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Tag: Madonna music videos

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

    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.

    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Madonna’s Influence Once Again Makes Itself Known in the Work of Sabrina Carpenter—This Time Via Her 2025 VMA Performance

    Just when you think Sabrina Carpenter might be taking a break from her busy schedule of making Madonna references (whether doing her interpretation of M as Marilyn for Vogue [after already doing her interpretation of M as Marilyn from the 1991 Oscars] or infusing “Like A Virgin” aesthetics into a “Bed Chem” BRIT Awards performance), she goes and does something like her live debut of “Tears” for the MTV VMAs. And while most pop culture connoisseurs were quick to make the connection between Carpenter’s “Tears” performance and the rain-soaked “…Baby One More Time” performance from Britney Spears’ 2001-2002 Dream Within a Dream Tour, the overall Madonna-ness of what was happening onstage couldn’t be denied. Starting, perhaps first and foremost, with the set design taking its inspiration from late 70s NYC.

    This blip was, of course, not only one of the heights of the city’s “creativity bursts,” but also the very era when Madonna herself blew into town to become part of that vibrant creative scene flourishing amidst the urban decay. Because, yes, the mid- and late 70s were also the peak of New York’s financial crisis—hence, the infamous New York Daily News headline, “Ford to City: Drop Dead” when ol’ Gerald refused, initially, to give a bailout to NY when it was on the verge of bankruptcy. A reality that became glaring in its ever-crumbling buildings and infrastructure. Accordingly, the town devolved into a crime-ridden horror show, the stuff of nightmares. To the point where law enforcement actually distributed a now notorious pamphlet at the airport called “Welcome to Fear City,” designed to warn visitors about all the various perils that would meet them should they dare to set foot inside the cesspool.

    Despite all the warnings to people about visiting this modern-day Sodom and Gomorrah, let alone living there, dreamers and “free spirits” (so often “code” intended to refer to people in the LGBQTIA+ community) couldn’t be dissuaded. The arrival of these “brave souls” who chose to set up shop in the city at a time when it wasn’t just affordable, but actually dirt cheap resulted not only in a hotbed of experimental creativity, but also a hotbed of sexuality—oozing out of everyone’s…apertures. Even after the AIDS epidemic cast a dark pall over everything as soon as the 80s arrived. Almost like a swift punishment for all those unmitigated, orgiastic good times in the 70s.

    The kind of times that Madonna conveys so well in her work—revisiting it often in her visuals and sounds. Case in point, her performance of “Deeper and Deeper” during 1993’s The Girlie Show. Awash in sweltering, rhythmic writhing, Madonna and her dancers, all outfitted in 70s, nightclub-ready attire, turn the stage into one giant, festering pore of sexuality (a look and theme also revisited in the video for and live performances of 2005’s “Hung Up”—another very 70s number, and not just because it samples from ABBA). Carpenter attempted a tamer version of that for “Tears” during the VMAs (but then, the entire ceremony was decidedly tame this year, with Carpenter’s appearance standing out as the most “salacious” of all—and mainly because it was the queerest). Because, although there might have been plenty of flamboyant gays to go around, it didn’t mean things weren’t going to remain “family friendly” (since so many pearl-clutchers make the correlation that to be gay is to be “unfriendly” toward the proverbial family). After all, the show was being broadcast for the first time ever on CBS. The type of network that generally reaches an older demographic than MTV was once accustomed to.

    That said, many viewers likely had no idea what Sabrina and co. were talking about with all their mention of “dolls” on the protest signage being paraded around the stage. A stage that looked almost as fraught and filled with queerness as the segment in The Girlie Show that begins with “Express Yourself” and segues into “Deeper and Deeper” (itself a 70s-themed video). Emphasis, of course, on “almost” for Carpenter and her dancers’ performance. For while it might be intentionally visually chaotic, there is nothing sexually fraught about it, with Carpenter using words (through the abovementioned protest signs) instead of physicality to get her pro-LGBTQIA+ message across.

