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Dialogues@RU is published
annually
by the
Writing Program at
Rutgers, The State
University of New Jersey
Volume Two
Spring 2003
Madonna: Rebel
With a Cause? - Page 1
by Duyen Pham
Commentary: Neha Bagchi
Response: Duyen Pham
Madonna and Tony Ward in Justify My Love (1990).
Music is one of the most universally accessible forms of artistic expression and interpretation. It has the ability to transcend language and cultural barriers. Unlike fine literature or classic paintings, one need not possess prior schooling or a high place in society to experience or appreciate even most classical music. Pop music is, by its very nature, the most accessible genre of musical aestheticism. It is produced with the tastes of society in mind and is thus devoured by the populace, whose appetite for catchy beats seems insatiable. Madonna, with a career spanning two decades of number-one selling albums, has not only been the most successful artist in satisfying the public's hunger for pop music, but-to both those who love her and those who love to hate her-the most meaningful. To fans, she signifies a refreshingly new breed of feminism; to critics, a social disease that gnaws away at the moral fiber holding society together-one that must be eradicated. Particularly through her practices of "gender bending," Madonna has become the world's biggest and most socially significant pop icon, as well as the most controversial. She dares to use the tools that were intended by the patriarchy for domination to defy and transgress the norms instilled by that elite class. Madonna is a rebel with a cause.
Madonna was born into the realm of American pop culture in the 1980s, alongside the launch of Music Television (MTV) in 1981. Quickly adopted into American mainstream youth culture, MTV played a significant role in launching Madonna's career through airing a series of cleverly crafted and highly controversial videos. She remained in the spotlight as she constantly morphed into new personas and pushed the limits of gender and sexuality. Even as the MTV darling's racy video for the song "Justify My Love" was banned from the very channel that made her a star, Madonna maintained-and gained even more-popularity. Her music and performances invoked a tidal wave of scholarly analysis, harsh criticism, and, in spite of her gender bending (or, as I suggest, because of it), claims by many that Madonna is a feminist for the new generation-all factors that have kept her in the limelight.
Pop music is readily accessible, both in terms of the public's understanding and interest in the music and the volume of pop music available to listeners. Combined with its infectious rhythms, attractive performers, and dazzling dance routines, it is no wonder that the public constantly yearns for more pop music. By extension, popular music can be used by the dominant (male) class to manipulate subordinate classes. Although pop music may seem benign and insignificant, the elite male-dominant class recognizes the enormous power it wields over the masses through controlling and producing pop music. According to John Fiske, cultural theorist and professor of communication arts at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, the audience (the masses) is in complete control of what is transformed into popular culture. Fiske would declare that pop music presents a mass-culture smorgasbord from which people pick and choose what is to be made into popular culture. He would also contend that the people do this according to their own sets of values. Fiske writes that "[p]opular culture is typically bound up with the products of mass culture and technology of mass culture, but its creativity consists in its way of using these products and technologies, not in producing them" (325). He generously assigns the process of culture making to the masses, while naively failing to regard the influence that the producers of pop music (predominantly male) have over the way an image is presented or a lyric expressed. Producers of pop music are keenly aware of the power they exert over the masses and seek to exploit this knowledge to the fullest extent possible by using pop music to manipulate people's thoughts in relation to the music.
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