The more time has gone on, the more Madonna can rely on self-referential material. Not only to reinvigorate it and apply it to the present, but to emphasize the fact that her message has always been the same, long before it became chic to say the things she already was during a period when the media would burn people at the stake for it. Because no matter the century, everybody loves a good old-fashioned witch hunt. And naturally, Madonna served as a go-to target (even if moving), especially after herself burning some crosses in a certain iconic music video.
Thus, when she features a clip from 1991’s Truth or Dare of the announcement she made to the Italian media after the Vatican condemned the Blond Ambition Tour, Madonna proves that her show for Madame X is intended to be just as provocative. The thing is, most have become fairly unflappable with regard to sex since the time when M was forcing everyone to look more unabashedly at their “darkest” sexual fantasies. And, ironically, this “unflappability” is a direct result of Madonna herself, who constantly pushed buttons and the envelope to the point where it took Britney Spears shaving her head to truly shock anyone—and that, of course, was more out of sadism regarding her “downfall” than genuine shock. So now, Madonna has changed the game on what being shocking connotes by, as she phrased it in her 2016 Woman of the Year speech for Billboard, simply “stick[ing] around” (a quote she also uses at the beginning of the filmed version of the tour). And yes, there are many who would love it if she would “shut the fuck up” (or, as she puts it lyrically, “People tell me to shut my mouth/Or I might get burned”). Which, by her very contrarian nature, only makes her want to speak out all the more.
The aforementioned Truth or Dare clip (one of many to be pulled from “the vault”) is inserted after the song that kicks off the tour, “God Control” (complete with a sardonic American Revolution spin). The black and white-rendered footage gives us a Madonna as fresh now as she was then saying, “If you are sure that I am a sinner [later on, it bears noting, she would write a song called “I’m A Sinner” for MDNA], then let he who has not sinned cast the first stone. If you are not sure, then I beg of you as righteous men and women that worship a god who loves unconditionally to see my show and then judge me. My show asks questions, provokes thought and takes you on an emotional journey. Portraying good and bad, light and dark, joy and sorrow, redemption and salvation.”
Naturally, this sentiment leads into “Dark Ballet,” the second single and video from Madame X. With the lyrical content inspired by Joan of Arc (one of many women of the past Madonna has been inspired by—enough to name a song after her on 2015’s Rebel Heart), it’s only right that this performance should focus on the motif of persecution—also present in the video featuring Mykki Blanco as a neo-Joan of Arc. Indeed, the projected backdrop resembles (and outright uses) the setting of the Emmanuel Adjei-directed “Dark Ballet” video, filmed in Portugal. And although Madonna might have abandoned her Lisbon life to return to the comfortable old shoe (for those with severe brain damage) that is New York, she is sure to continue to pay homage to how much the country and city influenced her during her tenure there. Especially since the concert was filmed during the Lisbon shows at Coliseu dos Recreios.
Toward the end of the song, Madonna mounts one of her gas mask-clad dancers (also present during the Eurovision edition) and then kicks them to the side…evoking a certain echo of her fondness for pantomimed violence à la “Causing A Commotion” during the Blond Ambition Tour. The performance, of course, wouldn’t be complete without nuns in some capacity (just as they were employed during “Holy Water” for the Rebel Heart Tour), accommodated by cellists dressed in habits to play the Tchaikovsky portion of the number. Surprisingly, it all segues quite nicely into “Human Nature,” being that Madonna concludes “Dark Ballet” by screaming, “Death to the patriarchy!” For what is “Human Nature” all about if not the scandalized patriarchal reaction to a woman presenting her body the way she wants to (“self-objectifying,” if you will) and—quelle sin—daring to suggest that a woman could enjoy sex for her sole pleasure as well? Because, yes, as the ultimate “clapback at the critics” single, it was a direct response to the flogging M received during the Erotica era, forever associated with the Sex book and Body of Evidence. Which is why wielding giant, shadow puppet-y hands that, among other gestures, point fingers at her as she writhes around inside of a circle feels only too appropriate. Not to mention having her daughters, Estere and Stella, present onstage with her to show us that their mother taught them well in terms of repeating the mantra, “I’m not your bitch.” It lends a decidedly “the future is female” characteristic to it.
She adds, for human psychology’s sake, “Don’t hang your shit on anybody. Do you get the message?” After all, what is the source of all the world’s problems but hurt people trying to hurt other people? In fact, one of the many theses of the Madame X Tour is: “Everybody’s hurt.” Madonna argues that we must all somehow use that hurt to connect with every human being alive (which is a bit of a challenge for necrophiliacs).
As the “movie version” of the tour continues, those who saw the show live are reminded of just how difficult it is to translate the theater experience to film, especially in regard to picking and choosing which audience banter to include. At the same time, the film at least guarantees one will be able to see all the songs on the setlist, which wasn’t necessarily a guarantee for people attending, say, the February 23rd Paris show. In this sense, too, it’s interesting to note what M chooses to maintain and to dispense with. For example, during the “quick change” segment that takes place before Madonna transitions into “Vogue,” she opts to keep in the comment about how her grandma lived to be a hundred and that, “I’m gonna live to two hundred, bitches! Just you watch.” It’s certainly possible if she defects from Earth like the rest of the celebrity cabal.
