also conveyed to Shetty during his On Purpose with Jay Shetty podcast. This includes the notion of how forgiving someone who “fucked you over” is one of the most revolutionary teachings of the Zohar, “a kind of decoding of the Torah or the Old Testament.” In fact, it’s one of the elements of Kabbalah that Madonna most underscores whenever she talks about it, this time around using her recently deceased brother, Christopher Ciccone, as an example of someone who fucked her over (see: his “tell-all” memoir, Life with My Sister Madonna) and who she chose to forgive (though, conveniently, when he was already about to die).

    While other celebrities would settle for being paid by MasterClass to teach something, Madonna has opted to participate in a “pay what you can” operation, via Kabbalah.com, called “The Mystical Studies of the Zohar with Madonna and Eitan Yardeni.” It was the latter who also featured prominently in the abovementioned I’m Going to Tell You a Secret, and shows up once again toward the second half of the podcast. This further cementing the idea that he is Madonna’s proverbial guru.

    During the trailer for the class, it’s only fitting that a deep cut, “Has to Be,” from the Ray of Light album should play as Madonna talks about her first notable experience with “the muse” or “manifestation,” as they’re calling it. Once again trotting out the first time she ever wrote a song—while living in, only too appropriately, an abandoned synagogue—Madonna recalls how, afterward, she kept wondering, “Where did that come from?” Trying to tell viewers that she never had any intention of becoming a singer, and yet, somehow, the music and lyrics for her first song, “Tell the Truth,” just “poured out” of her, so to speak. Though, to tell the truth, they were lyrics partially extrapolated from her journal.

    What’s more, anyone who knows the story of pre-fame Madonna is aware that she did have the ambition to be a singer once she realized it meant she would be front and center, rather than any form of “backup,” as would have been the case if she had continued pursuing the original avenue of being a dancer or, after that, the drummer in a band called The Breakfast Club. A band that she finagled her way into as a result of her relationship with Dan Gilroy, who had started the group with his brother, Ed, a man far less, let’s say, “charmed” by Madonna than Dan. Especially as time wore on and Madonna made it more than fairly apparent she wanted to take over as The Breakfast Club’s lead singer (in the end, she went off and started her own band called Emmy and the Emmys).

    Alas, these are “uglier” details on Madonna’s road to fame that she would prefer to leave out of her “Mystical Studies of the Zohar” class, instead presenting her rise to prominence as more of an example of the divine rather than what Norman Mailer once called an example of her having the “cast-iron balls of the paisans in generations before her.” To that point, Madonna does bring up being Italian (because Lady Gaga isn’t the only umpteenth-generation pop star who can make that claim) in the interview with Shetty, citing it as one of the reasons she always had difficulty remaining calm (in addition to being a Leo). Therefore, yet another one of the reasons why Kabbalah has been so helpful to her in that it’s effectively “stamped out” the inherent choleric nature of being una donna italiana. And yet, what Madonna still can’t stamp out is the Catholicism that has remained far more inherent to her work than Kabbalah. Even now.

    Regardless, Madonna is all about incorporating a mélange of the different things she unearths in her studies as a student of life. So it is that Catholicism and Kabbalah have intertwined for her in many ways. Even in I’m Going to Tell You a Secret, during which Madonna is at her most markedly Kabbalah-centric on record (until the Jay Shetty interview came along), not only “subliminally” incorporating images and chants related to Jewish mysticism, but also offering such pearls of wisdom as, “If you want to read things literally, you read the Old Testament and if you want to understand the hidden meanings of the Torah, you read the Zohar.” Considering she was studying the Zohar at that point in time, in 2004 (when the Re-Invention Tour was in full swing), it is fair to say she could (and is now going to) effectively teach a class on the subject.

    Indeed, her entire purpose in coming on Shetty’s podcast was to reemphasize that she sees her purpose in life as being to share the wisdom she’s gleaned, in addition to her understanding of “the light” (as she keeps calling it, and also did in I’m Going to Tell You a Secret). This also being how she, at times, refers to God. Or what “God” is. During some of the interspersed footage and images in the trailer for her Kabbalah Master Class, the same footage of a POV shot that makes it look as though one is staring at the sky above, shining a bright light (a.k.a. the sun) through the trees is repurposed from I’m Going to Tell You a Secret. Which, again, was Madonna’s original master class on the philosophy. It is also during the documentary that she mentions, long before this podcast, that Kabbalah has changed her for the better, made her an inherently less selfish person. A person who now asks, “What was I thinking before I was thinking?” (and yes, she mentions to Shetty that this is something she still says often in reference to who she was before discovering “the teachings”).