    Madonna, in contrast, was never afraid to get visceral—“uncomfortably” sexual—when it came to showcasing queer love. This done at a time when it was considered especially “disgusting” by conservatives (and “liberals” alike) as a result of AIDS. But rather than recoiling from the idea of showing physical touch among her queer dancers, Madonna leaned into it all the more, in both the Blond Ambition Tour and The Girlie Show, which both toured the world at a time when the AIDS scare was still at a peak. For, as she puts it during her The Girlie Show rendition of “Deeper and Deeper,” “Sometimes you gotta tell the world the way you feel. Even when they don’t wanna hear about it.”

    While Carpenter is “noble” for addressing a topic that “the world” doesn’t want to hear about and for being the only musical act during the 2025 VMAs to say something even remotely political (shit, even Lady Gaga couldn’t be counted on for it this time around), she still didn’t go as “all the way” as Madonna surely would have. And it isn’t just the 70s stylings of this segment in The Girlie Show that draws easy comparisons to Carpenter’s “Tears” performance. There’s also her 2019 “God Control” video, during which she, once again, returns to the 70s for a night out at the disco where gun violence breaks out within the erstwhile “safe space” for queer people.

    The song, like “Tears,” also has 70s-infused musical backing, produced in the spirit of disco. Yet another reason why the “Deeper and Deeper” connection was made to “God Control” (with both videos sharing a club setting, albeit the latter with a far more macabre tone). And as Madonna dances all devil-may-care in the moments before an armed white male enters to shoot up the place, the contrast between what the viewer sees and the chirpy sound of her voice singing, “This is your wake-up call/We don’t have to fall/A new democracy/God and pornography” is of a breed of irony and sardonic humor that Carpenter has yet to master.

    In her own 70s-infused way, Carpenter is also saying “this is your wake-up call” to those who don’t understand that the loss of trans rights is the loss of human rights. And that when one sect of humanity is degraded in this way, no one else is safe from such harm either. She just happened to present it in a less “in your face” manner than Madonna would have, opting to incorporate a random Britney reference as well. One that seemed to be done mostly for the sake of looking “hot” while being political. Something Madonna has also frequently done without being quite so random about her allusions. In any case, one modern hetero blonde pop star advocate for the LGBTQIA+ community is better than none.

    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Madonna’s Satan Year

    Madonna’s Satan Year

    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.

    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Madonna’s “American Pie” Video Is the Closest She’s Come to Identifying With/Admitting to Her “Average Americanness”

    Madonna’s “American Pie” Video Is the Closest She’s Come to Identifying With/Admitting to Her “Average Americanness”

    The Madonna we know today is one associated with glamor (and yes, that now extends to particularly expensive “beauty treatments”), with being “cosmopolitan.” Rarely, if ever, does she try to do much to actively remind people that she’s from the Midwest. Instead, she frequently cites New York as her “true home” because that’s the place she was really “born” as her real self (it’s more than slightly cheesy, yet she’s not the only “New Yorker” to tout this “chestnut” repeatedly). She’s also prone to straying as far as possible from anything “red state”-related.

    And yet, in 2000, Madonna was perhaps feeling motivated to “unite” the nation during an election year that had already started to stoke fears among liberals of a Republican win. After all, Al Gore still had the (cum) stain of Bill Clinton on him by default, and many voters didn’t see him as being charismatic enough for the presidency (little did they know, charisma would eventually be the last requirement on people’s minds, instead just hoping for their presidential hopefuls to stand upright and/or not spew the most toxic, baseless rhetoric). To boot, the election was still somewhat far-off in the minds of the American people when “American Pie” was released on February 8th. They had no idea that, almost exactly nine months later, on November 7th, the U.S. would be sent into its first political tailspin of the century as George W. Bush refused to cede the election when the networks started to call it in favor of Gore. Instead, he leaned on Florida, saying it wasn’t over yet. Hence, “recount” would become the word of the year so late into it. But yes, before all that, it was easy to wax poetic about America through a cover of Don McLean’s classic.

