COLUMNS 3 But many also miss her cleverness. the hands of women — and when She is continually described as smart. turned on to the question of Not clever, not intellectual, not femininity itself, transgressive. The thoughtful, but smart As in sussed, tabloids may have shrieked that she sassy, streetwise — a pragmatic kind looked likea man in drag, because she of intelligence that is continually so clearly revels in the shiny surfaces devalued by those who prefer their of femininity that what is reflected feminism to remain rather abstract. back is their very artifice. This Her acute selfconsdousness about process, known psychoanalytically as image, our collective use of star im­ the masquerade, is one of which she ages, and indeed her own constant is a mistress. It can be used by power­ changes of appearance, gives her ful women as a way of disguising career a remarkable consistency. their threat But the threat remains — to put on femininity with a vengeance PROFILE Sometimes this can be plain embar­ suggests the power of taking it off. rassing. The bits in the film where we are supposed to be seeing 'the real Which is what makes the promise of Madonna Madonna' — bleaching her hair and the movie — 'Madonna like you've bitching on the telephone are, like never seen her before' — even more Of the holy trinity of Material Girls many of her onstage routines, just too of a come-on. It feeds directly into the that dominated the 80s, only one is very cultural preoccupations which successfully negotiating the 90s. Mar­ she has so successfully exploited — garet Thatcher has been reduced to the dichotomy between image and grumbling on the backbenches, and reality. We want our stars both to be Joan Collins to 'acting' for the BBC out of the ordinary and yet somehow Dynasty has finally been laid to rest representative of the ordinary. What and Alexis Colby has gone to the great makes Madonna ordinary is her bubblebath in the sky. Yet Madonna upfront aspiration to be somebody, to just goes from strength to strength. be important. What makes her ex­ traordinary is that she has done it. Her naked ambition makes us even more She was the main attraction at Can­ uncomfortable than her naked body. nes, where her documentary In Bed Women may know what they want, With Madonna was premiered. She but they are still not supposed to was been on the cover of Vanity Fair; show what they want The Face and Q. For some time she's been taught on women's studies cour- Somewhere along the line, we still obvious, too over the top. Too much like to think that stars are bom, not honesty flips over easily into its made. Yet many of our biggest stars, So why do so many on the Left feel reverse. Can we trust anything she like Schwarzenegger, have complete­ decidedly dodgy about getting into shows us? We see Madonna crying at ly reconstructed themselves. bed with her, despite her eloquent her mother's grave, fellating a bottle, espousal of all the right causes - bawling out her tour manager. There are no more secrets. Politics too women's and gay issues, outspoken is now openly discussed in terms of support for Aids research, and her We come away knowing nothing. The appearances and sound-bites. Long continuing insistence on freedom of myth is left intact. Onstage it is the gone are the times when exposing speech? Shouldn't we be glad to have real Madonna, off it a pale imitation such conscious tampering with image her on our side? of a star— charming, infantile, obses­ would have blown apart credibility. sive. Madonna knows her place, and Today it is an index of success. Is she just too hot to handle? On her it is at the end of a long line of female Nobody understands this better than last tour, the press fell over themsel­ icons from Garbo to Monroe who, un­ Madonna. Whether she is lobbing ves to tell us that, even kitted out in like her, were not in control of their about in her dressing gown or dis­ Gaultier corsets, she was not sexy own images, let alone their own lives. cussing her art, sKe reveals little of enough, as though Madonna's aim in This skill amply demonstrates her herself, but a hell of a lot about the life was to titillate a bunch of hyper- shrewd manipulation of the history of mechanisms of stardom, and that ventilating-menopoausal males. Is it the cinema. peculiar state of permanent adoles- only the little girls who understand — cence which our culture calls 'fame'. who don't have a problem with simu­ Such techniques of irony and media lated masturbation? Or, indeed, the literacy, though prized in the hands of SUZANNE MOORE is a British real thing? men, become distinctly troubling in freelance writer and film critic. AUt: AUGUST 1991.