Graeme Virtue laments the passing of Madonna from bird-flipping bad girl to married suburban mother figure
PERHAPS, unlike some of the fans she won recently by roping in Ali G and French production hipster Mirwais, I can vaguely remember feeling a bit hard done by when Madonna got married first time round. It was the crazy summer of 1985, if I recall, and the lucky - and God, I thought he was lucky - bad boy back was a brooding Sean Penn.
A beautiful August day in Malibu, spoiled slightly by a sky teeming with television choppers determined to get their exclusive pics of the happy couple. But what really sticks in the mind is some entertaining VT of Ms Ciccone running out on to a balcony in her bridal gown, yelling abuse at the newshounds and eventually flipping them the bird. She looked really rather peed off - and the camerawork was the zoom-lens shakiness of You've Been Framed - but it made for a nugget of great telly. And you could almost hear Beadle's voiceover: "Keep your eye on the legendary pop sensation becoming increasingly riled by the invasive world media " But now try and imagine her doing that from the turrets of Skibo Castle, or the steps of quaint Dornoch cathedral she and Guy Ritchie are going to tie up the nuptials at on Friday. It just doesn't seem all that plausible any more, and that's what's so intriguing about this Brit-centric reinvention of everyone's favourite Material Girl.
After decades of setting out to shock the world - you'll recall the legendary (certainly at my school) Sex book, nearly having someone's eye out with that pointy bra, performing Holiday really badly on The Tube - Madonna now wants to be accepted, stop all that nonsense and settle down.
Where once we perceived her as an unstoppable sexual force somehow made flesh, prowling the fantastical milieu of Hollywood and New York walking Warren Beatty on a dog lead, she now lives with her two nippers down the road in Old Landan Town, wears old Kylie Minogue T- shirts and - and this is the killer - does line-dancing.
Fifteen long years after that first disastrous hitch, Madonna is now - to all intents and purposes - my mum. And, I think you'll agree, that's just not right.
Copyright 2000
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.
