Material girl
Madonna IS Aging in Style
(Even if it’s not your style or mine)
If you’re ranting on Madonna’s parade, you just don’t get it.
They used to say Madonna was a flash in the pan. Here today, gone tomorrow. In the famous words of Cher Horowitz (Alicia Silverstone) in Clueless, “As if!”
•••
Flashback to 1987. The Cosby Show was the hottest thing on TV. President Ronald Reagan had just delivered his famous “Tear Down This Wall” speech. And Madonna was going for a failed acting stint in Who’s That Girl? (I’ll tell you why that’s important in a minute.)
I remember riding to the eighth-grade dance that year wearing the requisite Madonna black mesh hair tie in a then-stylish ride that has probably been in a junkyard for decades. My friends and I loudly belted out Material Girl while the big-banged mom who was driving told us to quiet down.
I didn’t like having my voice silenced, though I obviously couldn’t say it because I was just 13.
Something metaphorically emerged deep inside me that day in that dated car from the 80s, something that can never be thrown in a junkyard to rust and rot.
My fire. My need for a voice as an independent woman, free to be herself. My desire to be heard.
•••
In every stage of Madonna’s brilliant life, there have been naysayers and haters. Most recently, it’s folks who are obsessed with her obviously altered appearance.
They think she looks ridiculous; that she should allow herself to age gracefully. But let me tell you, this is exactly why we fell in love with Madonna’s persona decades ago.
In the big picture, she does what she wants. So why are you all criticizing her now?
Madonna has always pushed the boundaries. It’s who she is. Like her or hate her, she has influenced you enough to have an opinion.
And that speaks volumes.
•••
In the 90s, I secretly bought Madonna’s Sex book. Where I’m from, it was a “don’t tell” thing. You quietly shoved the plastic-covered coffee table piece under the breast of your jacket, walked up to the register with an awkward giggle, swiftly paid and walked out.
The first time I even had the guts to look at it was on a Southwest flight to Arizona. My friend and I shoved that book as close to the window as we could and turned ourselves side-facing so no one could see what we were eyeing.
There she was, exposed to the world, boobs, bush and all.
We pretended we were mortified. But the truth is we wished we could be more like her. Not in a naked sense, but in a metaphorical way.
Uninhibited. Free. Unaffected by what people think.
It was something I wouldn’t learn to embrace until my 40s. I didn’t know how to push the boundaries of my life.
I didn’t know how to push aside other people’s opinions, accept that I was awkward at times or accept that I was different than my friends who were traversing corporate America.
I did not know how to be myself.
Through the years, that early seed of freedom that Madonna planted in my heart grew. It gave me the courage to express my voice. The courage to be who I want to be, regardless of what others think or how they judge me.
•••
Now, Madonna is establishing her version of the relevance of an aging woman. Sure, you might disagree with her choice to have work done (I wouldn’t make the choice she has), but she doesn’t give a damn what you think. And that’s what I love about her.
She’s not about to sit back and let the world pass her up while she reminisces about years gone by. She’s giving a nod to feminism for women past 50.
And yes, I hear you when you say that she is being directly contradictory to feminism by altering her appearance. But feminism looks like a lot of different things to a lot of different people.
That’s the beauty of it.
At the end of the day, the key takeaway is that it’s a woman’s choice how she ages. Gone are the days when a woman must conform to societal standards, whether it be aging gracefully or making a choice to get “work” done.
A woman can be who she wants to be, and Madonna consistently demonstrates that.
Madonna has always been a champion of a woman’s right to choose her path, her beliefs, how she presents herself and the way she lives her life.
And the thing about Madonna is she knows how to fail and reinvent. She has reinvented herself over and over again, never getting stuck in a rut. Did she let her arguably failed acting gig in Who’s That Girl? define her?
No. She kept pushing forward.
Very few female performers can say they paved the way for the modern music video, what a concert looks like as a full technological and choreographed production and what it looks like to continue to produce new music in each decade — over and over again.
She’s not afraid to try and fail. She’s going for it, no matter what it is. That drive is a part of her charisma.
She was, and still is the “material girl.” She makes you think, be it good bad or indifferent.
I look at it this way. Maybe “material” is, at this stage in life, more than style. Maybe it’s a way of life, and that way of life is freedom of self-expression.
So what if she alters her appearance? You don’t have to. I don’t have to. But aren’t you glad she has that choice? That independence?
I know I am. And that’s why Madonna is aging in style.
