Madonna’s longstanding Popularity:

An analysis of David Tetzlaff’s article ‘Metatextual Girl’:

Madonna is popular with many people as she is able to transverse many age groups, subcultures and ethnicities. Her popularity derives from her iconic image as fashionable in a time and moment. She is able to remain contemporary over a long period of time by changing her image. Madonna remains popular by continuing to ‘push the envelope of exposure’.[1]

John Fiske feels that fans and the media’s interest in Madonna rest on ‘what she looks like, who she is, and what she stands for than to what she sounds like.’ The music is irrelevant compared to her image and culture she creates.

Tetzlaff: asks – ‘Is her audience attracted by the sort of charismatic, symbolic personality possessed by old-time Hollywood film stars?’

Tetzlaff believes that this is not the case because in comparison to old Hollywood stars Madonna is not a ‘memorable character’.

 

Tetzlaff: asks – ‘Is her audience attracted by the sort of charismatic, symbolic personality possessed by old-time Hollywood film stars?’

 Marilyn Monroe

                   Tetzlaff believes that this is not the case because in comparison to old Hollywood stars Madonna is not a ‘memorable character’.  

 

Tetzlaff perceives Madonna’s responses to the media as ‘manipulative’ and to be ‘media savvy’. The information she chooses to disclose is provocative, radical and contradictive opposed to old female Hollywood Stars whom had a clear stance on political issues which thereby adds to Madonna’s persona defining her as a mystery.

 

I believe that Madonna does in fact act like an ‘old-time Hollywood Star’ in presenting herself as a mystery by providing the media with intimate details. Hollywood stars were in fact ‘media savvy’ presenting themselves a certain way behind the scenes and on screen to form an identity. Madonna’s appeal lies in her image and charisma in the same way as Marilyn Monroe. Both stars shared intimate details with the media portraying themselves as individuals in order to install and maintain popularity.   

 

An article by Richard Dyer supports the notion of Madonna:     

 

Dyer believes ‘stars are made for profit’ and ‘a star’s image is a given, like machinary’. He relates a star to Karl Marx’s definition of ’congealed labour’ wherein ‘something that is used with further labour to produce another commodity.’ Madonna’s image can be regarded as a machine which develops itself to produce further transformations and replications to her image. 

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[1] Dyer, Richard, 2999. ‘Heavenly Bodies: Film Stars and Society’ in Film Theory: An Anthology. Robert Stam, Toby Miller (eds.), Oxford: Blackwell, p.603-617.

 

[2] Dyer, Richard, 2999. ‘Heavenly Bodies: Film Stars and Society’ in Film Theory: An Anthology. Robert Stam, Toby Miller (eds.), Oxford: Blackwell, p.603-617.

 

Hollywood stars conveyed an ‘image’ of the ‘real’ person in their films to their reality. Madonna plays with this idea within the film ‘Truth or Dare’. She conducts her presentation on screen to be honest and truthful by behind the scenes and being overly  indigant towards others that were not sincere. An example of this is of her mocking tone towards other famous people who credit themselves as her friends. The film instead portrays her as someone who will relate to an ordinary person, such as the dancers that she says she ‘likes to mother’ informing the viewer that they came from disadvantaged backgrounds. Thus, Madonna illustrates herself as an individual linking herself to the viewer. The concept of the ‘individual’ was reiterated through the star as their ‘soul’ and ‘true self’ was identified in the film projecting the notion of the viewer as bestowing an identitiy.[2]                 

 

The individuality that Madonna illustrates instructs viewers that she is in charge of her life and that they are also capable of it. The sixties was an era wherein sexuality was accepted and embrassed which granted Marilyn Monroe with her authenticity of a sex symbol. Her individuality was subject to consummation.  The title ‘In Bed with Madonna’ is emulated by the close-ups of her which are employed as a device to show intimacy between her and the viewer. Her ‘inner, private, essential core’ is represented in the way that old-time Hollywood stars were.

‘Hollywood’ Madonna

 

  

 

  The video clip ‘Hollywood’ presents the viewer with her ‘real’ self by providing them with intimate details. Madonna depicts private details of herself on screen such as herself being injected herself with collagen. She also illustrates herself on a home video providing the viewer with the notion of voyerism. The commodification of sexuality is translated into a repulsive vision. The idea of her body being commodified is transgressed through her body being manipulated in different ways. Madonna lies on a corpse table implying scientific observation of a fragmented body whilst also being sexually objected. The video also duplicates her body emulating Andy Warhol’s illustrations of reproducted images of stars signifying their commodification.

  

Andy Warhol

 

 

 Marilyn Monroe

 

Elvis Presley

  

Dyer :  

 

‘We’re fascinated by stars because they enact ways of making sense of the experience of being a person in a particular kind of social production (capitalism), with its particular organisation of life into public and private spheres.

This quote by Dyer may explain why publicity focuses on stars such as Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan. Do stars represent hightened products of capitalism?

Reality TV

[1]   

 

The key difference between Madonna and old-time Hollywood stars such as Marilyn is her ever-changing persona which enalbles her to maintain her popularity. 

