She’s annoying, but if I had to pick a trashy, washed up blonde diva who should realise that it’s time to fade from the spotlight it would be Courtney Love.
Yes she has, but if Madonna was an ordinary person, people would be less inclined to tolerate her type of personality. People always seem to make allowances for dysfunctional people when they are “artists” or involved in the entertainment industry because they believe these people to be special.
So she makes music, but that doesn’t give her the right to get around the world being rude to people. Unfortunately people constantly indulge artists so they end up believing they are special and they get away with their dysfunctional behaviour.
If your next door neighbor or a work collegue treated people the way madonna sometimes does, you’d probably think they were an asshole.
And as for Madonna not caring what her bashers think, that’s rubbish! Like most celebrities, they care a lot about what the public thinks because the public provides the cash and the attention.
hear, hear.
Wow, you summed it up brilliantly Salieri2. Major props to Henry Rollins for being so honest and open about a subject a lot of his peers would laugh at.
Oh and I had forgotten about the Drowned World Tour. I saw the HBO presentation of one of those shows. WOW! Simply amazing! The music was great. The elaborate choreography. Mind blowing props. One minute she’s involved in this intricate dance number, and next minute she’s sitting onstage with an acoustic guitar singing a wonderul ballad. Incredible stuff.
How do you know how Madonna treats people?
She is a very loyal friend. Two of her former assistants (read: butt-monkeys) have been steadily promoted within her company. Now one of them has a cushy job at Maverick Records with a company car, an expense account and flextime to be with her family. The other one is her manager, and gets a cut of the money Madonna makes. Many people think she ditches friends like dirty underwear, but Madonna keeps people in her life. Some friends she has had for more than ten years include journalist Juliette Honen, the late photographer Herb Ritts (who M described as “a good egg”), filmmaker Alek Keshishian (who directed In Bed With Madonna, following her around for months, and still wanted to be close to her), and actress Debi Mazar, who she knew before either of them were famous.
If Madonna is such a horrible monster, why would these people want to stick around her? I don’t think even wanting to “use” her for her fame could get people who didn’t genuinely like her to stick around for that long.
Madonna is a sensitive person. When she was filming Evita in London, she wrote;
"…Three of the sweetest little girls who were extras decided to attach themselves to me. They were all about eight of nine years old and they were so affectionate and they would anxiously grab my hands and smother me with kisses in between takes. On the longer breaks they told me about their cats and dogs and horrible brothers and what they wanted to be when they grew up. The saddest and most forlorn of the group (her name was Levi) said she wanted to be like me. Figures. By the end of the day I was madly in love with her and when we had to say goodbye she said she wished I were her mother and my eyes welled up with tears. I am such a sap. "
Yeah. She’s a real asshole, what with her spending time listening to what little girls have to say and getting attached to them.
:rolleyes:
Finally, I think this news story says more about Madonna’s real personality than anything else.
The Madonna I see is goofy, playful, affectionate and maternal. She loves to dance, play with her kidlets and make funny faces.
That’s what I see when I look at Madonna. And as my contribution to the fight against ignorance, I have an idea for a thread that I will start when I have more time.
With the exception of a couple of songs, I’m not a Madonna fan. Then again, given the huge volume of stuff she’s put out, it’s not surprising that a couple of songs would make it onto my good list.
What bothers me about Madonna isn’t “The Prince”-like way she manipulates trends, the media and the public with her every couple of years personna changes – that’s what’s kept her career alive – it’s the way the pro-Madonna public just accepts those changes in stride. I can’t think of another performer in any field who if they changed almost everything about themselves on a fairly regular basis would retain as much of their fan base as she has through every change. The degree of rapid loyalty is what bothers me, and that only because it’s creepy, not because I see anything really wrong with it.
And, as noted above, if someone really needs to retire and just go away, it’s Courtney Hole.
Hm, that’s the most interesting and thought-provoking objection to Madonna I’ve ever heard, sincerely! Scratching my head a little, thinking about it…
Everybody changes; I think I’m probably not alone in appreciating her willingness to explore & project new or different aspects of her own self in various forms of expression, be it artistic or just sartorial. Can you imagine how horrible it would be if she were trying to maintain her Material Girl image from her 20’s, two decades later? I would find it way creepier to be ‘loyal’ to an image than to my own enjoyment of her product.
Thing going on here, it seems to me, is a lot of conflating ‘image,’ ‘style,’ and ‘mode of expression’ with ‘self’. What’s Madonna changing about herself? Hair color? Makeup? Fashion? Musical style? Political views? Spirituality? The first four I mention aren’t deal-breaking sole proprietors of anyone’s identity, unless you think the Red Hot Chili Peppers just aren’t the same since Anthony Kiedis cut his hair. The last two are very personal choices, and luckily being human, we’re all allowed to change our minds. We live, we learn, we experience things, we grow, or maybe shrivel or warp. Is Madonna a geisha? Hell no! Is she getting a bang out of her current interest in Japanese culture? Sure, why not? But I can almost guarantee you she doesn’t run around the streets in a kimono cuddling a bag of water. Just a video, y’all.
People who get upset because entertainment celebrities a) express views on how to live that are different from their own or different from what they themselves have said in the past are forgetting that celebrities are people too, and not necessarily people better-equipped for grounded worldviews than the average Joe. These slavish, continuity-editing fans need a more consistent deity than Pop Star #5; I hear there are still plenty of cults out there, some of which will issue you uniforms and your own decoder ring, go to it, li’l fellas!!
