There are few questions in my life that I have answered as quickly as "do you want to see a video of Madonna falling down some stairs?" When that magic moment happened, I was in the lobby of the optometrist. Fitting. Until then, my eyes had been but half-opened.
While the video buffered on the receptionist's desktop, I had a moment to reflect. How old is she at this point? Sixty? Is this the kind of person I am?
While the video buffered on the receptionist's desktop, I had a moment to reflect. How old is she at this point? Sixty? Is this the kind of person I am?
Tina Fey has a line about the difference between making an audience laugh and making comedians laugh. The audience will laugh if you dress someone up like an old woman and push them down the stairs. To make a comedian laugh, you have to actually push an old woman down the stairs. I don't think that's true for me. I don't want to see harm come to old women as a rule. I don't know why I should feel differently about Madonna.
It might be because everyone talked about Madonna during a time when it was hard to get out of the way. Entertainment Tonight is doing a segment about the special effect makeup in Hellraiser, but it's going to be on after fifteen minutes of discussing Madonna's new tour. Penn & Teller are doing the water tank escape on SNL, but Madonna is hosting, so try to make the most of it.
It might be the way she presumed to speak on behalf of all sexuality. I mean, bless her heart for thinking that aluminum and peroxide was going to change the way human beings fornicate, but stop pushing so hard on human biology, Madonna. Sing better.
So when the YouTube play button appeared, I was reconsidering my enthusiasm. This was going to be a sad coda to the career of a very generic entertainer. I didn't want to kick someone while she was down.
The video started.
The amazing thing isn't that Madonna happened to stumble in front of a camera, it's that Madonna is still in full effect somewhere. She's wearing a cape, for God's sake. And if there's one thing more pretentious than wearing a cape, it's having people remove your cape. And if there's one thing more pretentious than having people remove your cape, it's having people hold your cape still while you step out of it. And if there's one thing more pretentious than stepping out of a cape anchored by your footservants, it's doing all of that while you're ascending a flight of stairs.
If I had prayed before seeing this video, it would have been for this very thing: self-inflicted pageantry. She was screaming the thing she has been saying with every action since 1984. "Look at me."
And then, no modest stumble, no simple misstep. The ties of her cape, preordained to slip from her pale throat, maintain their stubborn grip on her neck the way she herself has held onto her fame; coldly and joylessly. She is clotheslined by modest friction and enormous ostentation.
She must have made a sound, and it must have been «gurk».
I don't know the aftermath of this. I know she didn't die, I know she's not in an iron lung. The fact that she isn't injured is part of the perfection of it all. But I don't know how she reacted to it. There are two things that I want so badly that I can't decide between them.
One of them is that I want her to have reacted like a monster, firing people and demanding apologies, because if she's terrible then she will have deserved all of the embarrassment.
But the other option is that I want her to have laughed. That would be great. That's all, I think, that most of us ever want -- some indication that those who purport to drift above us all know in some fundamental way that it's all a dim scam.
The beauty of this time in which we live is that I can exist in the overlapping space of those unresolved possibilities. I don't have to open Schrödinger's box, because this cat is not my cat.
Being famous is no longer a guarantee that the unwilling will know anything about you. I know that there ARE Kardashians, but I'm not forced to know anything else. Its harder to really dislike someone when the option to like someone else is always open.
It might be because everyone talked about Madonna during a time when it was hard to get out of the way. Entertainment Tonight is doing a segment about the special effect makeup in Hellraiser, but it's going to be on after fifteen minutes of discussing Madonna's new tour. Penn & Teller are doing the water tank escape on SNL, but Madonna is hosting, so try to make the most of it.
It might be the way she presumed to speak on behalf of all sexuality. I mean, bless her heart for thinking that aluminum and peroxide was going to change the way human beings fornicate, but stop pushing so hard on human biology, Madonna. Sing better.
So when the YouTube play button appeared, I was reconsidering my enthusiasm. This was going to be a sad coda to the career of a very generic entertainer. I didn't want to kick someone while she was down.
The video started.
The amazing thing isn't that Madonna happened to stumble in front of a camera, it's that Madonna is still in full effect somewhere. She's wearing a cape, for God's sake. And if there's one thing more pretentious than wearing a cape, it's having people remove your cape. And if there's one thing more pretentious than having people remove your cape, it's having people hold your cape still while you step out of it. And if there's one thing more pretentious than stepping out of a cape anchored by your footservants, it's doing all of that while you're ascending a flight of stairs.
If I had prayed before seeing this video, it would have been for this very thing: self-inflicted pageantry. She was screaming the thing she has been saying with every action since 1984. "Look at me."
And then, no modest stumble, no simple misstep. The ties of her cape, preordained to slip from her pale throat, maintain their stubborn grip on her neck the way she herself has held onto her fame; coldly and joylessly. She is clotheslined by modest friction and enormous ostentation.
She must have made a sound, and it must have been «gurk».
I don't know the aftermath of this. I know she didn't die, I know she's not in an iron lung. The fact that she isn't injured is part of the perfection of it all. But I don't know how she reacted to it. There are two things that I want so badly that I can't decide between them.
One of them is that I want her to have reacted like a monster, firing people and demanding apologies, because if she's terrible then she will have deserved all of the embarrassment.
But the other option is that I want her to have laughed. That would be great. That's all, I think, that most of us ever want -- some indication that those who purport to drift above us all know in some fundamental way that it's all a dim scam.
The beauty of this time in which we live is that I can exist in the overlapping space of those unresolved possibilities. I don't have to open Schrödinger's box, because this cat is not my cat.
Being famous is no longer a guarantee that the unwilling will know anything about you. I know that there ARE Kardashians, but I'm not forced to know anything else. Its harder to really dislike someone when the option to like someone else is always open.
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