P FRONT Suzanne Moore tilating menopausal males. looked like a man in drag, Is it only the little girls who because she so clearly revels understand, who don't have in the shiny surfaces of femi- a problem with simulated ninity, that what is reflected masturbation? Or indeed, the back is their very artifice. real thing? You can't feign an This process, known psycho- interest in popular culture analytically as the masque- and then hold back when rade, is one of which she is a something gets this popular. mistress. It can be used by Inevitably, any analysis never powerful women as a way of comes near articulating the disguising their threat. But sheer physical joy that her the threat remains - to put performance exudes. on femininity with a ven- But many also miss her geance suggests the power cleverness. She is contin- of taking it off. ually described as smart. Which is what makes the Not clever, not intellectual, promise of the movie - not thoughtful, but smart. As 'Madonna like you've never in sussed, sassy, streetwise seen her before' - even - a pragmatic kind of intel- more of a come-on. It feeds ligence that is continually directly into the very cul- devalued by those who prefer tural preoccupations which their feminism to remain she has so successfully ex- rather abstract. Her acute ploited - the dichotomy bet- selfconsciousness about im- ween image and reality. We age.our collective use of star want our stars both to be out images, and indeed her own of the ordinary and yet some- constant changes of appea- how representative of the or- rance, gives her career a dinary. What makes Madon- remarkable consistency. na ordinary is her upfront Sometimes this can be plain aspiration to be somebody, to Getting into bed with Madonna embarrassing. The bits in be important. What makes the film where we are sup- her extraordinary is that she Material Girl posed to be seeing 'the real has done it. Her naked ambi- Madonna' - bleaching her tion makes us even more un- Of the holy trinity of Mat- Ms Ciccone, on the other hair and bitching on the comfortable than her naked erial Girls that dominated hand, is very much alive. phone - are, like many of her body. Women may know the 80s, only one is success- More than a Lucky Star has onstage routines, just too ob- what they want, but they are fully negotiating the 90s. made one of the most famous vious, too over the top. Too still not supposed to show Margaret Thatcher has been women in the world. So why much honesty flips over what they want. reduced to grumbling on the do so many on the Left feel easily into its reverse. Can Somewhere along the line, back benches - the House of decidedly dodgy about get- we trust anything she shows we still like to think that Commons is where you go ting into bed with her, despite us? We see Madonna crying stars are born, not made. when you've got nothing her eloquent espousal of all at her mother's grave, fellat- Yet many of our biggest better to do - and Joan Col- the right causes - women's ing a bottle, bawling out her stars, like Schwarzenegger, lins to 'acting' for the BBC. and gay issues, outspoken tour manager. have completely reconstruct- Dynasty has finally been laid support for Aids research, We come away knowing ed themselves. There is no- to rest and Alexis Colby has and her continuing insist- nothing. The myth is left in- thing natural about this, and gone to the great bubble- ence on freedom of speech? tact. Onstage it is the real Schwarzenegger's assimila- bath in the sky. Yet Madonna Shouldn't we be glad to have Madonna, off it a pale imita- tion into the American Dream just goes from strength to her on our side? tion of a star - charming, is as bizarre as his accent. strength. This unease about her use infantile, obsessive. Madonna There are no more secrets. She was the main attraction of sexuality as a power base knows her place, and it is at Politics too is now openly dis- at Cannes, where her doc- surfaced again recently in a the end of a long line of cussed in terms of appear- umentary In Bed With Mad- piece by Ros Coward. Under- female icons from Garbo to ances and sound-bites. Long onna was premiered. She has standing the power of sex or Monroe who, unlike her, gone are the times when ex- been on the cover of Vanity the sexiness of power simply were not in control of their posing such conscious tamp- Fair, The Face, and Q. For may not be good enough - own images, let alone their ering with image would have some time she has been ultimately it doesn't give own lives. This skill amply blown apart credibility. taught on women's studies women real freedom or real demonstrates her shrewd Today it is an index of suc- courses and, as if anyone power. But if 80m dollars manipulation of the history cess. Nobody understands apart from himself cares any of the cinema. this better than Madonna. doesn't give you real power I Whether she is slobbing more, Michael 'Get Into The don't know what does. Such techniques of irony Groove' Ignatieff pronounced about in her dressing gown Is she just too hot to handle? and media literacy, though or discussing her art, she from the great height of his On her last tour, the press prized in the hands of men, Observer column that she reveals very little of herself, fell over themselves to tell become distinctly troubling but a hell of a lot about the was not a proper 'artist'. In- us that, even kitted out in in the hands of women - and stead, he prefers dead Mar- mechanisms of stardom, and Gaultier corsets, she was not when turned on to the ques- that peculiar state of perma- ilyn. After all, there's no- sexy enough, as though tion of femininity itself, thing like dying to bring out nent adolescence which our Madonna's aim in life was to transgressive. The tabloids culture calls 'fame'. divinity in a woman. titillate a bunch of hyperven- may have shrieked that she 13 MARXISM TODAY JULY 1991.