Oo, oo! I have something else to say! Years ago, I once said a truly, horrible, downright cruel, nasty, unbelievably hurtful thing to my older brother Paul. Nobody heard it but him, and he remembered it for years, it was that bad.
Am I an asshat? Not in general, I like to think, I have done things that are as nice and unselfish as this was vile; but evidence clearly indicates that every now and then, you’re damn skippy I am, a big evil monstrous asshat. Were I a celebrity, had there been a bunch of photographers, reporters or chatty friends/hangers-on/fans/groupies/toadies/merely-interested-in-the-self-behind-the-celebrity bystanders about, I’d be a sound bite on VH1: “Salieri2, in a typical display of diva attitude, lashed out at her family today…”
Paul, if you’re out there, reading this, I really am awfully sorry. I said it because I felt it was my only effective weapon, as I knew you could if you wished pound me into the ground like a wimpy little tent peg. It still bothers me; I hope you’ve managed to forgive me by now.
:smack:
:smack:
:smack:
“If you all loathe her so much for being an attention whore then why are you paying attention to her?”
I’m not. I didn’t even open this thread, or read it, or reply. THAT’S how little I care about her.
she’s definetly not a trend setter anymore. just a trend follower.
she’s noticed music change. from blonde girls with a team of dancers… to brunettes sitting behind their piano or strumming their geetar.
what do ya know? she’s brunette and learned to play the guitar now. the dancers are gone, too.
she’s too old to play this game.
i never liked anyting from her after her blonde ambition tour.
Madonna is someone I’ll be able to look back on in 20 years and say “She had a damn good run.”
I’ll think of how she reinvented herself to every so often so as not to fade into obscurity, and how she actually took a few chances - a quality so rare in pop music - when she could have done the same old thing over and over that she knows will sell (Aerosmith, I’m looking at you here, boys.)
I’ll think of how songs she did 35 years ago still have a quality to them that makes them sound like they just came down the pop-music turnpike.
Yea, I’ll think of all that in 20 years, but right now she annoys the hell out of me.
The truth sometimes hurts.
Salieri2, marry me.
The best thing about being a Madonna fan is that you get to see people show their true colours.
Madonna hates, hates, hates the “reinvention” line. She hasn’t been “reinventing” herself, she’s been growing over time. She matures. She is very adventurous and curious. She loves to learn new things and meet new people, and when she is passionate about something, she uses it to influence her work. The reason why people respond to her “new” images is not because Madonna psychically knows what will sell (I never understood people who made this claim; it’s not like she sits down to write a song with her journal - and a focus group!), it’s because what Madonna does is genuine and heartfelt. “What truly comes from the heart will find the heart of another”. She has been singing her spiritual journey, and anyone who doesn’t hear that either doesn’t have the time to listen (which I respect), or is so wrapped up in preconcieved notions that they are deaf (which I don’t).
America has this thing where it pigeonholes celebrities and expects them to be one-trick ponies; they are almost punished for doing something outside of what they are expected to do. If they buy into what they are “supposed” to be, it’s soul-destroying, because it’s not natural.
I dont follow her now, nor ever. I think the music buisness sucks and so does madonna. Everyone says she is cutting edge, yet dag nasty did more for music than she ever will. She is trendy and weak…A jumper of bandwagons that mispronounces hindi prayers…to hell with her…She works hard, so what, so do I…Big culture, big music and the industry really do suck. If you want to boycott anything, make sure its big business, not something as dumb as french products…
“Everyone follow me!!! We’re gonna burn the Capitol Records building to the ground!!! And then, Disney Land will go up in flames, flames!!! I tell you!!!”
Listen, the next time you and your fellow anarchists are trashing the local Starbucks or McDonalds, at least have the guts not to hide your faces, m’kay?:wally :rolleyes:
ok, so the soundtrack to the doomed “Dick Tracey” movie was great period jazz.
Musically, she has accomplished some things.
Then she did that film “Glitter”.
oh wait, was that her? If not, she still gets lumped into the same category imho “these” days
Gosh, kung fu lola, I’m flattered. Sadly, I cannot accept, as Mr Salieri2 got there first.
I think attention johns is the more applicable term.
Anyway, I’m happy for her that she’s kept her career going for so long in an industry where staying alive for more than a year is a challenge. As for her actual work, I’m more ambivalent: some was ok, some was pretty mediocre, and some (“music, makes the bourgeoisie something something”) was crap.
I disagree with Fallenangel about her losing her fan base with each new change. Even with the change in styles, there’s probably still a very recognizeable continuity in her work. On this, I can only speak from my own experience as a David Bowie fan. Even though Space Oddity, Ziggy Stardust, Heroes, Tin Machine and Black Tie/White Noise are all very different styles, many of the things I like about Bowie are still present on each one, and while some things I like get left behind, some new ones appear with each change.
Madonna is the Goddess of all my guilty pleasures. She has embraced her own divinity, and she revels in it. She adapts, evolves, and survives. She is brash and unapologetic. Sometimes she goes over the top, but even when she does, nobody does it like Madonna. One kiss from her would make me immortal.
So, is it true that Madonna is still a virgin, like Britney Spears is?