Posted on 05/31/2004 9:00:48 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
What is Madge good for?
The only thing Madonna provokes with her latest tour is sadness at how lame she's become
Aaron Wherry National Post
Monday, May 31, 2004
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| Madonna and her cast of muscled dancers do Kabbalah-inspired moves at the Re-invention tour launch in Los Angeles. CREDIT: Nam Y. Huh, The Associated Press |
Those readers under the age of 18 may have to ask their parents about this, but, believe it or not, Madonna used to be quite shocking. Edgy even. Testing with each new album, video or tour the Western world's sexual, religious and political boundaries. Hers was an arsenal of burning crosses, simulated masturbation, virginal squeals, S & M, a black Jesus and a picture book about sex.
But this was long before jihad and Abu Ghraib became the stuff of family dinner conversations. Before the video of Nick Berg's beheading was put on the high school curriculum. Before gay marriage seemed less an outrage than an inevitability, and Michael Moore wasn't just a fat guy schlepping around Flint, but a fat guy swaggering through Cannes.
Not that Madge isn't trying.
Her latest tour, not-so-subtly- titled Re-invention, is apparently an orgy of burkas, Bush-bashing, Kabbalah and her greatest hits. Oh, and at one point she straps herself into an electric chair.
The centrepiece is her performance of American Life, the ridiculous title track to her last album, one of 2003's more dramatic disasters (Sample lyric: "I'm drinking a soy latte/ I get a double shot-ay"). It is, in all its clumsy glory (Mini Cooper is also rhymed with "super-duper"), an attack on the American ideal and the commercialism that used to define the Material Girl. On stage, though, it becomes a gaudy anti-war protest.
"American Life was a massive anti-war production piece, helicopters and firebombing on the giant screens behind her as she moved with her troupe, all clad in fatigues," explained the Hollywood Reporter of the tour's opening show in Los Angeles.
"In the creaky song ... dancers sternly march around in military fatigues as images of bloodied and terrified Iraqi children flash on the video screens," reported the New York Daily News.
Feel like you've seen that before? Well, you haven't. But a little deja vu is warranted all the same. Last year, Madonna cut a video for the song that reportedly featured much of the same content.
"Starting as a runway show of couture army fatigues, the fashion show escalates into a mad frenzy depicting the catastrophic repercussions and horror of war," Madonna's spokeswoman Liz Rosenberg explained last February. "This will be a stirring and extremely controversial piece of work from the artist who created the medium of the small film set to music."
But, before it could be premiered, Matt Drudge began to leak details of the Jonas Akerland-directed clip, including word of transvestite soldiers and Madonna tossing a grenade at a George W. Bush look-alike. The resulting outcry from Drudge's core conservative constituency convinced Madonna to do what she had never done: back down.
"Due to the volatile state of the world and out of sensitivity and respect to the armed forces, who I support and pray for, I do not want to risk offending anyone who might misinterpret the meaning of this video," Madonna explained in shelving the clip in favour of a neutered flag-waving second cut.
At the time we still believed in weapons of mass destruction. Support for the President and his war was high. And Madonna had sales to worry about.
A year later, critics have turned and that album has tanked, as has the popularity of the President. More importantly, several hundred thousand concert tickets have gone on sale. So here (again) comes Madonna the anti-war agitator, seeming not so much brave as desperate. Odd all the more because her original inspiration for the military fatigues was reportedly Moore, specifically his rant at last year's Oscars.
Since using his moment at the podium to discuss America's "fictitious President," Moore has made Fahrenheit 9/11, which includes embarrassing footage of President Bush and graphic images of casualties and prisoner abuse in Iraq. Intended for distribution by Disney, Michael Eisner's Mickey Mouse regime refused to do so, only to see the resulting controversy lead to a triumphant reception in Cannes where Moore won the prestigious Palme d'Or, the first time in nearly 50 years a documentary has won.
Some of Moore's most remarkable footage, an interview with Berg, was left out of the film. Moore has subsequently refused to release the footage and sent copies to Berg's family members.
Which is where Moore differentiates himself from many an American high school social studies teacher. Approximately a dozen such educators in Texas, California, Oregon, Oklahoma and other states have been suspended or disciplined for showing their wide-eyed students the video of Berg's beheading at the hands of al-Qaeda terrorists. The video, widely available on the Internet after release by the perpetrators, has been among the most searched-for items on the World Wide Web for weeks now, besting the war in Iraq and even, speaking of gruesome video footage, Paris Hilton (high school sex-ed teachers take note).