    In I’m Going to Tell You a Secret, even her own father, Silvio “Tony” Ciccone, weighs in on the shift that has been palpable in Madonna ever since she had her first child and “got into” Kabbalah at the same time. Interviewed after going to see her show in Chicago (the closest city to their native Michigan where the tour was stopping) with his wife, Joan (RIP), Tony noted, “What I saw of last night’s performance was a more positive outreaching of her to the public. Her concern for the world, for people—to me, that’s maturity.” The couple is also shown watching Madonna during her performance of “Mother and Father,” during which her Catholicness flares up by way of the screens that showcase Jesus and Mary behind her. Something Tony is only too happy to see, regardless of what it “means” from Madonna’s perspective or whether or not she’s trying to “say” something else with these images. For Tony, Jesus and Mary being displayed without Madonna doing something blasphemous with or to their images—as she might have in the past (and still does when one least expects it)—is all he needs to see.

    He also mentions that even he hasn’t been immune to Madonna trying to spread “her” Kabbalah gospel, remarking that she gave him a book, but that, “To me, there’s nothing in Kabbalah that’s not in scripture… In the end, you know, we all believe in one God. I think most people do.” Ah, would that such a pretty thought were true—otherwise, there might not be half as many wars.

    I’m Going to Tell You a Secret is also the first time Madonna really tried to make her art serve as a “Trojan horse” for Kabbalah, or rather, a “tool” for those watching, commenting at one point (namely, in the segment after Michael Moore is interviewed), “I’ve always thought that my job was to wake people up. But it’s not enough just to wake people up. You’ve got to wake people up and give them a direction. You’ve got to wake people up and give them tools about how to deal with life. You’ve got to wake people up and give them solutions. Otherwise they’re gonna fall back asleep again.”

    Perhaps Madonna has seen people falling asleep again too many times in the past decade since the Orange Creature became the president, hence her seemingly sudden decision to pursue a “project” that never would have been on anyone’s bingo card up until now: teaching Kabbalah master classes (though at least M continues to set herself apart by not being paid by MasterClass itself to teach something like “marketing and self-promotion in pop stardom”).

    In the trailer for said class, there’s all kinds of hilarity ensuing. Including, first and foremost, that Madonna’s boy toy of the moment, Akeem Morris, is randomly sitting there for no apparent reason other than to look pretty while Madonna offers sound bites such as, “It’s, like, everything happens for a reason” (a cliche that Cher Horowitz would surely deem “way existential”) and “I don’t wanna do a residency in Vegas” (this said in the section about “False Gods”). During each divided scene, there are captions that mention the eight lessons that will be covered (should you choose to sign up): “Study the Art of Manifestation,” “Study Freedom,” “Study Reincarnation,” “Study False Gods,” “Study Chasing After What Doesn’t Belong to You” (during which a scene of Madonna revealing her pursuits of a married man [Antonio Banderas?] provides a bit of zest), “Study Desire,” “Study Forgiveness” and “Study Love.” It is during “Study Forgiveness” that, as previously mentioned, Madonna wields her recently deceased brother as fodder for how she’s managed to forgive someone who did her wrong. And surely, Christopher would be as delighted about this as seeing Madonna allow their visit to their mother’s grave be filmed for Truth or Dare.

    In this and a few other regards, it’s not difficult to be cynical about what Madonna is once more attempting: to convince people that Kabbalah is “the way, the truth, the life (or, in this instance, the light)” (if one will pardon the Christian parlance). Having long ago gone from the “Material Girl” to the “Ethereal Girl,” as it has already been said. And while that might remain a hard pill for many to swallow, Madonna is at least trying to use her pop star abilities as a force of good, a force of positive change. Which is more than can be said for, say, Sabrina Carpenter, who’s still emulating the sexually-charged portion of Madonna’s career (and not even with half as much shock value). Give this new crop of pop stars a bit more time, however, and they, too, will be offering pay-what-you-can master classes on spirituality. Just another way in which Madonna has blazed a path for them all.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Madonna Ushered “Yeehaw Culture” Into the Mainstream

    Madonna Ushered “Yeehaw Culture” Into the Mainstream

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    While the term “yeehaw culture” (an oxymoron if ever there was one) has only recently become a “trend” (along with the phrase “yeehaw agenda”), Madonna was embodying it decades ago, with her 2000 album, Music (the vibe of which was presaged by her early 2000 cover of Don McLean’s “American Pie”). In fact, it seemed Madonna intuited George W. Bush’s presidential “win” in November months before (with Music being released on September 18th of that election year). For she had already decided on cowboy hats and other assorted “western regalia” for her first reinvention of the twenty-first century. Or rather, her photographer, Jean-Baptiste Mondino, talked her into it. The result was an instantly iconic, instantly recognizable identity from her many eras (back when people weren’t using the word “era” to describe phases of people’s careers). 

