Madonna. Any thoughts?

I’ve always hated her music. To me, it’s synthetic, clunky and all very much the same, but give the woman her dues, she’s managed to sell it, and often sell it on the back of ‘controversy’ that sometimes appears to be more of a point than the rather dull music itself.

Madonna’s never been afraid to use her own body as a marketing tool, to the point where she once said that she regarded losing her virginity as ‘a career move’.

Madonna was back in the news earlier this week, posing topless for a photoshoot in Interview magazine. The UK media had a field day, of course. While you’ll never see a nipple in the Daily Mail, for example, they’ll squeeze every drop of sales they can from a pixelated or blacked out one. Most of the UK’s rags commented, and several were particularly keen to establish -in a remarkably ageist manner- if a 56 year old woman should be doing this sort of thing.

Of course she should, if she wants. And while this appears to have been the year of feminists talking drivel about women reclaiming the breast in 2014, while the exceptionally silly Nicki Minaj expressed her empowerment by sticking her ass in the air, a lot, I’ve always thought that Madonna, in the main, did use her body and her sexuality on her own terms.

Please….put it away…

Preserve us from silly young women who imagine getting their ass out, a lot, presents them as being ’empowered’. No, they just look ridiculous (particularly when it’s that big), even if their male(?) manager says it makes them look like feminist icons for being ‘in control’. Convinced? Me neither.

I happen to think that Madonna looks great in the most recent photos, just as she has done through the years, and I’m sure she’s quite content to have her own little library of her young self maturing over the decades. I really rather hope we’re still having this discussion in a decade’s time if and when a 66 year old Madonna decides to strip off again. On her terms. Showing these younger ‘feminists’ how it’s done. More to the point, expect Madonna to remain relevant then, long after Nicki Minaj has faded from the public eye.

In Second Life, of course, there’s little of an ageing process. It’s a Neverland where no-one has to grow up, and ‘the older avatar’ is something I’ve written about on these pages before. And expect to again. As an older SL user I would like to reflect that to a degree. So please, skin makers, how about a much wider and more affordable range of older avatar skins and shapes? As things stand, SL discriminates against people being able to represent themselves as older avatars (and black or Asian avatars, come to that). Can 2015 be the year in which SL ‘grows up’ and grows older in that respect?

Barbara