on Mar 26th, 2006Madonna, Age Discrimination, and Senior Prom Faux Pas
Senior prom is a big deal. What’s even more of a big deal is being asked to go in the first place so you can go about the business of spending, in some cases, thousands of dollars, for the big night. The notion of sharing the night with a boy you adore is almost an afterthought. It’s all about the preparation, the fantasy, and the free pass to converse with your girlfriends about who’s going to make a fool of themself or show up drunk or break up over the whole deal. The worst case scenario is not being asked at all and suffering the shame of being unwanted.
Jump cut to twenty years later and you’re Madonna, still fashioning music that plays to 18-year-olds, but suddenly you discover your age makes you a wallflower at the radio dance party. It’s strange to read that playlists at radio stations have embargoed Madonna’s music because, quite frankly, she’s an old bat, quasi British no less, who has no business tapping into the sensibility of America’s youth, despite the quality of the music. But hey, that’s the nature of cliques in high school. You’re either in or out and that rest is one sorry cliche of feeling ostracized and unappreciated.
What’s an artist like Madonna to do? Start turning her back catalogue into Muzak to be piped into assisted living facilities or nursing homes to calm the nerves of agitated seniors?
Our suggestion: nurture. It’s time to stop playing Mommie Dearest with the public and focus on channeling your brilliant creativity into your own children, the ones who have grown up listening to your music and desperately crave the attention that comes from being recognized for who they are. In other words, nurture your children instead of making them compete for your attention with the public.
Otherwise they may find themselves pursuing a life in public to replace what was missing from their childhood, namely their mother. Don’t pass on your loss of not having your mother in childhood. Nobody wants to be the wallflower, especially in their own family.
For you lingering feminists who resent the concept of a woman actually nurturing a human being other than herself, take your dusty eggs and break them into the iron skillet and repeat after me this line from C.S. Lewis, “No clever arrangement of bad eggs ever made a good omelet.”
Many leading radio stations in the United States now regard the 47-year-old Anglophile as passée and are refusing to give her the airtime she once enjoyed.
Her new single Sorry, which topped the charts in Britain, last week stalled at number 58 on the US Billboard Hot 100, which takes into account both airplay and sales. Now in its fourth week of release, the single languishes at number 77.
Madonna: Too old, too white and too English
Chris Hastings and Beth Jones
Telegraph, 26/03/2006