If there is any star on this Earth who serves as an exemplar of being damned if you do and damned if you don’t, it’s one, Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone. From the moment she burst onto the scene (and caused certain men to burst out of their pants), Madonna has been condemned for being either too this, too that or not enough of this, not enough of that. Too sexual, not talented enough. Too ambitious, not caring enough. Too caring (therefore “fake”), not focused enough on her career anymore. The pendulum-swinging list goes on. And in the wake of her health scare heard ‘round the world (indeed, not since Madonna fell off her horse in 2005 has her health had quite such a scare), the latest thing Madonna gets to be accused of after being “obsessed” with immortality is, in fact, being mortal.
Although the media and hoi polloi have long demanded of Madonna that she “act her age” and “surrender to being ‘old,’” her “brush with death” has proven that no matter what she does, in the eyes of the public, they want her to be the exact opposite only when it’s convenient for them. And, at present, what’s convenient for them is wanting her to go back to “being her immortal self.” The one who would say (and mean) shit like, “So, how do I stay in shape? It’s all in your head… It’s called will, it’s called no one’s gonna stop me, and how I stay in shape is no one’s gonna stop me. And how I stay in shape is I don’t believe in limitations.” Alas, her body is apparently not in agreement with her mind at this juncture. And it likely has everything to do with her tendency to push herself to the physical limits whenever she’s about to embark on a world tour. For, despite having passed more choreography on to her backup dancers in recent years (like Kylie Minogue in the “Padam Padam” video), Madonna is still very much involved in all the dance numbers that go on. She is, after all, a dancer at her core. That’s what set her entire career into motion. So hell no, she ain’t gonna stop dancing. Regardless of so-called age limitations.
That said, the likelihood of her getting a bacterial infection stemming from pushing herself to the brink while rehearsing is all but assured. Almost as much as the public suddenly using it as an opportunity to say either 1) see? We told you she was old and should slow down or 2) why can’t she prove herself to be the sole intstance of pop icon immortality like she always said she would be? Either way, the public wins by setting up Madonna to fail in one manner or the other. That her own family should take the chance to swoop in and further plant the seeds about Madonna’s frailty is also telling of what the pop star is up against. That is to say, being unable to trust even those theoretically closest to her to have a little faith and uphold her image of being physically “infallible.” Because for someone like Madonna to lose hold of that image is especially heart-wrenching when considering she came of age in an era of stardom when “presentation” and “illusion” still meant everything. When it wasn’t fashionable to “let it all hang out” with no sense of polish. In short, at a time when being a star meant never pulling back the curtain behind the Wizard of Oz. Not in the name of “inclusivity,” “body positivity” or anything else.
So for an unnamed member of the Ciccone brood to come out (and to The Daily Mail of all places) with tidbits like how the family was “preparing for the worst,” that she “believes that she is invincible” and that she “has been wearing herself thin over the past couple of months” is only an additional blow to someone who already has to deal with the wagging tongues of so many non-family members as well. Except that, as is usually the case, only when she’s been felled do the masses finally throw her a bone with a touch of sympathy and appreciation (even if that wasn’t really what went down when she took a tumble due to a wardrobe malfunction at the 2015 BRIT Awards). Only then do they suddenly remember how bangin’ all her hits are, everything she’s achieved and all she’s done for the LGBTQIA+ community.
To this point, it was during a 1995 VH1 interview with Jane Pratt that Madonna sagely remarked, “When I’m dead, they’ll finally kiss my ass.” That seems to be exactly what’s happening now, even if only with the “threat” of her death, as people start to realize just how valuable she is to pop culture. Nay, she is pop culture. Even more than a particular woman who came before her: Cher. An icon that, let it be known, likely hasn’t had any public health issues because she’s more or less been in retirement (at least tour-wise) since the 00s. A decade when Madonna, in contrast, managed to achieve some of her biggest successes, including major album sales from Music and Confessions on a Dance Floor, as well as entering the Guinness Book of World Records for the highest-grossing tour by a female artist thanks to the 2008-2009 Sticky & Sweet Tour.
In the same aforementioned interview, Madonna reminded, “When Marilyn Monroe was alive, they were so vicious and cruel to her. They ripped her to shreds. They wouldn’t give it up to her in any way, shape or form. And then when she died, it was just like, ‘Oh, she’s a comedic genius.’ I mean, excuse me… They do that to everybody.” But Madonna definitely leads the pack on having such a thing done to her. And, in Marilyn’s favor, at least she was a star during a time when memes didn’t yet exist for people to so ruthlessly mock her (which they surely would have vis-à-vis her pill and alcohol addiction), or her own various health scares that she had throughout her career. But again, it was an era when any such “imperfections” of celebrities were protected under lock and key thanks to studio “fixers” and vague gossip column reverence. Not to mention an era when you were typically “put out to pasture” as a woman by the age of forty or sooner.
What’s more, Madonna is a rare exception in the annals of most pop culture icons in that she never allowed any drug-related vices to get the better of her. Thus, outliving so many of her contemporaries—Prince and Michael Jackson included. But the older Madonna gets, the more likely she is to become extremely private about her health. After all, it’s something people love to use against her as a means to lord mortality over her, as though getting off on the fact that she’s actually human while, at the same time, treating her so inhumanely with their nonstop barrage of venomous comments whenever she reveals any modicum of weakness (whether physical or emotional). By the same token, they begrudge her for insisting that she is, in truth, immortal.
As she’s quoted saying in a 2015 Vice article, “I want to live forever and I’m going to.” Indeed, even if Madonna dies, she’s going to live on. And those either relishing her ICU stay or all at once getting the notion to appreciate her in lieu of joining in on the usual “shit on Madonna” parade would do well to remember that.
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