In today’s Guardian there is an In Defense of Madonna-style article by Aida Edemariam (oh to have a name like that) giving out about the fact that people like Camille Paglia, Germaine Greer and Julie Burchill have all turned on the 50-year-old pop star.
Why is Madonna causing such disapproval amongst her purportedly feminist sistas? Aida sees it as the fact that Madonna has stopped being in agreement with their mores and thus is bad, wrong, crap, whatever. What is more surprising is that the criticisms (as Aida presents them; I haven’t seen the original articles) seem to be based on those old chestnuts age and looks. Germaine calls Madonna an ‘elderly mother’, Camille calls her face ‘a resculpted plastic doll’ and gives out about the ‘brassy’ cover image of Hard Candy (please, is ‘brassy’ even something you can criticise a woman for being anymore?). Then Burchill, who has nightmares about Madonna’s ‘greasy muff’, gets on about Madonna’s ‘vile veiny hands and stringy neck’. Jeeaysis. We’ve talked before about bitchiness between women and girl-on-girl hate here and these comments, as presented, seem like good examples of this.
It seems like none of these women has anything to criticise Madonna about apart from the fact that, like us all, she is getting older, and like most of us, she is concerned with preserving her looks. So what? Is it just me, or do these seem like cheap shots?
Anthea McTeirnan
Croí na Duibhlinn
Aoife Barry
Aoife McLysaght
Arlene Hunt
Attracta McCarthy-McKenna
clairehennessy
Ann Cronin
Amanda Brown
Eleanor Fitzsimons
Edel Coffey
Anna Carey
Lauren Murphy
Jennie Ridyard
Jude Leavy
Hazel Katherine Larkin
Léan Ní Chuilleanáin
Leigh
Lisa McInerney
Laura Slattery
Maman Poulet
Megan McGurk
Clare Kleinedler
Molly
Rosita Boland
Catherine Crichton
Sinéad Gleeson
sarahefranklin
siobhandowling
Susan Daly
theantiroom
Nuala Ní Chonchúir
Perhaps they are bitter because feminism evolved and they didn’t. Didn’t anyone tell them you didn’t have to burn your bra and shun beauty products and bathing to be a feminist in the naughtys? Madonna caught on you see.
Thank you. The current critical reaction to Hard Candy , Madge turning 50 and the upcoming tour is horseshit. I’m not exactly thrilled she’s making records with Timbaland because they just sound like Timbaland records and that will date badly. But the Neptunes/Kayne stuff is amazing. She’s still got it. I can’t wait to see the show.
I can no longer take Burchill seriously after that insane article on Christianity in the Guardian last week. Greer, I can’t really get my head around. However, Camille is a major intellectual figure and I feel let down that she’s criticising Madonna’s looks rather than celebrating the three decades she’s reigned as our greatest pop star.
Lottie, I don’t think anyone could accuse any of the aforementioned ladies of avoiding beauty products or indeed bathing (and seriously, those clichés about old-school feminists being dirty uggos are so fucking tired – about as tired as that stupid bra-burning myth).
Honoria, you’re right – those are cheap shots. I’m not really surprised, though, because all of those ladies have done a lot of public bashing of other women (indeed, Paglia’s made an entire career out of it). And the only criticism of Madonna seems to be, yes, that she’s not 25 anymore. The stuff about her being an “elderly mother” is particularly ridiculous. There seems to be an assumption that if Madonna has to grow older (and there seems to be a sort of anger that she hasn’t managed to, I dunno, cheat the passage of time), she shouldn’t dare look like she’s still having any sort of fun.
And Q, that article was preposterous, wasn’t it? She’s a loon! And I don’t mean she’s a loon for becoming a Christian, I mean she’s a loon because she wrote about it in such a typically self-aggrandising, sociopathic way.
This is exactly why the feminism occasionally falls on its face – women who one minute make intelligent observations in the name of the F word, are the next minute guilty of the kind of catfighting bullshit that makes the patriarchy they criticise, laugh at them for being bitchy girls.
I have a love/hate relationship with Madge. Yes, she can look amazing, but I hate the in-your-faceness of it. You’re a cool, sexy lady capable of elegance with a great bod, but do we need to see the purple hotpants again?
Interestingly, I can’t help think that for all their collective intellectual critiquing, Burchill, Greer and Paglia are secretly bothered by Madge daring to age well (something that most of them haven’t, if we’re taking the same judge-on-appearances line that they do) and continue to flaunt her sexuality. It unnerves them, so they cast stones.
Yeah, I think a lot of it has to do with collective fear of older women showing any sort of sexuality at all. That’s why people make fun of Madonna for being “brassy” (heaven forfend!). I don’t think it’s where the arse falls out of feminism as a concept, though – it’s just those individual women’s actions.
I’m with you on being bored with Madonna’s hotpant waggling, though. Yeah, we get it, Madge! You’re a sexual being! We know this because you’re licking a lollipop in a seductive manner! Again!
