THINGS THAT MAKE YOU GO HMM…

Read this post from the Mean Queens blog before diving into this entry.

OK, first of all, lemme say what an interesting / intelligent post this is. So many blogs fell victim to the Madge Media Machine, posting “official” photos, and composing epic poems celebrating her newest incarnation—kinda sad, really. I mean did she really need to come out with a wine?

I know her fan-base is getting older, but what’s next, an album with matching Depends? The collectible, limited edition Ensure bottles? At some point, we stop believing that a multi-millionaire, forty-something mother-of-two is still just a girl who grew up in working class Detroit who is just really in-tune with ghetto youth.

Don’t get me wrong, I love that woman—even went to see Who's That Girl in the theatres. When I first took an interest in Madonna (somewhere around the “Open Your Heart” video) my parents decided to start monitoring my music / TV interests. They watched the Ciao Italia concert tape with me. The year my sister—in defiance of our parents’ direct orders not to—gave me the “Justify My Love” VHS single, rather than punishing her, or yelling at us, we sat down as a family, and watched the video. Several times, in fact.

We then had to do de-construct / analyze the imagery, message, tone, technique… you know, your basic film-theory discussion. We also had to defend our interest in her work, debated her impact as an artist and explored the possible motives driving a shock-as-art performer. Oh, and got a brief overview of the role of pornography from our dad—a short lecture after none of us knew what he was referencing when he called the video a, “borderline nickelodeon snuff pic.” (Yeah, if you think I’m a bit odd, you should meet the people who raised me to think I wasn’t.)

My father also, on several occasions, said that the reason Madonna always used black and Latino back-up singers / dancers was to make herself look whiter. No, I would argue, she’s just more comfortable around them. She grew up in working class Detroit, moved to New York, and as a struggling dancer, lived in the black and Latino neighborhoods…

I mean, why would someone want to appear so white, when being a darkie was starting to be so cool? Rap and Hip-Hop were blowing up in the mainstream media. Non-white actors were landing big-time, serious acting roles in film and TV and making money at it, too! So why would an artist who’s career success is based on introducing underground culture to the masses, became an icon because she’s such a trend setter, made millions upon millions by staying one step ahead of the mainstream tastes want to… oh.

Well, at least my dad never gloats when it turns out he was right.