Sunday, November 20, 2005
All Hail The Queen
Before I was allowed to graduate from college, I had to take a performance course. Nobody could explain to me why it was a requirement, only giving me the vague explanation that it is part of the school's history and that the nuns valued it (?), but cheerfully pointed out that I didn't have to take an acting class, I could take Oral Interpretations of Literature, which was much better because you don't need costumes and it sounds vaguely pornographic.
Traditionally, the class was about teaching you tools with which to properly read aloud poetry, drama and literature, but my particular class was taught by an adjunct, which everybody knows is just a keyword for "renegade". And since he had already planned on not coming back, he threw caution to the wind and mainly we spent a semester telling stories and doing one somewhat literature-oriented project about Hamlet, which was observed by the head of the English department and which led to a near hysterical spiel of mine in which I likened George W. Bush to Claudius and passionately denounced his love of chicken fingers and confetti. It didn't make any more sense at the time, don't worry.
One of our final assignments was to be given a random word of the professor's choosing and discuss its meaning and importance and relevance, all of which would be fine if it didn't have to be done onstage and if my chosen word wasn't salacious. Other people had interesting words (popsicle and beans are the only two that I remember at the moment) and there I am with salacious. The most important thing to note is that I am one of the least salacious people on the planet. Plainly speaking, I am uptight. So acting out salaciousness was not going to happen, because I am just not wired that way, and I decided to just talk about being salacious. So what could I do, I wondered. I didn't want to spend the entire time talking about The Wife of Bath, because I wanted people to be awake, and then it hit me. Who is the most salacious, provocative and amazing person of all time?
MADONNA!
Okay, fine, so she doesn't have anything to do with literature. Whatevs. I told the class that I loved Madonna and would choose her over anyone in the universe, and they all laughed, but I was being completely and utterly serious. I then ran down her greatest and most salacious moments, including
And so on. I was met with equal parts amusement and confusion, but that's how most people view conversing with me.
What was the point of that vignette, besides serving as therapy for a months old trauma? To ramble about Madonna, of course. For those of you who haven't yet picked up Confessions on a Dance Floor, you have to. Immediately. Like, seriously. It's everything you could ever hope a pop album would be, it's the kind of music that makes you want to just drop everything and dance, which is problematic if you are listening to it in public. The woman (who is 47OMG) looks better in hotpants and fishnets than most of us do in regular clothes. She's astounding.
Olivia recently had the privilege of seeing her perform in person (I sketched out an elaborate plan to fly to London and steal her identity in order to go myself, but my passport wasn't in order, damn it) and confirmed that she is beyond amazing. Brilliantly, she summed it up with "It was so bizarre, like she's Madonna and she's fabulous anyway, but watching her go, in a footstep, from Madonna to....MADONNA, head high, doing the Madonna stride onto stage, was just...magical." And despite my not being present (as I shake my fist at fate), I know exactly what she means.
I tried one day to look back upon my life's events and trace the genesis of my obsessive Madonna devotion and came up empty, as far as a particular moment goes. I think that it is just in my blood, though. I was born a year before her infamous VMA performance and I had parents whose brilliant idea of hands on parenting was to put MTV on and let me watch it, so one of my inspirations as a toddler, even, was Madonna. She was just an ever-present constant in my life. As I got older and more aware of things besides myself (well, to a degree), she was still everywhere. At camp in first grade, our group did a dance performance to "Like a Prayer", which basically consisted of standing like the choir from the video and clapping, with the occasional twirl tossed in. She was in A League of their Own which was and still is one of my favorite movies. And as my peers veered more and more into the world of new music, I remained firmly entrenched in the 80s, continuing to listen to her even when everybody else (in the tony suburbs) was repping Biggie and Tupac. I think it has something to do with being named after Mallory Keaton or osmosis, or something. I also distinctly remember sitting next to my radio for hours waiting for Z100 to play the world premiere of "Frozen", forgoing plans with friends and dinner, but that is more sad than anything.
I think she is just so important and so tremendous and I once had a near thesis length essay about "What Madonna Means To Me", but then I realized that some things you can't even put into words, and that's how I feel about Madonna. She's just so amazing, and so good at music and just being a celebrity and she seems so smart, and savvy and, well...go buy Confessions, and maybe you can understand if you don't already and if you do understand, you should have purchased it already!
I think we should also take a moment and pour a 40 on the carpet for Lisa, the possibly alcoholic and definitely crazy contestant eliminated last week from ANTM despite having the most consistent portfolio of anyone and being miles better than Kayla. Haters may point out that she looks to be approaching sixty and that she urinated in a diaper, but still. Let's remember Lisa for the brilliance that she gave us: "Have a Cookie"
Indeed we will, Lisa. Indeed we will.
Speaking of Top Model did anyone else watch the Tyra and Naomi throwdown on Tyra's talk show? Talk about anticlimactic. For someone so fierce and insane, Naomi was subdued and didn't fall for Tyra's high schoolish ploy to fight. I suppose that's what they mean when they talk about "taking the highroad" and all that. Oh, well. Maybe one day there will be the catfight I've waited for for so long, instead of this bizarre hugging and "We're all sisters" stuff. I'm just saying that Tyra should look out when she's in the dark.
Mallory at 11/20/2005 12:15:00 PM
1 Comments
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at 10:15 PM
CLC said... I think incorporation of a Madonna-as-centerpiece-of-upperlevel-coursework should be a prerequisite for graduation from the hallowed halls of every place that dares to call itself an institution of higher learning.
The woman is the master of reinvention (no revelation there, I know), but I appreciate her for the fact that nothing seems out of bounds, nothing seems overreaching. Okay, you are going to put out a salacious book of yourself in salacious poses. Yep, cuz you are Madonna. You are going to be in a movie about girls playing baseball? I buy it. Why? Because you are Madonna. You are going to have your first kid with a back up dancer? Sure - okay. Because you are Madonna (NOTE: Maybe this is where Britney got it in her head that mating with K-Fed would be a good idea... but Brit, Madonna didn't marry Carlos Leone). You are going to make out with a couple of pop-nymphettes on-stage one year, and then the next pose in Vanity Fair as an English aristocrat? Yes, of course. And this is all fantastic and believable, because - all together now - it is Madonna.
She is amazing. I, like you, stand in tribute to her. I also had to write a paper about her in college (in my soph yr Feminist Expression english tutorial, we all wrote about the "Like A Prayer" video - yes, indeed, this was a requirement for my major... nice).