    To lend an even more personal touch to her William Orbit-ified version of the track, Madonna’s video was intended as a “slice of life” homage to “real” Americans. In other words, the bottom of the barrel people so often referred to derisively as “working class.” Even though Madonna’s own father, Silvio “Tony” Ciccone, was more on the middle-class side of things (he worked as an optical engineer for Chrysler and General Dynamics), it hasn’t stopped her from frequently identifying with the more “blue collar” ilk, at least for the purposes of her “working really hard to make her dream come true” lore. And she did work really hard (yeah, sucking cock!, the misogynists might say as a means to denigrate that hard work). While Tony was the height of the American dream when Madonna was a child and teenager, she then came along to top him (no sexual Electra complex reference intended) on that front. All because of the intense work ethic he instilled within her. A work ethic that one tends to see more in working-class people than middle- and upper-class ones, if only because they’re constantly saddled with more physical, grueling grunt work.

    So it is that “American Pie” pays tribute to this sect of the American population: cab drivers, construction workers, a mother with her daughters, cops, gun sellers… Yes, those last two groups sound decidedly un-Madonna. And they are. Which is part of what makes this video such a unique and rare part of her oeuvre. For, along with this walk of life, she intermingles her usual bread and butter: the gays. It seems to be a move, on her part, designed to show that America is filled with so many different kinds of people who can coexist. That is, once upon a time…

    Even though, looking back, the U.S. doesn’t exactly have the best track record when it comes to showcasing “harmony.” And whenever there was, it was usually belied by the numerous “separate but equal” policies of the nation. For example, the treatment of the LGBTQIA+ community (long before it had that many-lettered moniker). In 2000, gay marriage still wasn’t legal. It wouldn’t be until 2003, and that was only in Massachusetts. As a result, Madonna including so many gay couples kissing in this particular video (one duo even does it front of a church, gasp!) intermixed with “red state types” (that might have later been disgusted to find that they were featured in the same “narrative”) was a big deal. Big enough for her to cop to her Midwestern roots for just four minutes and thirty-five seconds’ worth of time (hell, she even decided to dress “average” in a Charlotte Russe-looking tank top and jeans—though the label on the latter is Cosmic Wonder).

    What’s more, some of the lyrics, despite being written by McLean, are actually quite tailored to Madonna’s own story, including the lines, “I knew that if I had my chance/I could make those people dance/And maybe they’d be happy for a while.” This being the crux of what has driven her to make music for decades (well, that and an insatiable need to be loved and adored). There’s also the mention of how, “I was a lonely teenage broncin’ buck” (a play on “bucking bronco,” of course). A description that perfectly suits the teenage Madonna, who felt constantly out of place and was always rebelling in insidious ways (like wearing flesh-colored tights during a performance at school to make everyone think she was pantyless). Then there are the many allusions to religion that also speak to Madonna’s Catholic upbringing, such as, “And do you have faith in God above/If the Bible tells you so?” and “The three men I admire the most, the Father, Son and the Holy Ghost…”

    But more than any lyric, perhaps the most fitting for how Madonna has lived her life is: “Now do you believe in rock and roll?/And can music save your mortal soul?” Even in the darkest hours of the past forty-plus years during which she’s been in the spotlight, Madonna has always seemed to believe that it can. Especially in 2000, when life seemed fairly sinister and uncertain (though no one had any clue that, in hindsight, 2000 would feel like a cakewalk compared to 2024).

    And so, perhaps in the name of “unity”—and setting it as the tone for the new century—Madonna conceded, for just one day out of life, to admit that her past was rooted in the lusterless nature of being an “average American.” Though Madonna never did look quite like any of this lot (maybe that’s why she still keeps herself separate from them via a splitscreen). Probably thanks to her strong Italian and French ancestry. But then, what’s more averagely American than being descended from immigrants?

    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Madonna Ushered “Yeehaw Culture” Into the Mainstream

    Madonna Ushered “Yeehaw Culture” Into the Mainstream

    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. 

    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Lolahol Finally Surrenders Full-Stop to Emulating Her Mother, “Spelling” Us With An Updated Take on the “Frozen” Video

    Lolahol Finally Surrenders Full-Stop to Emulating Her Mother, “Spelling” Us With An Updated Take on the “Frozen” Video

    The first introduction to Lourdes Leon a.k.a. Lolahol as a singer was 2022’s “Lock&Key.” More to the point, that introduction revealed Lolahol’s unexpected preference for one, Lady Gaga (via incorporating a very specific Gaga quote into the lyrics). The other pop star often cited as being rebellious, unafraid to push boundaries and a constant LGBTQIA+ ally. Needless to say, Madonna was all of these things decades before Lady Gaga came ‘round to continue the “trend.” And yes, it could be said that Madonna did make all of those things “trendy,” during a time when everything she stood for was branded as terminally taboo or, quite simply, uncool. Even her children took a while to come around to her music, with Madonna citing on more than one occasion that they didn’t really like it. Or would simply tell her when a song she was making rubbed them the wrong way. 