But as far as those critics’ own looks go, I have to say that much as I disagree with a lot of what Germaine says (her comments on transgendered people are particularly hateful), she’s looking pretty good for someone who’s pushing 70!
“I don’t think it’s where the arse falls out of feminism as a concept, though – it’s just those individual women’s actions.”
I think it does. A movement whose ethics and ethos is apparently based on equality, the advancement of women, sisterhood and valuing women for hundreds more reasons than they way they look is seriously eroded when the main figures within that movement start the verbal equivalent of hair-pulling and resort to critiquing a woman’s physicality.
It must make men laugh and conclude that yes, we’re all a bit silly and obsessed with bitching and appearances.
Very disappointing.
I agree that their behaviour is very disappointing (although to be honest, I don’t have a high opinion of either Burchill or Paglia and certainly don’t consider either to be great feminist advocates – I think Burchill is a joke, and a nasty racist one at that) and that they do feminism a big disservice if they make such bitchy, idiotic statements under the guise of feminism. But I think that’s more about those women letting the movement/concept down rather than any fault in the movement or ideology itself.
Penny and Honnoria, your argument is far too objective and fact-based. You need to start slagging each other’s veiny hands and stringy necks.
I was wearing high-waisted denim hotpants as late as last year…but I did cheat and wear thigh-squashing 90-denier tights.
Hee! Bring on the shiny hotpants and even more shiny leotards! Or perhaps not.
Actually, we could have a dance-off to ‘True Blue”. I suspect pretty much every girl (and a few boys) of our generation worked out a dance routine to that song (usually based on the concept of “acting out the lyrics with your arms”. In my and my friends’ case, this involved lots of pointing and, um, mimed glove-wearing).
Fuck Julie Burchill, is what I think we can take from this.
I don’t know. Yes, Madonna looks great in a gym-bunny kind of way, but she seems to me to be obsessed with looking great, which must take up nearly all her time. Personally, I would find that so boring, to spend hours every day trying to look good. Controlling food / environment / fitness constantly. When does she let her hair down and eat crisps and drink beer? Never, is my guess.
Growing older is hard – none of us want to end up like some of our Ma’s generation, wearing aul one clothes at 30. My Ma wears nicer stuff now in her 60′s than ever before, but she’s stopped dying her hair.
I’m sort of half terrified of growing old but I don’t want to look young when I’m old either, if you know what I mean.
I want to look good in an age appropriate way. Like Mafra O’Reilly, who looks her age but is madly elegant.
WRW, a point well-made. Nobody’s mentioned Madonna’s apparent obsession with fitness. I like to think that Madonna lets her hair down in private so we just don’t get to read about it. But then again she probably does just spend hours and hours on that treadmill or else checking into hospital to recover from those pesky falls from horses…
I wouldn’t encourage any kind of obsession with looks, body image, etc. and our society’s obsession with looking young scares me, but having said that, I think these smart women could come up with something smarter to criticise Madonna about.
But I think that’s more about those women letting the movement/concept down rather than any fault in the movement or ideology itself.
And the other way around – these women are high-profile feminists because slagging off other women gets them into the papers. The feminists who are working hard to improve women’s lives aren’t getting into the papers because that’s not a story. The fault lies both with the media for being so delighted to report “Feminist Icon Slags Off Woman” and with Burchill, Greer and Paglia for being so tediously self-promoting that they’re absolutely always willing to play up to that.
Penny, right on for calling bullshit on the myth that women burned bras. It never happened. In 1968 a group of women protesting the annual American misogyny pageant in Atlantic City attempted to incinerate some blatant symbols of the feminine mystique but never actually lit the blaze due to zoning laws. The media simply spiced it up in some lurid case of the crazy wimmins.
Mary, you are also dead on about women bashing being an instant guarantee means of getting published. Shit on women and you get a by-line.
As a bloke Madonna just confuses me because I can’t work out sometimes whether I’m repulsed or attracted to her. I think a lot of guys secretly suffer the same problem.
Her sinewy biceps are definitely a bit scary though.
I think it’s been fashionable in the press for quite a while now to give Madonna a good kicking and it’s only slightly justified. Perhaps the British press have been angered by her cheating on ‘their boy’ Guy Ritchie. Mind you, her disgustingly egotistical performances at Live 8 and Live Earth were bound to provoke criticism. In interviews after Live Earth journalists weren’t allowed use tape-recorders and had to maintain complete eye-contact with her at all times. That’s a little odd to say the least.
The biggest issue here as far as I’m concerned is the notion that a woman in a powerful cultural position has ANY KIND of responsibility to represent the female of the species as a whole! Men DO NOT impose such reductive paradigmatic roles presumably because there is no supposition that they are needed.
Madonna is what she is (and whatever she chooses to be), whether or not her physical appearance and clothing choices appeal to individual tastes. That is precisely what they are: choices. And before anyone starts banging on about “celebrating choice” in this instance… it shouldn’t need to be celebrated, it should be assumed.
Well said, Carol. Surely, the ultimate goal of feminism is parity and the freedom to be what we want to be?