MDNA
by Madonna
(Album and World Tour)
“I’M HERE to say that the gay community, and gay people, here and all around the world have the same rights. The same rights to be treated with dignity, with respect, with tolerance, with compassion, with love.” Those words, spoken by the pop titan Madonna, on stage last August in St. Petersburg, were something of a shot heard ’round the world. Aimed at a municipal law passed in Russia in 2012 to outlaw the advocacy of homosexuality among children, Madonna’s act of civil disobedience was as risky as it was courageous. Antigay groups sought $10.7 million in damages before a judge finally dismissed the lawsuit. That didn’t stop the singer and self-proclaimed performance artist from supporting a Russian punk band called Pussy Riot whose three members, all women, are currently in prison for performing in an Orthodox cathedral. She sold their T-shirts around the globe and, in America’s more conservative cities, drew fire for wearing an Obama lower-back tattoo.
In Australia, Elton John, who has never hidden his distaste for the Material Girl, let his bile burst in a TV interview when he described her as a “nightmare” and a “fuckingg fairground stripper.” A very un-knightly Sir Elton didn’t stop there: “Her career is over … her tour is a disaster and it couldn’t happen to a bigger cunt.” Rocket Man, now off his rocker, may have been referring to his longtime nemesis’ stop in France, where Madonna went farther onstage than just stating her opposition to the far-right National Front, slapping a swastika over the face of its leader Marine Le Pen, who subsequently threatened to sue her. (The swastika routine is nothing new; I caught Madonna’s “Sticky and Sweet” tour on the night of Obama’s 2008 election in San Diego, where she exclaimed “Change is here, motherfuckers!” and subjected President George W. Bush to the same treatment.) To make nice, Madonna staged a special performance for her French fans, but when it ended after just 45 minutes, the audience booed and hurled the slur “salope” (slut), along with their drinks, at the stage.
When I caught the show in Denver, fans were decidedly more supportive, but they resented having to wait until 11 pm for the show to start and, given the Aurora movie theater massacre, reacted negatively to Madonna wielding a pistol during the embarrassingly bad song “Gangbang” as blood was splattered across the screens behind her. She could have easily explained the creative motivations behind the number, but Madonna has never been very interested in explaining herself. She generally leaves that to her defenders, including Princeton professor Andrew Ross, who wrote: “For sex radicals, Madonna now plays this role, as she herself has put it, of bringing ‘subversive sexuality into the mainstream,’ and has accepted the challenge for the most part, even reveling in the risk of her potential martyrdom as a celebrity.” That was back in 1993, in response to her book Sex, and it no less true today.
Contrary to Elton John’s opinions, the MDNA world tour is anything but a disaster. It became the highest-grossing tour of last year with over $228 million in ticket sales. It was, however, in support of a very mediocre album. Musically, “I’m a Sinner” sounds like the Grammy-winning “Beautiful Stranger” of 1999. Lyrically, Madonna is fond of clichés: love fits like a glove, I’m a moth to the flame, and so forth. A lot fresher is “I Don’t Give A,” where she raps alongside Nicki Minaj about a daily routine that includes horseback riding, pre-nup agreements, managers, and manicures. There’s also “Beautiful Killer” and “Girl Gone Wild,” the latter of which opens with the Act of Contrition, a Catholic prayer, and ends in an orgy of electropop blips and bleeps. The video features the all-male Ukrainian dance troupe Kazaky decked out in tights and high heels. But “I Fucked Up” could be the most revealing mea culpa. “I could have just kept my big mouth closed,” she sings, “I could have just done what I was told.” But we all know this durable icon better than that.
Colin Carman, PhD, manages a blog of film criticism at colincarman.com and is currently a Mayers Fellow at the Huntington Library.
