I've always hated Madonna, and I can't imagine that I will ever find myself in a position to appreciate her or her music. The reason for this is simple, really. She panders to whatever modish style happens to be the flavor of the week. She goes way beyond being derivative. Worse, she's a coattail rider recently rumored to have teamed up with Britney Spears for a new single. Naturally. Let's rewind a bit, back to early 1993, to be precise. The future Mrs. Guy Ritchie was going through a racy stage. Sex was hot and Madonna decided to come out with her book Sex, quite easily the tamest depiction of S&M ever to hit the shelves. But Robert Mapplethorpe's work was still turning heads, so in an effort to gain a morsel of cutting edge cred, our blonde Ms. Thang thought she'd go a little wild. Well, I've seen the uncut and uncensored video for "Justify My Love," and just 'cuz you show some queer action on film doesn't make you a deviant.
Nevertheless, people ate her stuff up. Back when Puce was a young sophomore in college, he found himself at one of these horrid college dances, one of the few forms of entertainment available to a student going to school in the middle of a cornfield. Inevitably, the requisite Madonna tune came on, and Puce decided to sit this one out. Soon enough, a lithe, slim-hipped young lad sauntered over, saying, "Oh come on over and dance. You LOVE Madonna." When I explained that no, in fact I was not fond of the gal, the boy purred into my ear, "Well, you're a gayboy. You'll grow to love her."
Which brings me to my first point: Queer folk like(d) Madonna because it was hip for Madonna to like queers. Truth or Dare had recently been released and we all got to see Madonna in bed, rolling around with a bunch of nelly queens, and we all thought, "Wow, she really likes us!" Since gay men love the attention, we felt like a leather daddy at a Harley convention. But really, it just provided the opportunity for the Material Girl to be seen with some nice eye candy dripping off her arms on stage.
Consider, for a brief moment, Madonna's wardrobe choices over the years. Her ripped-up, off-the-shoulder gauzey shirts, circa "Lucky Star," were clearly taken from the punk-inflected looks of Pat Benatar. The Gauthier outfits from "Express Yourself" were merely Marlene Dietrich meets sex club. Eventually, she went new-agey, took up yoga, and thought that prints were in. Well, no one likes a hippie. Then she found heroin-chic, about 6 months after the craze reached its height. Come on, the lass is hardly a trend setter.
I've got one last bone to pick with Madge (as the residents of her new home country are wont to call her), and that's the inclusion of one little word in the first single from her most recent album: bourgeoisie. Why in the hell does she think she's got the balls to sing the line, "Music turns the bourgeoisie into rebels"?!? Let's momentarily deconstruct her inexplicable but concerted effort to invoke Marxist rhetoric. Is she saying that her music will somehow incite the lazy upper-middle class to riot? And why the upper-middle class? What do they have to revolt over? Do you think Madonna really knows who the bourgeoisie is? Has she ever even read Marx?
Which proves one truly final point, that Madonna has recently discovered something that the rest of us have known all along, which is that Marxists are just plain cool. We need only think of Stereolab. Oh sure, you listen to their catchy pop tunes, and say to yourself, "Awwww! They're just so cute." But behind this cuteness lurks a heavy dose of leftist politics that would make any Red burst with pride. One listen to "Ping Pong" and you'll see what I mean. Who else but Stereolab could happily chime away to the tunes of economic cycles ruled primarily by wars started by some country or another in an effort to boost a lagging economy? And they're so much more than the thinking man's art-rock�they're sexy and happy and pretty and just so fucking cool. Madonna may have the boobs and the cash and the hip new husband, but the Material Girl never will be a daring young Marxist.