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Madonna   Term Paper ID:27298 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: Examines the topsy-turvy, ever changing career of pop star Madonna. Focuses on the 1991 film documentary TRUTH OR DARE & various critical responses to it.... More...

7 Pages / 1575 Words 10 sources, 12 Citations, MLA Format $28.00 Return to List of Papers

Paper Abstract: Examines the topsy-turvy, ever changing career of pop star Madonna. Focuses on the 1991 film documentary TRUTH OR DARE & various critical responses to it. Paper Introduction: Madonna is a pop icon who is known to reinvent herself from time to time, changing her style, changing her look, and changing her image. Image is in fact very important to Madonna. She started as the Material Girl, mirroring the attitude in her popular song. She reinvented herself as a nastier version of that girl, one who wore underwear on stage and projected sexuality. She also tried to be the dutiful wife and an actress at the same time when she was married to Sean Penn. She became even more overtly sexual after that and alternated between a raunchy stage performance and an attempt to portray a more sophisticated woman in film. In fact, one of the problems Madonna has is that she cannot settle on one image and keep it. This may please many of her fans, but it confuses others and has probably hurt her film career. She is not a bad actress but is also Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. Madonna offers something new under the sun: vicarious self-absorption. Her purpose is openness andrevelation. A stormy marriage to Sean Penn, a brisk fling with Warren Beatty, the teasing hint of a tryst with Sandra Bernhard, MTV's banning of the gender-blender Justify My Love video: no problem. . Detractors are divided into twogroups. She has a purpose in what she does, and onecritics sees that purpose as being shocking for the sake of the shockitself: Madonna's career has never really been about music; it's been about titillation, about image, about publicity. . She also tried to be the dutiful wife and an actress at thesame time when she was married to Sean Penn. . She has an image problem even when shetries to live up to the image that worked for her in the past. She believes that feminists will do that. Metuchen, New Jersey: The Scarecrow Press, 1978.Kauffmann, Stanley. At the same time, she keeps doing these things andsucceeds because publicity seems to be so powerful: No one could ever blackmail Madonna. Indiscretions other stars would pay to suppress she is happy to exploit. "Single sex and the girl: meet Madonna, scourge of the Pharisees, defender of artistic integrity, exposer of Christian uncharity." National Review (August 12, 1991), 32-35."Truth or Dare." The Economist (July 27, 1991), 82. Hermotive is to promote herself as a symbol of this new generation. . Madonna has as her purpose the exposure of her life to public view.She is not shy about discussing every aspect of her life, including her sexlife, or of showing much of it directly. Madonna's arrival here was met with an uncharacteristic yawn from the normally manic British tabloids (Kaye 7).One of her fans who had not attended her concert was waiting outside herhotel to see her. It takes a special kind of imagination to identify with a solipsist (Sobran 34).Some see this as no more than a way to get higher profits for Madonna(Aborn 62). One belittles the notion that what a pop star does is of anyconsequence. She is not taken seriously as a singer because ofher antics on and off stage, and she is not taken seriously as an actressfor the same reasons. . The consequences of Madonna's reinvention of herself is that she hasno set image, and this is affecting her fans and how they think of her. Every fresh outrage is a soaring career move (Corliss 62).The movie Truth or Dare is important for it shows how Madonna thinks aboutherself and how she shapes her image. When he was asked why he was waitingoutside her hotel, though, he said, "She's good to look at. In fact, one of theproblems Madonna has is that she cannot settle on one image and keep it.This may please many of her fans, but it confuses others and has probablyhurt her film career. It is the way shekeeps changing that has hurt her in the past, and also her desire to shockpeople has become a tired way to get attention. She started as the Material Girl,mirroring the attitude in her popular song. Madonna tries to portray an ideal image of the liberated woman. Yet, given the amount of attention lavished on pop stars,what they do has importance whether we like it or not. The film is important because of the controversy it has createdbetween the two sides in the debate. . She shows girls how to be attractive, sensual, energetic, ambitious, aggressive, and funny - all at the same time (Sobran 32).Her communication in Truth or Dare thus is seen as having a teaching effectthat contributes to society. So Truth or Dare doesn't dwell on what she has done. She could be seen in several movies, butthat also did not please her fans. She played the title role in Evita lastyear, but the movie did not do well. Her purpose is also control, and this can be seen in Truth orDare as she directs the filmmakers and selects what they see and do not see--at one point she asks that they not follow her during a rehearsaldiscussion, for instance. Madonna has taught young women to be fully female and sexual while still exercising total control over their lives. But amid all the hype over what Madonna wears and what her sexual orientation seems to be this month, one thing sometimes gets obscured: in the course of her career, she's actually produced several remarkably skillful and entertaining albums. The subject of the documentary is atour by rock signer Madonna, a tour called "Blonde Ambition." The filmpresents portions of this tour in the form of stage performances along withbackstage documentary footage, interviews, and on-the-road activities andevents of the tour. "Madonna Goes PG-13." Time (November 7, 1994), 81.Foss, Sonja K. Camille Paglia, a professor considered to have an anti-feminist