The film noirish vibe of “I Don’t Search I Find” once again speaks to Madonna’s longtime love of classic cinema, and how it has constantly informed a vast majority of her most iconic visuals. Being such an “old school dame,” she also famously featured a “Polaroid section” of the show, devoted solely to finding the highest bidder to pay for a unique photo taken each night, in benefit of another charitable cause for Malawi, the country where four of her children are adopted from—and yes, Mercy and David also make cameos in addition to Stella and Estere. Her biological children are somewhat less inclined, but at least Lourdes appears by way of a giant screen projection behind Madonna as she sings “Frozen.” The effect of it is rather uncanny, and we can see that M wants us to apprehend that her firstborn is one of her greatest achievements of all. Rocco, however, makes no such concession to an appearance—lest we forget that having to go onstage during the Rebel Heart Tour was one of the catalysts that made him abscond to Guy Ritchie’s abode. For those who remember the marriage (there are even many fans who try to block it out), it occurred at the outset of the 00s, just in time for Madonna to weigh in on her sentiments regarding the Iraq War with “American Life,” the lead single from the 2003 album of the same name. As usual, she was ahead of her time, being openly vocal about her disdain for a war so patently unnecessary, as well as the Bush administration’s handling of just about everything. Performed in a 2019-2020 context, “American Life” gets its retrospective due, for many of the themes about the fallacy of the American dream, as well as the hollowness of achieving its capitalist aims are finally being embraced.
Like “Dark Ballet” and “Vogue,” “American Life” is another song of Madonna’s that expressly mentions the vacillation between wanting to be male and female—and how a person should never have to choose between the two constructs. Madonna also declares, “I’m not a little girl, I’m not a man” in the “Rescue Me” interlude that follows “Extreme Occident.” As someone so obviously an advocate not just for gay rights but trans ones, it’s therefore somewhat unfortunate post-Dave Chappelle’s transphobic comments during his Netflix special, The Closer, for Madonna to include his celebrity cameo in the film (it probably should’ve been Lil Nas X instead), telling him he should embrace the title she’s been trying to give to him as “the next James Baldwin” because the world needs people like him to look up to. You know, people who incite more violence against the trans community by making a “joke” like, “Gender is a fact. Every human being in this room, every human being on Earth, had to pass through the legs of a woman to be on Earth.” Well, not if they were cut out of a stomach, to be blunt. What’s more, gender is not a “fact” if you don’t identify with the one you were born with, which, again, is something Madonna has played with in her own lyrics exploring androgyny.
And so, during this “audience” (so often a fellow celebrity) interaction that follows “Medellín,” Madonna habitually brandished the “prop” of a beer so that she would be able to say, “Thanks for sharing your backwash with me,” a rather uncomfortable comment in the wake of COVID, and what with Madonna and co. probably spreading some of their own to Parisian audience members. But what the hell? “Life is a circle.”
One very noticeable benefit of translating Madame X the Theater Xperience to Madame X the Concert Film Xperience is Madonna’s ability to add in certain video clips where it makes sense for the motif. Case in point, as “Frozen” leads into “Come Alive,” M intersperses footage of herself from her sixtieth birthday party in Marrakech to tie in with the perhaps dangerously appropriative sonic and visual landscape that follows. And yet, Madonna has always toed a line between appropriation and appreciation—starting most overtly with “Like A Prayer.” Speaking of, it comes across as prescient that Madonna “the white woman” would focus on police brutality and the wrongful accusation of Black men back in 1989 with the premise that commences the “Like A Prayer” video. She uses this scene with deliberateness to start her live performance in the Madame X Tour as well. Along with “Vogue,” this is the song from Madonna’s “back catalogue” that she appears most tolerant of performing (“Holiday” having fallen by the wayside in recent years).
In her cross-embellished robe, one might dare say she even “relishes” singing it. Though not quite as much as her best “unity anthem” yet, “I Rise,” the finale of the show. While Emma González might not be a fan, this is among the songs Madonna is clearly proudest of from Madame X, serving as the ideal statement to leave her audience with as she introduces it via voiceover with, “I wrote this song, ‘I Rise,’ as a way of giving a voice to all marginalized people. People who don’t have the opportunity to speak their mind. People who are in jail, incarcerated, bullied, beaten, abused—all people who feel that they are being oppressed.” Here Madonna doesn’t realize she’s leaving an opening for the far-right to say they’re being “oppressed” by not being allowed to deliver their hate speech without being cancelled. But then, Madonna doesn’t think about the far-right as much as they think about her. Even if their kind has provided fuel to the flames of controversy that have long kept her starlight (star) bright.
The difficulty of parsing all the footage from the various performances together to make it into one cohesive, “definitive” version of the Madame X Tour is evident in which (ill-advised) celebrity she chose to include in the segment after “Medellín,” as well as the Polaroid sequence (which she approached with the Rebel Heart Tour’s “Unapologetic Bitch” method by including different audience interactions from it). For the most part, Madonna succeeds at the translation, having to lob off her more meandering diatribes and interactions for the sake of Paramount+ consumability. To that end, Madonna is arguably one of the few commercial artists, possibly ever, who has consistently been able to put out the work that she wants to. And, unlike many starting out, she had no financial cushion to give her the push she needed to get to the next level (one called: Doing Whatever the Fuck I Want). Ironically, that push would come with becoming so rich and famous that it no longer matters if what she does is “successful.” She’s got enough wealth and clout by now to do whatever moves her. And this tour very clearly did just that—even at the cost of her physical health (and perhaps some others who got ‘rona from the event).
Even if Madonna’s crusade to “start a revolution of love” doesn’t resonate with those who question her genuineness, she leaves it, once again, to James Baldwin to explain why her message has often been met with such vitriol by ending the film edition of the tour with an interview of him remarking, “Love has never been a popular movement. And no one’s ever really wanted to be free. The world is held together, really it is held together, by the love and the passion of a very few people.” And these are also people who were perhaps shrewd enough to get the cash first and worry about making pure art later. Because God or whoever knows that if you’re an artist without cash, you can forget about disseminating your message.