There is little Madonna can show us that we, or our Internet-literate sons and daughters, haven't already seen. So what is left to slander?
The Catholic church? That wee little sex scandal has left little to add. Global warming? Sting tried that and we all know what happened to him. The evils of commercialism? Hard to battle when you're asking several hundred dollars a ticket. The sins of excess? Those in glass houses, etc, etc.
So while it might be easy to conclude Madonna has lost her edge, it seems reality has, in many cases, simply outpaced her. Even homoeroticism, an old Madonna stand-by, seems tired at this late date, same-sex marriages in Massachusetts dominating the headlines on the rare day Berg or Iraq does not.
Consider, for a moment, how different a conclusion we'd be making today had she gone ahead and premiered the inflammatory original video for American Life. Some sort of boycott would have ensued -- likely by Wal-mart -- and the usual conservative suspects would have raised their voices in hyperbolic protest. But months later, with the American public forced to confront the violent, inhumane and homoerotic images from Abu Ghraib, she might be basking in the same anti-war afterglow that now surrounds Moore.
Lone salvation for the Kabbalah convert might have come, oddly enough, in Israel. Tentatively scheduled to play several dates there, Madonna backed away citing security concerns. If there was a way to ensure the safety of her audience, shows there, especially in light of cancellations in the Middle East by other pop stars (most recently Missy Elliott), would have sent the sort of defiant message she now so desperately seems to be seeking.
Until then, any buttons Madonna had left to press have been hammered harder and faster by more-willing provocateurs, if not reality itself. And Madonna is a ground-breaking artist in need of new ground.
The payola at MTV has always kept this bloated carcass afloat, while the kids moved on years ago-- see also Michael (& Janet) Jackson, Aerosmith, etc.
Who exactly are the fans of these people anymore? Is there not one journalist willing to investigate why MTV continually promotes these has-beens in their 40s (even 50s) to this day, with no correlation to record sales or popularity?
But now, judging by the number of hip-hop videos one comes across while channel surfing, I wonder how many guns have been put to the heads of MTV execs by people like Suge Knight and Death Row, "requesting" their videos be played ...
The only thing Madonna has done is survive. She has no recorded performance that would put the fear of God into ANOTHER performer who had to follow her.
Elvis has many even though he did much that was down right silly. I can't stand Whitney Houston as a singer but it would be easy to put together a reel of clips of her blowing the room away. Ditto ANY performer who has been arioumd as long as Madonna and/or who might be termed "legendary"....you could find SOMETHING to support the title. In Madonna's case I can't think of one performance...not ONE.
The good old days. (1984)
Madonna will be tossed aside like an old used condom.
One of the traumas that has to be contended with for the popular when they get old without an ounce of conviction, "how do I show that I am still the one when I'm no longer wanted?"
But, but, but, I heard her on TV! She has a British accent!! She's refined!!!
Ya, right. Flush this annoying, no-talent, turd down the toilet of history.
SKANK!!!
erm, is she popping a squat on stage?
The things people will do to get in the news..
...Madge, a crusty, old maid selling some cleaning product on a commercial in the 60s...
This aging star left America and lives in England. Not so bad but she bad mouthed the very country that gave her success and money. She is now on tour to make money from the Americans she bad mouthed? Take a hike lady and try to raise money to fund your elitist lifestyle in France. They love America bashers. They have room because they sent Ira Einhorn back.
I think I heard Drudge last night say that Madonna reminds him of Gloria Swanson in "Sunset Boulevard".
OOOoooooo! Now THERE'S a talent!
Hers was an arsenal of burning crosses, simulated masturbation, virginal squeals, S & M, a black Jesus and a picture book about sex.
See above.
I'm kind of surprised that nobody else seems to notice the praise for Michael Moore thrown in to this column
I feel Moore and Madonna are very similar. They are both now just parodies of themselves, yet seem to believe they are enlightened and relevant.
It's sound entertainment strategy to play to one's strengths ...
She's always been an attention whore and always will be.
Red
What was the name of that old Bette Davis movie about that pathetic aging "star"? Madonna is like watching it in real time.
Madonna's chin.
Ole Madge seems to be our modern day version of Jane Fonda
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