STACK #189 Jul 2020

MUSIC FEATURE

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MADONNA Like A Virgin Bryget Chrisfield explores the creation, impact, and astonishing legacy of her favourite classic records. This month: Madonna’s Like AVirgin (1984).

“I stand before you as a doormat. Oh, I mean, as a female entertainer.” This is how Madonna kicked off her moving 2016 Billboard Woman Of The Year acceptance speech. “Thank you for acknowledging my ability to continue my career for 34 years in the face of blatant sexism and misogyny and constant bullying and relentless abuse... If you’re a girl, you have to play the game. You’re allowed to be pretty and cute and sexy. But don’t act too smart... You are allowed to be objectified by men and dress like a slut, but don’t own your sluttiness.” Right out of the gate, Madonna was sexually unashamed in a way that we were accustomed to celebrating in male singers (pretty much since Elvis). But in female artists? Not so much. Madonna oozed sexual desire from every pore while challenging the power dynamics of gender, sex, religion and race, all of which made her a hot topic of discussion in school yards, around the dinner table, in the media and even the Vatican (Pope John Paul II spoke out against Like A Prayer ’s music video). Madonna took to Instagram last year, on the 30th anniversary of this film clip’s release, posting: “30 years ago today I released Like A Prayer and made a video that caused so much controversy because I kissed a black saint and danced in front of burning crosses! I also made a commercial with PEPSI that was banned because my video was seen as inappropriate. Happy Birthday to Me and Controversy!” I was a ballet-obsessed 12-year-old when I first clapped eyes on The Queen Of Pop, recorded all of her film clips to VHS tape and played them Over And Over (badum-tsh!), studying her every move while attempting to learn the chorey (especially that cool, figure-eight-hips Holiday step), and cluelessly

mimicking her erotic posturing. Burning Up – Madonna’s second single – dropped in 1983, and scenes in the accompanying music video feature the singer executing some provocative floorwork (in the middle of a road). When Burning Up came on in a shopping centre record store around the time of release, a school chum felt compelled to drop to the floor – in full school uniform – and replicate the moves from said section of this film clip (much to the bemusement of shoppers). “A woman in control of her sex life and career was such a new idea that Madonna became the biggest thing to hit pop, and popular culture, in years,”

Year 1984

music journalist Caroline Sullivan has observed in 2011. “And she’s stayed that way: her influence on the way women came to view sex, love and themselves was so great that some universities offered courses in Madonna studies.”

seductively on each tier of the cake as she descended to stage level. Removing her veil and rearranging her permed tresses, she then put her white stilettos back on and piffed the bouquet before strutting, skipping, spinning

and rolling around on the floor. She concluded this performance by simulating sex using the veil as makeshift sexual conquest. It’s just Madonna up there, owning the

Madonna and photographer Steven Meisel

Like A Virgin ’s title track (and lead single) was debuted at the first MTV Video Music Awards in 1984. Holding a bouquet and wearing a wedding dress with bustier bodice, veil and trademark ‘Boy Toy’ belt buckle (from the album’s cover photograph, which was shot by Steven Meisel – a regular Madonna collaborator), Madonna commenced her performance atop a giant three-tiered wedding cake prop beside a tuxedoed male mannequin – a personalised wedding cake topper, of sorts. After kicking off her heels, Madonna perched

stage, and her star quality was immense; the audience hesitated, awestruck, before wild applause was punctuated by scattered whoops of appreciation. Madonna herself declared: “I have always loved to play cat and mouse with the conventional stereotypes. My Like A Virgin album cover is a classic example. People were thinking, who was I pretending to be – the Virgin Mary or the whore? These

78 JULY 2020

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