That’s what the British call her - Madonna, the Material Girl.  I’ve had my issues with her over the years as a cultural icon.  It was her songs I enjoyed dancing to in the 1980’s dance clubs; she made some terrific music videos.  But I was not happy how she used her female sexuality as a form of power. It wasn’t so much a step forward for women, as I saw it, but exploiting a basic aspect of human nature. Yes, better to be exploiter than exploited, but was it really the message we wanted to teach our daughters?  So, you might be surprised to know I went to see Madonna in concert last week, the Sweet and Sticky Tour.

 For a show that I never expected to see, I really enjoyed myself. The spectacle – so many dancers, costumes, lights and videos. A tremendous value for a $70.00 ticket.  The two moms and one eleven year old daughter I went with agreed, Madonna still likes to flaunt her stuff, and still likes to push boundaries. She enjoys drama, and her stagecraft is impressive – the jump roping, the boxing ring – she looks great in satin boxing shorts.  The videos, in conjunction with singing and dancing, are powerful, provocative, and yes, political (I don’t want to give away).

 It was curiosity, I admit, more than anything that got me to the concert. Secretly, I’ve been keeping tabs on Madonna most of my adult life.  There is this strange parallelness:  we are two weeks apart in age; we each lost a parent early in life. Odd fact: we are each half French Canadian, and I think we may be related, way back, with ancestors from the same small village in France.  We were in New York City together in the mid 1980’s, and both of us working girls through our twenties, raising children later in life.  There, the difference ends, she being far more beautiful, a better dancer, with a really large bosom, and much more money.

 So, I wondered, how was Madonna going to do?  She is, after all, a fifty-year old mother of three, and perimenopausal, if not already there.  I’m here to tell you, she was putting it all out on stage, not holding back, not mailing it in.  And, like Tina Turner, it’s pretty amazing what a woman that age can do.  Still, my admiration is qualified, because, in the end, what is the point that she can keep up with twenty and thirty year olds, and that she looks terrific? from the exercise and daily maintenance. And, aside from entertainment, what is the motivation? Maybe it’s me, but underneath it all, I still detect a plea, “Look at me; don’t stop looking at me”- - A girl looking for attention who maybe didn’t get enough of the right kind when she was young. 

 In the end, though, what struck me was that Madonna is a hard-working woman who calls the shots in her life.  An artist?  Though she has command of her mediums, I don’t know what her message is, other than “Express Yourself”. There were some moments when I thought to myself, “Gee, I wish I was out there dancing, instead of sitting here watching.”  It looked tremendously fun and satisfying. If Madonna has changed, she’s not the only one.  I know now that any form of power, sexual to nuclear, is basically a tool, and it’s up to the user how it’s used.  Whatever else she’s been or done, I don’t see that Madonna has led a lifestyle that is destructive, or self-destructive.  For all the attention, the glamour, the demands, she has never been a victim of her beauty or her sexuality, and, in this society, that says a lot.