    However, one song that only the most heartless of fools would try to deride as anything less than extraordinary is Madonna’s 1998 track, “Frozen.” And, boldly enough, it served as the first single from Ray of Light. For not every pop star would be so willing to set the tone for a record with something as “moody” (a.k.a. not Top 40 radio-friendly) as this. But then, Madonna had never done anything by the book before that point, either. In choosing to “update” this video for her new song, “Spelling” (a witchy reference, not a language arts one), Lourdes Leon invites further automatic comparisons to her mother (so much for wanting to stand apart as one’s own artist). And, in that spirit, the “Frozen” video, directed by Chris Cunningham, must be mentioned before even bothering to unpack the visuals of “Spelling.” 

    Opening on the cracked ground of the Mojave Desert (“Can’t take the heat in a desert dream,” Lolahol sings at one point), “Frozen” is quick to show us a witchy, Elvira-like Madonna suspended in mid-air as she tells us, “You only see what your eyes want to see/How can life be what you want it to be?/You’re frozen.” These lyrics, of course, are leaps and bounds above Lolahol’s patchier offerings on “Spelling,” including, “You stay in the water/Remind you/Followin’ in black, whatever/Cyclical, bicycle, oh, yeah.” In a way, it comes off trying to sound like a “classier” version of Nicki Minaj rapping, “Wrist icicle, ride dick bicycle/Come true yo, get you this type of blow/If you wanna menage I got a tricycle.” Apart from that, it’s obviously just Lolahol grasping at straws for a word that pairs well with “cyclical.” And yes, that’s what “Spelling” is, one supposes. Proof that, as Madonna says on “Extreme Occident,” “Life is a circle.” 

    That seems to be why, just three days before her twenty-seventh birthday (with “Spelling” released on October 11th), Leon says goodbye to twenty-six (the age Madonna was when she rose to meteoric fame with “Like A Virgin,” complete with that iconic MTV VMAs performance) by saying hello to her inner Madonna. Something she appeared to have been fighting for a while in her bid to become “her own person.” Yet perhaps the wisest thing she could have done is realize that trying to run away from a juggernaut like Madonna is impossible. Especially when she’s your mother. Plus, Leon is no stranger to “Frozen,” aware of its every sonic nuances after making a dramatic choreographed video to accompany Madonna’s live performance of the song during the Madame X Tour. Shot in black and white, the video’s presentation makes it so that Lourdes is larger than life behind Madonna, holding her literally in the palms of her hands at the beginning. Superimposed over one another throughout, this moment on the tour was consistently singled out as a highlight by many critics. And when Madonna sings, “Give yourself to me,” it has an eerie effect, as though she’s asking Lourdes to be “hers” for all of eternity. 

    In effect, that’s what a child is (read: property) to a parent in general. Unless, like Madonna, you suffer the blow of losing your mother too soon. As many know by now, Madonna was just five when her mother, Madonna Sr., died of breast cancer, creating an emotional void in the singer’s life that she would seek to fulfill until the birth of Lourdes in 1996. And yes, her name does refer to being something of a miracle to Madonna, who perhaps never thought she would find a love so fulfilling. Enter the cheesy headline that some magazine (in this case, Vanity Fair) was bound to use right after Lourdes’ birth: “Madonna and Child.” This was a far cry from a 1991 Vanity Fair cover story on Madonna called “The Misfit.” In it, Madonna mentions a palm reader who came to a New Year’s Eve party at her house on that last day of 1990. According to M, “She looked at my palm and she said I’m never going to have any children.” So much for being prophetic. And yet, knowing Madonna, she probably set out to have as many children as possible after hearing a fortune teller insist that she wouldn’t. For Madonna’s entire drive in life has been to prove people wrong when they tell her she “can’t” do something. 

