Hands off La Madonna

It's perhaps a bit difficult to believe that now, but at the beginning of her career lots of people were so put off by Madonna's trashiness that they refused to give her any credit as an entertainer. Some even said that, as a sex object, she was demeaning to women and feminism. Camille Paglia was perhaps the first among the American intelligentsia to point out how preposterous that was. How could a powerful, assertive, self-assured woman who was aggressive in her sexuality be damaging to feminism?

You could make a case that her unwavering defense of Madonna went some way to make her legit. She made it ok for the uptight and sexually inhibited to dig Madonna's music and admire her as a person. So I can only imagine how sad it must have been for her when, given the chance to finally meet and interview the singer, her idol dryly refused.

However, Camille's spiteful and graceless response, dripping with bitchy sour grapes, was a personal disapointment to me. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, indeed. She basically said (in so many words) that Madonna was probably just intimidated by the grandeur of her intellect and didn't think she was smart enough to hold up a conversation with her. And then added with extreme condescension that her dumbness was irrelevant, because, oh, she had so many other qualities. That's not a compliment to Madonna, that's just Camille passively-aggressively drawing attention to her own moral superiority. Look, she doesn't even hold Madonna's refusal against her! That's right, no matter how many times you refuse to meet me, I'll continue to write about you, Madonna! I wonder, if Madonna agreed to shake her hand, would she finally shut up?

Guess what Camille, she doesn't like you, and she's not grateful. She didn't ask for your help and as it turns out, she wants to win people's respect and admiration on her own terms, not as a result of you acting on her behalf as her knight in shining armour.

She doesn't really want to meet an intellectual who has spent hours and years obsessing over her, a self-made specialist in all things Madonna who has an opinion on everything she says, and second-guesses every decision she makes with her life and career -- anymore than she'd want to meet a stalker who camps on her front lawn. It's God damned creepy. She doesn't like self-appointed spokes-persons who think they have some sort of claim on her as their numero uno fans. She doesn't want to give you that kind of validation. If only you could take a hint.