    And arguably the best part about Madonna’s so-called country era was that she didn’t actually try to sing country music at all. Apart from hints of it on “I Deserve It” and “Don’t Tell Me,” the latter co-written by her brother-in-law, Joe Henry. A country musician who had envisioned it as a “torch song” until Madonna decided it was much better to, like, invent the country-dance genre. Something that, of late, Beyoncé seems to think she created. Worse still, so do the legions of listeners obsessing over the “brilliant” “innovation” of Cowboy Carter. An album that, in every way—sonically and aesthetically—owes its debt to Music (just as the visuals from Renaissance do). A record that so astutely managed to anticipate the arrival of the “yeehaw president,” therefore the rise of conservatism yet again (evidently, eight years of a Democrat in the 90s meant the pendulum needed to swing the other way). Except that, in Madonna’s campy hands, those cowboy aesthetics associated with machismo and narrow-mindedness became, well, super gay. Ultra kitsch. As though Madonna was preemptively thumbing her nose at the repression and oppression that was to come with the Bush presidency. As usual, she was being ironic. 

    That much was made crystal clear on her album cover by pairing her “butch” denim jeans not with cowboy boots, but with ruby-red sequined high heels that riffed on Dorothy Gale’s a.k.a. Judy Garland’s famous ruby-red slippers in The Wizard of Oz. Because if anyone supports “friends of Dorothy,” it’s Madonna. And Lawd knows Dubya (and his entire administration) wasn’t going to during his two long terms in office. In this way, too, Madonna predates Beyoncé (and everyone else) in subverting/“perverting” the semiotics of western culture (a.k.a. “yeehaw culture”) in order to make it more accessible to groups (like the gays) who were typically marginalized from “participating” in it (read: being able to freely dress up in the sartorial trappings of a cowboy). One could even argue that Music was influential on spurring (no pun intended) the screen adaptation of Brokeback Mountain, released in 2005. Forever to be known as the “gay cowboy movie.” But who made it safe for cowboys to be gay five years earlier? Madonna. The Mondino-directed video for “Don’t Tell Me” solidified that fact as Madonna “bucked around” with some very fey cowboys as her backup dancers. 

    In fact, the only “pure archetype” of a straight cowboy is the man shown toward the end of the video, who eventually endures the humiliation of being thrown from his horse (meanwhile, Madonna relishes her seamless “ride” on a mechanical bull). After getting up from the ground, it’s obvious his pride has been wounded. And it’s also obvious that Madonna’s underlying intent is to wound the conventional straight male ego with this symbolic image. Taking it down a peg, as it were. 

    In addition to the album artwork and the “Don’t Tell Me” video, Madonna spent the majority of the Music promotion cycle dressed in her cowboy attire (often of a “ghetto fab” nature, like the style displayed in the video for “Music,” directed by another go-to of M’s, ​​Jonas Åkerlund). Whether performing at the Brixton Academy or the MTV EMAs, Madonna was committed to lending a flamboyance to the conventional cowboy look that no one else before her—least of all a pop star—ever did. Here, too, one can make the case that she was even a blueprint for the fusion of pop and country that Taylor Swift would become known for by the time 2008 rolled around. And all without Madonna ever having to prostrate herself to the genre of country at all. In this regard, too, she set a new precedent for solely culling the images of western/country/Americana without feeling the need to back it up with some claim of “deserving” to wield this imagery (e.g., the way Beyoncé and her supporters keep being sure to tout how she’s from Houston and spent her childhood at rodeos). 

    Granted, Madonna has far more working-class roots than most of the people who have dabbled in country of late, with her salt-of-the-earth Midwestern background also being an indication of “country-ness” beyond the South. But needing to insist she was “worthy” of being deemed country was never part of her game plan for Music. Instead, she wanted to play up the idea that artifice is a key aspect of the personas people try on. Even “real” cowboys who, sooner or later, have to take off their costume at the end of the day. The “Don’t Tell Me” video amplifies this concept of western culture and lore being a construct by briefly deceiving the viewer into thinking Madonna is walking on a real deserted road in the heart of the West before Mondino pans back to reveal that it’s nothing more than a screen projecting the image while Madonna walks in front of it. 

    Unlike the proponents of “yeehaw culture” in the present, Madonna never felt obliged to make some grand claim about her “legitimacy” as a “country western star.” The point, instead, was to lightly poke fun at the hyper-masculinity of the “culture” and put her own feminine (/homo) stamp on it. Alas, it seems many people have quickly forgotten her major contribution to the mainstream-ification of cowboy chic. In such a way that she did make it safe for non-white male conservatives to want to partake of it. Though not everyone might be thanking her for making this style extend beyond the backwater roads of the West, Midwest and South. 

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    Genna Rivieccio

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