Madonna
I love Madonna and her Immaculate Collection album is one of my favourites of all time.
A week or so ago, when being interviewed on Jimmy Fallon Madonna climbed the desk, and slid across it. Jimmy Fallon being Jimmy Fallon* took his jacket off and tried to cover Madonna’s behind. When Madonna stood up, she mentioned that no one saw anything. As she was walking back to the armchair, she lifted her skirt and ‘flashed’ the audience. I say ‘flashed’ she had underwear on, but maybe that’s not important but I don’t know.
My sister texted me about this situation and my first response was that Madonna was ‘crazy’. Which is a boring and unimaginative thing to say in response to a woman doing something. Truth is, I didn’t know what to say.
For a better part of the last decade, maybe since her MDNA album in 2012, the discussion about Madonna has been about her antics to stay relevant, her desperation to remain youthful and the need to be cutting edge.
I watched a summary of the situation on YouTube, the comments were unimpressed. Many references were made to grandmothers, her need to shock and her fear of being forgotten. Some were that she was out of her prime, insecure, lonely, and scary with her ‘ever changing face’.
In Taylor Swift’s Miss Americana documentary, she speaks about the demand for women to reinvent themselves repeatedly in order to impress the audience, in order to keep them entertained. It’s true. We may see more women standing up to it now, but I don’t think Bono ever changed his look. Or Sting. One of my favourite memes is Beyonce and Ed Sheeran standing next to each other on the stage. He is in a t-shirt and jeans; she is wearing a ball gown. It speaks volumes about the double standards women are faced with. How much harder they must work.
Men get to be boys for as long as they like. Before I started writing this piece, I saw that Kourtney Kardashian and Travis Barker are engaged. Barker, the drummer for Blink 182 is 45, still drums without a shirt on and wears a backwards cap. The members of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers adhere to a similar uniform. But they’re not accused of chasing youth, just doing what they do. Madonna on the other hand attempts to resemble what she once did and is automatically the desperate crone.
Interestingly, and trust me there’s not much I find interesting about the Kardashians. Kourtney is now more rock and roll since dating Barker. Adapting to his aesthetic by cutting her hair, wearing more leather pants and from what I can gather posing with drumsticks. He got a tattoo in her name but from what I gather, she didn’t get one. Her contract with her mum probably prevents her from doing so.
But back to Madonna.
We often label women as crazy, as wild, as untamed. We don’t know what to make of Madonna and part of me thinks it’s uncomfortable because she is presenting back to us the youth obsessed society, we have kept her in. The audiences set their expectations and they are so high. We want her to be young, but not too young. Accept her age but write articles about the fact, she is indeed ageing. When you exist in an industry that erases you after a certain amount of time, why would you begin to settle?
It takes all my willpower not to dismiss women as mutton dressed up as lamb, trying too hard or not being age appropriate. And that’s not because I think I think these things. But I’ve been taught to. Many men in the music industry also got to reinvent on their terms. I speak in the past tense because Bowie and Prince have now passed. Elton John still does his thing.
I know that Elton John didn’t climb across Fallon’s desk but he has probably done many other things to not lose relevance like create a biopic. Actually yeah, where’s my biopic about Madonna?
We want Madonna to behave like we want all women to behave, to a set of impossible standards. Have a career, give us something new, be a mother, manage your home, get a life outside of your kids, share your life on social media but don’t replicate anything close to a ‘momfluencer’, look young but don’t have work done, get your lips done though because nobody wants thing lips, honestly I could go on and on and on.
So I am not justified in calling Madonna crazy, but the situation we have created for her is.
*I am neither here nor there about Jimmy Fallon. I don’t see him covering her with his jacket as a gallant move or anything. Nothing could be seen but his behaviour suggested it was way more scandalous than it was. Which may have prompted her choice to flash the audience.