The Madonna Connection by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781000303094
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2019-07-09T00:00:00+00:00

Feminist Theory and the Dream of Substance

As a prelude to my discussion, I will use Madonna's appearance on "Nightline," which nicely illustrates feminism's realist problems and its turn toward postmodernism. Such a choice may seem odd because this particular interview probably stands as Madonna's most fiercely "modernist" appearance on television: She answers the questions put to her directly and carefully, she responds to ABC reporter Forrest Sawyer as the typical serious interviewee, with pen in hand, and she is dressed quite conservatively in a simple black jacket with her hair pulled back from her face. Yet, this is precisely the point of my beginning here: Her appearance on the program raises several questions central to the problem of feminism, postmodernism, and political articulation. Madonna's modernist representation exposes many of the contradictions in the realist approach to representational politics. It is these theoretical traps that lead feminist theory to abandon a politics of praxis in favor of postmodern promises.

The "Nightline" program was structured into three parts, with an initial report from Ken Kashiwahara reviewing Madonna's "controversial" career, followed by the uncensored, full-length version of the Justify My Love video, and culminating in a live interview between Sawyer in a New York City studio and Madonna appearing via satellite on a screen to his left. The overtly stated purpose of the program was to explore the controversy surrounding the Justify My Love video, including MTV's refusal to air the tape. Sawyer asked Madonna a series of questions, first confronting her intentions in the controversy: "A lot of people in the industry are saying, look, this is one of the best self-promoters in the business ... it was all, in a sense, a kind of publicity stunt." He followed this inquiry with several questions that implied she had crossed the boundaries of acceptability—for example, "People are saying that there's a kind of trend here, where you are pushing the limits of what's permissible a little bit further each time ... where is that line?" Later in the interview, he questioned whether Madonna was promoting her artistic experimentation at the expense "of the responsibility that comes along with the kind of prominence that you have, and the fact that you're a role model for people." Finally, he asked her to respond to charges that she was promoting the degradation of women in her videos.

What is important to note here is that all of Sawyer's questions originated from a perspective that assumes images are literally and inescapably linked to both their artistic origin and their subsequent reception by audiences. Madonna answered his charges on the same realist epistemological grounds—hence, my earlier comment that this appearance on "Nightline" represents a particularly modernist chapter in Madonna's public persona. Her responses were grounded in a defense of artistic free expression and a passionate stand against censorship, while her demeanor was that of the careful college debater. She spoke of herself in the classic sense of a unified, transcendent subject as she stated, "I do everything by my own volition.

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