madonna





a campy grrl…

From time to time I have wondered why so many queer people (me included) love Madonna and her music. Would it be because her music always been right in time? Is it because she never seems to be afraid to express herself? May it be because she always does things that attract attention? I will not try to answer these questions here. However I AM going talk about some of her most outrageous and campy work. Let's face it; Madonna has always been and will always be a gay icon. Gay icons are normally only liked by the gay guys, but Madonna is an exception, because dykes also like her.

The documentary Truth or Dare should be marked as one of the more important moments of Madonna's campy work. In the film Madonna takes her gaily background singers, her gay dancers, her closeted gay brother and a diversity of other extreme people on the Blond Ambition Tour. The Blond Ambition Tour is very explicit when it comes to sex and amongst other things u get to see Madonna masturbate on stage. The Vatican almost bans her show and in Toronto the police enforcement tries to make her tone down the sexual message. But she refuses to change anything and in the end they do nothing about it.

In the documentary you get to know the straight dancer Oscar. He has to struggle to keep his heterosexuality intact, against the plotting of the other gay and very campy dancers. Soon rumours starts to circulate that Oscar got his job by having slept with Madonna the situation is driven to its climax and the campy dancers are gossiping in front of the camera. Madonna has to come to rescue and as the meddling mother she makes peace in the family. The gay dancers are all gorgeous, open and campy. In Truth or Dare they become more than just weird queers. Even if it the main focus of the film is on Madonna, it is still possible to see their personalities. They are not only cute dancers, but also very political and open gay men. In New York Madonna looses her voice and the gay dancers hits the streets to parade.

One of the more important part of Madonna's popularity in gay male population probably derives from her campy videos. Who can forget the black Jesus she kisses to life in Like a Prayer or her steamy lover Tony Ward (who also is famous for his early work as an nude photo model) in Justify My Love? These videos may have sexy guys, but her more campy videos accompanied the more recent albums, especially with the album Music. In the video to the first single of the album, Music, Madonna has a night out with her girlfriends. They first go to a disco, but Madonna gets tired of dancing with the boys and instead ends up in a lesbian strip joint. The video ends with her taking the female strippers home in her car. The scene queens of Sydney should know the song American Pie by heart by now. The video doesn't make us disappointed either. The hetero family that is displayed in the video seems to be a very, very boring bunch, and the gay people happy, funky and beautiful. As a bonus the video features the sexy gay actor Rupert Everett.

One of her most controversial publications and for me one of her really big statements during her career so far has been the book SEX. Most of the material in the book displays pictures with Madonna in different sexual fantasies. The pictures are not really pornographical, but very erotic. Lesbianism is a strong theme all through the book, but also male homosexuality is displayed in very powerful images. The books were very debated when it was publicized, and were only printed in a fixed amount of copies. Already in the beginning of the book she says that everything in the book is made up. Madonna or rather her fictional personality Dita explores the world of bondage and S & M and the notion of being a dominatrix. She says: 'I talked to a dominatrix once and she said the definition of S&M was that you let someone hurt you who you know would never hurt you. It's always a mutual choice. You have an unstated agreement between you that this is the dialogue you have, an unconscious agreement. I don't even think S & M is about sex. I think it's about power, the struggle for power. S & M can involve sex, but it doesn't have to. It's a head trip' Madonna also speaks up for pornography: 'I don't see how a guy looking at a naked girl in a magazine is degrading to women. Everyone has their sexuality. It's how you treat people in everyday life that counts, not what turns you on in your fantasy.'

Madonna has always gone her own way, as many queer people. She has always question the mainstream, and has made a lot of money doing it. Madonna is and always will be one of my biggest role models for the way that she carries herself and is also a very good way to campyness.