    This can be attributed to her oppressive patriarch, Tony Ciccone, who gave his eldest daughter a strict Catholic upbringing. One that, without the gentleness of a mother, likely seemed particularly stifling. As Madonna said, “When you grow up without a mother… you are on a mad search for love. Unconditional love.” Madonna’s comments on mothering (long before the overused “mother is mothering” phrase came along) also stood out in Truth or Dare, during which she discusses her maternal feelings toward her dancers, noting, “I think I have unconsciously chosen people that are emotionally crippled in some way. Or who need mothering in some way. Because I think it comes real natural to me. It fulfills a need in me to be mothered.” That more than slight tinge of non-altrusim in Madonna’s motives for wanting to “nurture” would come across in later interviews after she had Lourdes. 

    For instance, in a 2003 interview with Megan Mullally called “Madonna Speaks,” she once again mentions how the birth of her daughter was the beginning of her losing her sense of narcissism (timed to coincide with her study of Kabbalah). She adds antithetically to that declaration, “My children help me see myself… I see my daughter being, you know, reacting to things and I get kind of anxiety-ridden watching her do it and I go, ‘My god, that’s me.’ It’s kind of like a mirror thing that happens… ‘cause your children really are mirrors of you, they’re sparks of your soul. And when you learn to embrace your children for all of their shortcomings, in a way, you’re doing that to yourself.”

    Phrased like that, Madonna comes across as one of those parents who definitely relishes having children for the benefit of making a “carbon copy” of oneself. This only adding to Madonna’s legacy—one that assures she will live on long after she’s left this Earth. Not just through her work, but through her children. After all, Madonna has called them her greatest work of art (more property allusions), not any of the music or other media she’s put out into the world. And Lolahol’s tribute to Madonna and “Frozen” builds on that secured legacy. 

    In the post that accompanied Lolahol’s announcement of the video’s release, she wrote, “This piece is very special. It’s an homage to my mother’s timeless piece of art ‘Frozen’ [obviously]. That piece has come up countless times in my life, connecting the two of us. I would be nothing without the woman who brought me into the world. I revere her, and hope that this translates.” This feels like a far cry from previous, less than reverent statements Lourdes has made about Mama Madonna. But maybe with age comes wisdom. Or a “softening.” That’s what happened to Madonna much later in life, circa forty, with Ray of Light marking her complete transition into “Ethereal Girl” in lieu of “Material Girl.”

    Claire Farin, the director of “Spelling,” seeks to bring the same hard edge to that softening that reveals itself in the “Frozen” video (swapping out the desert in favor of a quintessentially creepy woods setting). Which is why her interpretation of the latter echoes something more tantamount to Chilling Adventures of Sabrina meets the witchy scenes in Lana Del Rey’s “Chemtrails Over the Country Club” video. After all, this is still a Gen Z project. Or “piece,” as Leon kept repeating. Such deliberate use of that word also calls attention to her “weird art kid” status. That same phrase being used by a Madonna fan after seeing the Madame X Tour. Madonna then promptly reposted the comment in her story. And yes, of late, Madonna is being re-evaluated as someone who has always been more “pure artist” than pop star. At least, this is the approach Mary Gabriel takes in the latest biography about the star, called Madonna: A Rebel Life. And maybe Leon finally saw some of that rebellion as being worthy of deference. 

    Even if her single cover smacks more of Evanescence’s Fallen than it does Madonna’s “Frozen.” The point is, Leon is trying. To “do homage,” that is. She even nods more subtly to another video of Madonna’s, “Die Another Day,” by wrapping black bands around her arms, tefillin-style. Another American Life-era track that seems to have an influence is “I’m So Stupid,” with Lolahol singing, “Everybody’s looking for something” in the same tone as Madonna when she declares, “Everybody’s lookin’ for somethin’/Everybody’s stupid, stupid.” Lolahol instead accuses herself of stupidity by remarking, “I was stupid and it doesn’t work like that.” Whether she meant to reference “I’m So Stupid” or not, it’s clear Leon has been paying more attention to her mother’s work (even if only through osmosis) than she might have previously let on. 

