When we say of a woman that she has the face of a Madonna, it means that she is of great beauty, a pure and chaste beauty. Ever since Madonna’s appearance at the last Grammy Awards, where she introduced Sam Smith and Kim Petras’ performance that traumatized the American right, all we’ve talked about is her unnaturally smooth, puffy face, ‘unrecognizable’, some say. .
Enough for the star to respond on her Instagram account to her detractors: “Once again, I find myself trapped by the ageism and misogyny of the world in which we live. A world that refuses to celebrate women over 45 and chooses to punish them if they continue to be strong, hardworking and daring. »
Between the condemnation of the abuses of cosmetic surgery and the injunctions to respect the right of women to do what they want with their bodies, the least we can say is that Madonna continues to make people talk at 64 years old. And despite everything they say, tickets for shows in Montreal on his next tour sold out in an hour and a quarter.
If I’ve never been Madonna’s biggest fan, I have to admit that I watch her age with fascination. His persistence commands respect.
She has always been and remains a trailblazer as she continues to make her mark on stage and in the media at an age when female pop stars have long been confined to homages here and there, while Rolling Stones fill the stadiums despite the death of Charlie Watts.
In this regard, the test Madonna – Orchestrated Declineby Lucas Prud’homme-Rheault, a true geek of the icon, is illuminating. “One day, a woman said to me: ‘Feminism is a nail that must be struck constantly’”, he writes. But Madonna keeps knocking, reiterating; she repeats, replays, thinks again. The repetition, the self-quotation, the incessant whirling of the same ideas, the same obsessions, are political here: “To repeat everything several times in a row and above all not to be afraid of repeating yourself, two or three ideas are enough to fill a single head. , to guide a whole life”, he underlines, quoting Nelly Arcan.
The ‘blonde ambition’ is attacked at all ages, whether it’s Madonna, Nelly Arcan, Britney Spears or even Pamela Anderson who takes back control of her speech in the recent documentary Pamela: A Love Story, available on Netflix. It’s amazing how much, since #metoo and the new wave of feminism, we revisit the past by noting the violence that women suffer in the public space, whether they are beautiful or ugly, thin or fat, young or old. Yesterday, it was downright a standard, which we applied in a completely uninhibited way; today, we’re a little more careful, because women fight back, but it’s progressing very slowly, you have to admit.
PHOTO VALERIE MACON, FRANCE-PRESSE AGENCY
Madonna at 65e grammy awards gala
Either way, Madonna remembers how she’s been treated ever since. Like a Virgin “I’ve never apologized for any of my artistic choices or how I look or how I dress, and I’m not going to start now,” she said on Instagram. I have been denigrated by the media since the beginning of my career, but I understand that this is all a test, and I am happy to pave the way to make it easier in the years to come for the women who will come. after me. In Beyoncé’s words: “You won’t break my soul.” »
Moreover, she promises herself for the rest of her life to stay in subversion, to push the limits and to enjoy her life.
I’d bet she’ll still be here at 80, watching her go on her Instagram account which I follow religiously. Sometimes she manages to shock me and it makes me think about my prudish side. There is probably nothing more “impure” than an experienced woman, who has long since lost her innocence, a mother of six children, living her ” best life ” – She french still in fishnet stockings, guys or girls.
I was convinced that she was going to age naturally, because of the iron discipline she imposed on her body all her life – this woman has been in muscles for a long time – but lo and behold, she chose to resort to cosmetic procedures , and as Madonna does not do things by halves, I see it above all as a new performance, since she is the queen of reinvention. Of course, I see like everyone else that her face has changed a lot, and she would have some criticism anyway if she hadn’t touched up her wrinkles, but more than her face, I look more at those who look at Madonna for judging her – it’s practically become a sport every time she publishes. In this staging of herself, Madonna also brings to light the cruelty of the world towards her and I believe that many of us are following her to see how far this can go.
Her name is Madonna, and even if in recent years her face seems fixed like that of a Madonna, she continues to move forward, never being fixed by what is expected of her, this purity and this innocence that saints are demanded.
She won’t let herself be buried alive.