bent,states of Madonna and Truth or Dare: Madonna is the true feminist. So someone who gets the censors howling must be an artist. She is the most self-aware, perhaps the sanest, of celebrities. She reinvented herself as anastier version of that girl, one who wore underwear on stage and projectedsexuality. He said she was probably past her prime and that he hadother things to do than see her show. Madonna knows this. Shehas managed to make herself popular several different times, and she coulddo it again if she finds a good image and keeps it. She has made herself good to look at, but she is a singer who needspeople to listen to her as well. The other groupsees the audience as made up of dupes who are taken in by Madonna's shrewdunderstanding of ichnography ("Truth or Dare," The Economist 82). Madonna is a pop icon who is known to reinvent herself from time totime, changing her style, changing her look, and changing her image. She is representingherself as a symbol for a generation of women in particular. Imageis in fact very important to Madonna. This approach did work for a time, but even if it still works to makewomen feel they can gain more control, this does not mean it gets Madonnathe audience she needs to keep being the image she has selected and to keeprepresenting an ideal for the young women of this age. "Who Does Madonna Wanna Be?" Time (May 6, 1991), 62.Farley, Christopher John. (Kauffmann 26).This suggests that the film might be examined to see if it communicatesmore than this superficial message. "Truth or Dare." The New Republic (June 1 , 1991), 26- 27.Kaye, Jeff. Madonna also served as producer and subject of a film in 1991 calledTruth or Dare, and here, again, she was using shock as a way of makingherself different from other singers. Different views of the film can be found in differentcommentators. Heridealism presents the world in terms of the mind or spirit of theindividual, and Madonna is clearly placing herself forward as the spirit tosymbolize the world she sees in her mind. "Madonna does it again." Ladies Home Journal (June 1991), 62.Corliss, Richard. We know she has done plenty, done well and, in her AIDS-relief fund raising, done good. She is not a bad actress but is also not a greatactress, and in such a case creating and projecting one image is maybe thebest approach. But not tolisten to" (Kaye 7). Filmcritic Stanley Kauffmann asks whether Madonna is a symbol of our times andstates: Well, she certainly provides tens of thousands of young people in many countries with hours of rebellion against restraints, as they see them, in their lives and futures. Rhetorical Criticism: Exploration and Practice. Another view is that Madonna serves only herself and that thecommunication in this film does nothing more than challenge whatever thecensors might not like: But for Madonna, art is defined by the censors: it's whatever they don't like. . Works CitedAborn, Shana. However, it is not necessarily true that she is past her prime. In1993, she opened a new show in Great Britain, and already the way peopletalked about her showed that they were not shocked like she wanted them tobe: Madonna launched her "Girlie Show" world tour here last night with a performance that was part big-top circus, part Broadway musical and part soft-core porn act. In 1992, madonnatraveled to different parts of the country to pose for pictures in 1992 forher book, Sex, in which she appeared nude as a hitchhiker in nothing but apair of spiky black heels. "Madonna's `Girlie Show' Opens." Newsday (Sepotember 26, 1993), 7.Levitt, Shelley, Joyce Wagner, and Laura Meyers. . She's never been an innovator, but she's always adeptly seized on the latest dance and music trends; and while any number of pop musicians have made a new style palatable to the masses by watering it down, Madonna has displayed enough talent and taste to remain true to the spirit of her borrowings (Farley 81). One of the ways Madonna has tried to reinvent herself is by self-promotion around different ideas and different attitudes. Madonna is also the CEO of something called BoyToy Inc., something observers believe would not be possible if she did notswing wildly between outrageous cheapness and crazy excess (Levitt, Wagner,and Meyers 64). This seems to mean that Madonna is harming her own reputation in thefield she has chosen. The controlshe exercises is a feminist statement on what women can accomplish and howwomen are really in a position of command because of their sexuality. Prospect Heights, Illinois: Waveland Press, 1989.Jarvie, I.C., Movies as Social Criticism: Aspects of Their Social Psychology. She does indeed do the shapingherself, and how she appears at different times has to be seen as her ownidea: This is show biz, remember, where image elbows achievement out of the frame. It had a big opening, but after thatpeople did not come to see it. She became even more overtlysexual after that and alternated between a raunchy stage performance and anattempt to portray a more sophisticated woman in film. "Flush Femmes." People (August 3 , 1993), 64.Sobran, Joseph. Silly, but a lot of people agree with her, and they buy tickets. Truth orDare fuses her professional and private life so that her life seems to by asymbolic act of assertion to be emulated by others. Only one point is worrisome: her audiences may think that by shouting ecstatically while Madonna humps around on a bed wearing a crucifix, they have struck a significant blow for truth, justice, liberty, etc. Keshishian [the director] shows us what Madonna thinks she is--and what she, driven by her acute instincts and awesome nerve, might next choose to be (Corliss 62). In the context of the film Truthor Dare, Madonna is representing herself as an individual but doing so in away that relies on her audience agreeing with her and seeing the sameimage. At the same time, one critics asks ifthe film fulfills the requirement of a documentary, which is not socialistrealism but the "creative interpretation of actuality" (Jarvie 149). She exposes the puritanism and suffocating ideology of American feminism . If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.