    Though she’s vague about the “it” in “doesn’t work like that,” maybe what Lolahol is referring to pertains to the presumed ease with which she could kick start her own career by sheer virtue of being Madonna’s daughter. To that point, Madonna said of Lourdes in 2019, “She doesn’t have the same drive [as me]—and again, I feel social media plagues her and makes her feel like: ‘People are going to give me things because I’m [Madonna’s] daughter.’ I try to give her examples of other children of celebrities who have to work through that ‘Oh yeah, you’re the daughter of…’ and then eventually you are taken seriously for what you do.”

    This seems to be gradually happening to Lourdes. But it might actually be a detriment to call further attention to her nepo baby status by emulating such an iconic visual of her mother’s (as we also saw in the video for Go’s “Cuntradiction”). At the same time, if anyone “deserves” to emulate, who else but Lourdes ought to? (But don’t try telling that to a drag queen.) It’s something she’s been doing since at least 2009 (or 2003, if you count her cameo during the Britney/Xtina performance of “Like A Virgin”), when she appeared in Madonna’s “Celebration” video dressed in M’s “Like A Virgin” regalia, complete with wedding dress and “Boy Toy” belt. At the time, she was just shy of turning thirteen. In the years since, Leon has proven to be a quick study in the ways of her mother, even going to the same university Madonna dropped out of (University of Michigan) before herself “dropping out” to transfer to SUNY Purchase. Pursuing the same love of dance that Madonna possessed when she went to college (indeed, there are moments during the aforementioned Madame X Tour performance of “Frozen” where Lourdes becomes U of M-era Madonna), Leon has been quoted as saying of dance: “You’re using your body to define the space around you—to change it. That’s a very naked form of expression.”

    Nakedness becomes more literal in “Spelling,” with Leon opting to differentiate her version of “Frozen” from Madonna’s by entering into a body of water wearing only her birthday suit. As though baptizing herself a fully-formed star. Something Madonna also did by choosing to move to New York and reinvent herself for the very first time. Having schooled both Lourdes and several generations of women on not being ashamed of nudity (see: Madonna declaring, “I’m not ashamed” when her pre-fame nude photos were leaked to Playboy and Penthouse), Lourdes pointedly chooses to “sex up” this “Frozen” homage with one of her mother’s tried-and-true shock value staples. Except that, as a direct result of Madonna, women who are comfortable with their sexuality are no longer even half as shocking. 

    In 2019, Madonna gave an interview to iHeartRadio, during which she was asked if she thought any of her children would follow in her footsteps. She replied, “Following in my footsteps? I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.” Yet it seems as though, suddenly, Lourdes wants to do something like that, or as close to it as someone from Gen Z (bordering dangerously on millennial) can get to imitating Madonna. With imitation still being, so they insist, the sincerest form of flattery. Not, instead, the greatest sign that there is nothing original left to do or say.

    Genna Rivieccio

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  • “Love Is A Battlefield” As Forerunner to “Papa Don’t Preach”

    “Love Is A Battlefield” As Forerunner to “Papa Don’t Preach”

    It’s slightly uncanny that, in the early pre-fame days of Madonna’s career, her first manager, Camille Barbone, was grooming her to look and sound more like Pat Benatar rather than the “disco dolly” she would get accused of being once her first record came out. But while Barbone was sinking all of her cash into the manufacturing of this “rocker chick” persona for Madonna, the latter was instead perfecting her recording of a club-oriented dance track called “Everybody” with Stephen Bray. Never mind that Bray would soon after be betrayed by Madonna when she instead handed the track over to Mark Kamins for a producer credit, as he was the one who got the demo into the hands of Sire Records’ Seymour Stein. So it was that Madonna’s musical path was officially set apart from Benatar’s, with “Everybody” released as a single in October of 1982. A year later, Benatar would come out with “Love Is A Battlefield.”

    Although the song bears no auditory similarities to “Papa Don’t Preach” (a 1986 single of Madonna’s that would prove to be one of her most controversial, therefore best-selling), the video concept behind it certainly does. Commencing with intercut shots of Benatar on a bus traveling from Clinton, New Jersey to New York City with shots of her roaming the then big, bad streets of Times Square, the motif established is that she feels somehow safer in the dangerous wilds of NY than she does amid the judgments thrust upon her at home. Singing, “We are young/Heartache to heartache we stand/No promises, no demands,” Benatar means what she says—and aims to stand by it no matter the cost. Even getting kicked out of her father’s house as her mother and brother watch it happen in helpless silence.

