I posted the following in another thread. It was the last post. I killed the thread… Madonna made me do it.
I saw the show Sunday night I will admit that I am a musical illiterate. I know nothing about music and very rarely participate in music discussions because I know I am inept, but I’m hoping somebody out there can explain to me why all the violence?
If you watched the stage dancers you would have seen the dancing light girl during one of the first few songs. She was more of a contortionist costumed in bright red lights happily gyrating to the song, minding her own light girl business and some strange, vacuum cleaner, elephant trunk looking beast intruded into her little spinning dance platform grabbed her from behind and killed her!!! I was so enthralled with the little light girl, happily watching her twist away, and then there she is, a lifeless little light lump on the floor. All I have to say is… Why Madonna? Why did you kill the little dancing light girl?
I watched the rest of the concert, but my little heart was broken. I waited for the return of the light girl and all I got was some guy being shot by Madonna and then his lifeless body was kicked. And can someone please explain to me why a concert has a Matrix-like fight scene in it? Did I miss the point of the songs?
Again, I will admit that I don’t know much about music or artists and their styles, but I didn’t expect to see a concert by Madonna where people are dying on stage. Poor little light girl.
I only repeated myself because I want to know if I’m the only one who noticed? Nobody else I have talked to so far has noticed what I’m talking about or they noticed but didn’t give it a second thought.
This is called BEING AFFECTED BY A PERFORMANCE. I didn’t even see it, but I’ll tell you right now, Madonna WANTED a little bit of your heart to be broken.
I must also suggest that you never attend or watch a Gwar concert if the Little Light Girl brought you this much grief.
Thank you so much for explaining to me that things on TV aren’t real. Now I can finally stop worrying about those poor people stuck on Gilligan’s Island.
I never meant to imply that I didn’t understand the difference between reality and fantasy. I realize that the death of the light girl was supposed to illicit a response, I just don’t understand why Madonna has decided to sprinkle her concert with gratuitous violence.
If I’m at a GWAR concert, I expect to see people being tortured and dismembered on stage. If I’m watching a play or a movie, I understand that the actors aren’t really dying. I’m not an idiot. I was disturbed by what I viewed as unnecessary death. Apparently, I am strange. I just don’t see any reason for the death of the little light girl. Was it part of a story? Did her death coincide with part of the song?
Maybe I’m reading into things too much, but I imagined the little light girl as any little girl. She could be me, or my sister, or your sister, or your mother happily listening to a song/walking home from school/waiting for a bus… minding her own business, and the creepy vacuum cleaner beast is any other human beast, the kind of bastard that gets off on intruding into her space and fucking with her life.
This isn’t even about Madonna anymore. It’s about the messages we get every day. It’s about saying, I have the right to dance happily on my own little stage of life without some creep sneaking up behind me and killing me! Why does he have the right to destroy her light?
I’ve just realized this is getting way too emotional. It is no longer mundane or pointless for me. I’ll take it to therapy. Thanks for your responses.
OH, I thought you meant “Why Madonna? Why?” That was my sentiment when my gf made me watch the last hour of the show. I’ve pretty much had it with Madonna and her self obsession. She’s not that creative. She’s not that talented. She’s not even that pretty anymore. She’s only good at crying for attention and shocking the easily shocked. She’s a skilled marketer, nothing more.
Why did we have her forced upon us for two hours? Couldn’t we have seen Sublime? Suicidal Tendencies? The Ramones? Elvis? Even Zamfir the pan piper!
So now, I have to cry out to HBO: “Why Madonna? Why?”
[Zipping up flame-proof asbestos suit in prep for all the rabid madonna worshippers who will now hate me…]
MONTY, the point is, you’ve answered your own question. If the little light girl had gone on to live happily, you would not have been talking about it. Her death touched you and illicited this response. THAT WAS MADONNA’S INTENTION. Once again, I didnt even see it, so I don’t know what song it was for, but I believe your over the top reaction was spot on.
But you don’t have any such right! You have the right to defend yourself, or not to be where you will get attacked, but no right not to be killed.
Picture this: A little bunny rabbit is sitting next to a quiet brook, drinking the cool, clear water and munching on the sweet green grass. As he’s sitting there enjoying life to its fullest and thinking (as much as a rabbit can) how it just doesn’t get any better than this, he feels a sharp prick in his side. He is paralyzed, and before he dies in excruciating pain, he is halfway down the gullet of a hungry rattlesnake. So do we sue the rattler for violation of the rabbit’s “rights”? Of course not. The rabbit had no right not to be killed (though it did have the rights to try and avoid snakes, as well as to run if it had seen the snake), and the snake had a right to try to feed itself, just the same as any other animal.
Death is part of life, kiddo, and nobody has a “right” not to experience it. I think the problem is that we live in a world that coddles us and tells us “Don’t worry, everything is A-OK-happy! Nothing bad will ever happen to you in the good old U.S. of A.!” Our world tends to push life’s realities off into a corner to be ignored and ‘civilized’ out of the way. We have changed eating from a survival event to a social one. We, uh, expel waste in shiny, polished, scented rooms set well away from any social activities. We say “excuse me” when we burp. We get queasy and feel sick if we see blood on the discovery channel, yet we shop in the meat department of the grocery store, isolated from having to deal with (or even know, sometimes) where the meat came from. The people we value most in our society are the ones who have skills LEAST suited to survival (singers, actors, politicians, businessmen, etc) and would be among the first to be food for our friendly neighborhood predator if the society that supports them suddenly vanished.
In other words, it’s not just you. Your experience is only a symptom of a greater problem.
And Porcupine:
If you had read my post, you would have seen this:
In case you’re not aware, gf is commonly used as shorthand for girlfriend. She loves madonna. gag
>>This isn’t even about Madonna anymore. It’s about the messages we get every day. It’s about saying, I have the right to dance happily on my own little stage of life without some creep sneaking up behind me and killing me! Why does he have the right to destroy her light?
I agree with you, and I understand why you have reacted this way. I didn’t see the concert, but I imagine if I had, it would have left me feeling much the same way.
You are not alone in this. I noticed the same thing. The violence seemed to have no relationship whatsoever to the songs that accompanied them.
The only possible explanation I have been able to formulate is that it is connected to the rather graphic cartoon violence shown on the monitors, which culminated with a youngish female apparently being raped by a massive deformed man. At the end of this onslaught the “cameras” pull back and we are given the impression that the cartoon characters are actually actors and the brute seems apologetic to the female.
Perhaps this was intended as a way of saying, “don’t take fictional violence too seriously”. It seems to be to be a stark contrast to Madonna’s recent philosophical leanings, such as her study of Yoga, her Kabalah classes (which I find quite amusing, for someone with her name) etc.
