Core-Post: Madonna and Gender-Play

bell hook’s article on Madonna was fascinating to me. I have early childhood memories of my mom blasting Madonna throughout the house, dancing to Into the Groove and Holiday and her plethora of other hits. I actually have only seen a handful of Madonna music videos, but this article made me think about this idea of Madonna gaining cultural capital through her “fascination and envy of blackness.” The fact that black people cannot do this with white culture highlights power dynamics. The Like a Prayer video features a black choir in a black church with a black Jesus and then Madonna. She dances around and celebrates this caricatures of a culture she envies but does not understand. As hooks states, Madonna is unable to recognize black pain and oppression through her envy. 

After I finished this video, I decided to watch a few more. The Hung Up video juxtaposes Madonna in a purple leotard dancing in a ballet studio with young men and women of color dancing on a street corner with a stereo. In this, she says that the studio is a natural space for her as is the street for these people of color. She dances throughout the studio and only at the end does she walk through the streets, gazing at black men and then going to a club where they all dance in utopia. Madonna’s vision of this post-racial utopia is unattainable for several reasons, but one main one seems to be that Madonna does not realize how her privilege operates. She showcases people of color on the street and dancing in a Chinese restaurant, and through making these spaces look fun and care-free she ignores the violence, oppression and pain that often come attached with the spaces these people of color exist in. A side-note would be Madonna as this capitalist product who encourages dancing but only after a long hard day of work. The worker at the restaurant waits for his shift to be over so that he can do what he loves: dance. In no way does this discourage the viewer from working, but instead suggests that to have fun we must work, the two cannot exist in isolation. It makes sense that if Madonna exists as a poster-child for entertainment as distraction, then she also would hold or at least perpetuate the inherent racism that exists in our current capitalist structure. I do thoroughly enjoy Madonna’s music and imagery, but I have noticed that her success has come at the appropriation of black, brown and queer bodies. A white girl taking vogue-ing to the main-screen juxtaposed with trans people of color creating a space to explore identity in Paris Is Burning represents how white people are able to appropriate elements of other cultures without elevating the status of those who partake in said cultures. While Madonna sees vogue-ing as hip and trendy, many view it as a tool for survival and self-expression. Venus Xtravaganza says that she wants to be a spoiled rich white girl, and it makes sense when you look at Madonna and her ability to walk through the streets and to go to ballet studios and to burn crosses and to vogue with queer folk and to basically exist in any space and not fear for her life. The Seeing and Being Seen articles comments on how both drag queens and Madonna see the benefits and privilege of the feminized women. However the safety Madonna has in displaying this femininity wherever she places juxtaposed with those in Paris is Burning who can only display their femininity in certain spaces highlights how gender play is caught up in gendered power dynamics.  Madonna uses gender-play and racial appropriation for economic gain, while the groups she stereotypes do not benefit.

“It makes no difference if you're black or white
If you're a boy or a girl
If the music's pumping it will give you new life
You're a superstar, yes, that's what you are, you know it” sings Madonna in Vogue. The thing is: it does matter. And her entire image serves as evidence of this fact.