    Directed by Bob Giraldi, the video was also known for being among the first to use dialogue, even if minimally. It starts as Benatar sings her lyrics, “We are strong!” to which her father warns, “You leave this house now…” Benatar keeps singing, “No one can tell us we’re wrong.” But her father concludes, “…you can just forget about comin’ back!” Thus, Benatar flees the white-picket prison in favor of seedier pastures, landing a job as a taxi dancer at one of the dance halls she happens upon (presumably during her nighttime street wanderings). The defiance in Benatar’s actions is reminiscent not only of Madonna’s real-life rebellion against her own father, Silvio “Tony” Ciccone, but the one that occurs in “Papa Don’t Preach,” with Danny Aiello portraying her stern Italian-American patriarch. Like “Love Is A Battlefield,” “Papa Don’t Preach” was also shot in New York, specifically Staten Island (which many consider to be a separate entity from NYC, but anyway…). Addressing the Electra complex nature of father-daughter relationships more glaringly, the crux of the conflict in “Papa Don’t Preach” isn’t just that Madonna has gotten knocked up by her hot mechanic boyfriend (played by Alex McArthur), but that she’s moved away entirely from seeing her father as “the world,” instead gravitating toward another man. One of many who will try to take his place as the years go by and “teenage” Madonna continues to grow up. In Benatar’s scenario, the rebellion is less about breaking away to bone some guy, and more about leaning into the identity she wants to carve out for herself, independent of paternal input.

    As part of that independence, Benatar sees fit to spread her message of defiance to the other taxi dancers she befriends at the club. This isn’t done so much with words, but rather, standing up with a death stare to the club’s owner (played by Philip Cruise), which then, naturally, leads into a one-sided dance-off from Benatar and her allegiant followers. In true unapologetic 80s fashion. Apparently, the moves are so disarming that the owner decides to back off, clutching to the bar in terror. For what could be scarier than women declaring their autonomy through bodily movement? Their escalating choreo bombast sends the owner into submission, except for that moment when Benatar screams, “We are young!” and he appears especially disgusted by the statement. Chalk it up to “youth panic” perhaps, as he feels himself outnumbered by all these unruly “children.” And although he briefly tries to surrender by joining in with their dance, Benatar isn’t having it, dousing his face with a glass of water and liberating the dancers all the more by leading them outside. Into the light.

    In contrast, Madonna’s character in “Papa Don’t Preach” is more quietly uncontrollable, her upbringing decidedly more repressed (if you can believe it) than Benatar’s in “Love Is A Battlefield.” Which is why it takes her so long to build up the courage to confess her pregnancy to “Papa,” wandering the dilapidated environs of Staten Island (captured with “working-class fetish” brilliance by director James Foley) before finally returning home to tell him she’s “with child.” When she does, the reaction is just as she feared: hostile silent treatment. Better known as: a Catholic father superpower. After an unspecified amount of time has passed, with father and daughter retreating to their respective “corners of the ring” (emphasized by them being on opposite sides of a dividing wall), her dad finally accepts the news and embraces her both literally and figuratively.

    Benatar, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to be as lucky. For, at the end of “Love Is A Battlefield,” although she’s on a bus again, it’s not necessarily certain that she’s capitulated to returning home, but rather, she’s probably headed to another place where she can disappear into the crowd, free of her disapproving father, who told her not to ever come back anyway. In this regard, the video’s premise is also reminiscent of Bronski Beat’s “Smalltown Boy,” which was released in 1984. So something was definitely in the air with disappointed, disavowing fathers during this decade.

    While the connection between Madonna and Benatar isn’t always acknowledged via these two videos, it’s undeniably there. And, considering Madonna had spent plenty of time practicing how to “be” Benatar under Gotham Management, maybe the influence kept lingering subtly in her 80s-era subconscious. To further tie the two together, Madonna’s erstwhile boyfriend, Jellybean Benitez, even produced a dance mix version of “Love Is A Battlefield.” By the time “Papa Don’t Preach” was released, however, he would no longer be Madonna’s “boy toy”—for she decided not to keep his particular baby.

    Genna Rivieccio

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