 

Tetzlaff perceives Madonna to be presented impersonally because she does not portray a distinct personality. I believe this contributes to her prolonged popularity. although Old-time Hollywood stars project their subjectivities through similar devices they maintained a single image allowing themselves to be type cast to improve their popularity. Madonna proves this was a short term solution for success by reissuing her image improving her success-rate.

A Sunsilk addvertisment for hair product endorses Madonna’s her ever-changing image.

 

  

 3 Stages- faux, neo and uber.

 

 

Madonna, along with the Beetles was one of the longest stars ever to maintain popular and desired. 

 

 

 

POWER

Tetzlaff believes Madonna’s popularity stems from her being popular with heterosexual young women because she empowers them.

The Spice Girls empowered women- although they did not have a chance of withstanding the ever-changing public perception of desire. 

 

 

Madonna is more complex with her ideas. According to John Fiske Madonna attributes her power to young female fans through semiotic means allowing them to steer away from patriarchal ideologies projecting themselves otherwise.[1] Success is generated through manipulating her image.[2] Madonna’s multiplicity of images conveys the notion that she is an independent woman who is in charge of her subjectivity. The idea that she is able to change her identity is also installed in her female fans.

 

 

Tetzlaff believes that she was being honest when she stated ‘Power is a great aphrodisiac and I’m a very powerful person believing that she distributes her ‘aura of power’ to her female audience.

 

Modes of address In ‘Truth and Dare’: ‘I want to be political’, ‘Money makes people beautiful’, ‘Anyone can have everything’ and ‘I believe in freedom of speech’.

 

Feminism

 

Madonna presents her audience with a feminist image by enhancing the notion of control, independence and power. She gives the audience what they want to see employing semiotics to seduce the audience’s desire for her whilst causing controversy and provoking the media to ask questions inducing her popularity.

 

Kaplan perceived fans to be attracted to Madonna as she was a ‘postmodern feminist heroine’ combining ‘seductiveness’ with ‘independence’.[3]

 

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[1] Tetzlaff, David, 1993. ‘Metatexual Girl; Partiarchy, Postmodernism, Power, Money, Madonna in Madonna Connection: Representation Politics, Subcultural Identities, and Cultural Theory. Ed. Cathy Scwichtenberg. St Leonards, Sydney: Allen and Unwin: 239-263. 242

[2]

[2][2] Tetzlaff, David, 1993. ‘Metatexual Girl; Partiarchy, Postmodernism, Power, Money, Madonna in Madonna Connection: Representation Politics, Subcultural Identities, and Cultural Theory. Ed. Cathy Scwichtenberg. St Leonards, Sydney: Allen and Unwin: 239-263. 243

[3] 247

 

The artist Cindy Sherman depicts a many different images of women as subordinated to men through photographs. She subverts the idea of women as fixed by projecting her identity as unstable similarly to Madonna

http://www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/irvinem/visualarts/VisualCulture/Sherman-Untitled-no92-1981.jpg
http://davidreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/cindysherman.jpg
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/43012000/jpg/_43012407_sherman.jpg

Is Madonna’s ever-changing look subverting patriarchal discourse?

Does Madonna illustrate through her performances that gender is not naturally given but socially constructed?

Is Madonna commoditising feminism?

 http://www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/irvinem/visualarts/VisualCulture/Sherman-Untitled-no92-1981.jpg

 http://davidreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/cindysherman.jpg

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/43012000/jpg/_43012407_sherman.jpg

 

 

In Laura Mulvey’s article ‘The Gaze’ determines male spectatorship as active and the female to be represented as passive.

“In their traditional exhibitionist role women are simultaneously looked at and displayed, with their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact so that they can be said to connote to-be-looked-at-ness” [1]

Voyeurism: ‘Spectatorial desire, in contemporary film theory.  The image orchestrates a gaze, a limit, and its pleasurable transgression. The woman’s beauty, her very desirability, becomes a function of certain practices of imaging–framing, lighting, camera movement, angle.’ [2]

Madonna subverts the male protagonist on the screen who controls “the look” of the male viewers in the audience by performing an active role on camera.

Madonna subverts the control that patriarchal discourse has bestowed over women by depicting ‘The Gaze’ as obvious by performing as an overt sexual object. Madonna evident performance conveys the notion of her awareness to the gaze of the camera depicting the male voyeur. She destabilises voyeurism and pleasure associated with the women’s body.

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[1]Male Voyeurism and Female Spectatorship:
John Berger and Feminist Theories http://www.eng.fju.edu.tw/Literary_Criticism/feminism/gaze.htm#Mulvey

[2] Laura Mulvey Notes on Laura Mulvey, “The Gaze” and “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema (1975)| Thornham “Feminist Media and Film Theory (1998)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[1][1] Tetzlaff, David, 1993. ‘Metatexual Girl; Partiarchy, Postmodernism, Power, Money, Madonna in Madonna Connection: Representation Politics, Subcultural Identities, and Cultural Theory. Ed. Cathy Scwichtenberg. St Leonards, Sydney: Allen and Unwin: 239-263. 241

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[1] Tetzlaff, David, 1993. ‘Metatexual Girl; Partiarchy, Postmodernism, Power, Money, Madonna in Madonna Connection: Representation Politics, Subcultural Identities, and Cultural Theory. Ed. Cathy Scwichtenberg. St Leonards, Sydney: Allen and Unwin: 239-263. 239

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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