21 year old boricua grrrl looking for the Marceline to my Princess Bubblegum. My name is Melanie.Madonna always laid claim to being a female artist who was breaking new ground and in her own testimony laid claim to an engagement with feminist politics. A lot of times people act as though feminists bring an unwarranted critique to Madonna but I think Madonna receives so much attention from feminists precisely because she positioned herself as a woman within the music industry who was going to break new ground and who was going to challenge the sexism of that industry. And, as we know, for early on in her career she actually did live out that particular practice and that’s I think, why many of us continue to have affection for her as a cultural icon even as we feel incredibly disturbed by the fact that stardom, which by it’s very nature has to be reproduced again and again, meant that at a certain point as an aging woman, Madonna had to have a new gimmick to renew interest in her, and it’s not surprising that a major part of her re-invention of herself becomes a re-attachment to sexism.
When Madonna appeared in, I think it’s Vanity Fair, that she appears in, in all the little girl sort of sexual sadomasochistic kind of pictures and everything, it’s suddenly a complete repudiation of the kind of images of a powerful woman that she theoretically talked about wanted to put forth and it’s a reinvestment in patriarchy, but let’s face it, there’s always going to be more money to be had and more stardom to be had in patriarchy and for a while Madonna worked the feminist revolutionary tip as far as she could push it and then she needed a new driving force.
To me Madonna symbolizes so much the question of greed. I think exactly like many rap musicians, I don’t believe in her “real life” Madonna is committed to any of the sexist images that she’s quite willing to reproduce for a profit. But, in fact, she’s willing to turn that particular trick in order to make more and more money even though we all know this is an incredibly wealthy human being who theoretically should not have to debase and degrade her principles to earn money but the reproduction of stardom says, “I must earn more and more and more money” and it’s interesting that not only does she come back to patriarchy but she also comes back to white supremacy.
I was so amazed by the incredible racist comments she makes in Spin Magazine in a recent interview about black culture and black men, when she goes on to tell us, “but black men are the most sexist men on the planet.” I said it’s kind of like Madonna out of Africa, it’s like report from the front: “I went into the jungle, I fucked all those black men and I used black culture in my videos but I’m here to testify that they really are primitive, that they really are the most sexist people on the planet. I used to kind of like black people but I’m not sure I do any more.” And I was really fascinated by that, cause I thought to myself, this person is actually using this interview to reposition herself as a voice for the Right. Because let’s face it, there’s more money to be made on the Right than there will ever be to be made on the Left.
#i seriously love her #bell hooks not madonna
