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MEP315 SPORT, MEDIA AND CELEBRITY

MEP315 SPORT, MEDIA AND CELEBRITY. 10. CASE STUDY 4: MADONNA. Questions to address. How has Madonna’s unprecedented longevity as a female singer and actor been achieved? Is Madonna a feminist, and if so, what kind of feminism has she tended to uphold?

emily-decker
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MEP315 SPORT, MEDIA AND CELEBRITY

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  1. MEP315 SPORT, MEDIA AND CELEBRITY 10. CASE STUDY 4: MADONNA

  2. Questions to address • How has Madonna’s unprecedented longevity as a female singer and actor been achieved? • Is Madonna a feminist, and if so, what kind of feminism has she tended to uphold? • In what ways has she deconstructed stereotypes about herself and women more generally? • In the light of above questions, is Madonna a postmodern star?

  3. Madonna as ‘open text’ – unpredictable, fluid (Fiske 1989) • Madonna symbolically plays with traditional stereotypes of women – virgin and whore – in order to subtly subvert patriarchal meanings • She challenges fans to reinvent their sexual identities like she is able to do ‘on screen’ • Her ‘chameleon’ image destablises dominant representations of gender and sexuality • Madonna parodies feminine stereotypes (e.g. ‘Material Girl’ parodies Monroe as sex object)

  4. Madonna as subversive feminist • Madonna’s videos challenge the power of the ‘male gaze’ and subvert patriarchal values • ‘Open Your Heart’ – the gaze is reversed and “shown from the eyes of the woman who performs pornographic acts for the men who peep through a small screen…They look pathetic, silly and desperate…Madonna reverses the gaze by subjecting men to the scrutiny of her gaze” (Skeggs 1993: 68-9) • Madonna’s sexual and gender representations “force the spectator to question the boundaries of gender constructs and the cultural constraints on sexual themes and sexual fantasies” (Kaplan 1993: 157)

  5. Madonna as low-other (Schulze, White and Brown 1993) • Madonna seems to divide audiences into ‘fans’ and ‘haters’ • Haters dismiss her as ‘repulsive’, ‘nauseating’, ‘a whore’, ‘slut’, ‘a social disease’, ‘a monster’ • Fans find pleasure in her unconventional sexuality, carefree attitude, playfulness • Madonna represented as ‘other’ by fans and haters – only a minority could identify with her stark feminist individuality (‘she has balls’)

  6. Madonna as postmodern star? • Intertextual references (Monroe, cowgirl in ‘American Pie’ and ‘Music’, which references The Wizard of Oz) • Signifiers (imagery) over signified (meanings) e.g. Madonna’s use of images from Catholicism but rejection of its patriarchal ethos • Versatile film star roles further confuse her multifaceted celebrity identity (i.e. not fixed but fluid identities and reinvention of the self) • She represents a celebration of popular feminism / post-feminism – a confident sexual agent, role model for younger female pop stars (Gauntlett 2004)

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