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From: robert@fear.UUCP (Robert Plamondon)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Re: Re: Madonna, role model
Message-ID: <209@fear.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 21-Jun-85 14:10:21 EDT
Article-I.D.: fear.209
Posted: Fri Jun 21 14:10:21 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 26-Jun-85 06:18:44 EDT
References: <273@cmu-cs-g.ARPA> <841@ccice5.UUCP> <2222@topaz.ARPA> <492@rtech.UUCP>
Organization: Weitek Corp. Sunnyvale Ca.
Lines: 45
Summary: Taking Madonna seriously?

In article <492@rtech.UUCP>, jeff@rtech.UUCP (Jeff Lichtman) writes:
[About anti-Madonna flame]
> I agree completely.  But have you listened to her song "Material
> Girl"?  The message in that song is even worse than that implied by
> her one-dimensional sexual image.  (I won't even give her two
> dimensions, as Ellen did.) I've tried listening to it as a satire,
> but it doesn't wash.  She's really saying that she doesn't give a
> shit for boys without money, and that she's justified in using her
> sexuality to get material wealth.

You clearly haven't seen the video.  The video interleaves the
"Material Girl" dance number with a subplot that completely denies
the message of the song.

> I worry more about the love for mindlessness in our culture than I do
> about specific manifestations of this (like Madonna).  It's true that
> popular entertainment is usually shallow, but we seem to be hitting a low
> point these days.

The real low point is in people's ability to recognize normalcy.
Madonna is unusually shallow?  What about Helen Kane, with her smash
single "I wanta be loved by you" in 1928 -- the original
"boop-oop-a-doop" song? Not to mention Mae West in the '30s and '40s.

Today's music is shallow? Has everyone forgotten disco?

			***

	"And one fine night
	They leave the pool hall,
	Heading for the dance at the armory.
	Libertine men, SCARLET WOMEN,
	And RAGTIME! SHAMELESS MUSIC
	That will grab your son,
	Your daughter,
	In the arms of a jungle,
	Animal instinct:
	Mass hysteria!"

		-- Prof. Harold Hill,
		   "Trouble"
		   From "The Music Man"
-- 
		-- Robert Plamondon
		   {turtlevax, resonex, cae780}!weitek!robert