It began in 1994, of course, when Madonna and MTV joined forces (yet again) to air a making the video type special (before Making the Video came to fruition) called No Bull: The Making of Take A Bow. At a time when no production expense was spared for MTV’s content, Kurt Loder flew out to Ronda, Spain to watch the video’s creation unfold in between interviewing Madonna (whether in her dressing room or while she was seated with a furry blanket on her lap). With the symbol of the bull being assigned to Taurus, the long perpetuated (and often true) stereotype about embodying the most stubborn member of the zodiac seems also to apply honorarily to Madonna herself. Known for being a “control freak,” meticulous and uncompromising, the famed Leo bears many Taurean qualities (though Leo possesses a separate kind of vanity). Such characteristics were no different on the set of “Take A Bow,” which co-starred Emilio Muñoz (himself cusping Taurus with a, like Morrissey, May 22 birthday).
Chosen both for his renowned bullfighting skills and dashing looks, the premise behind the video, as Madonna tells Loder, came from the notion that, “When I tell this story visually, I want it to sort of be an obsessive love story, a tragic love story that doesn’t work out in the end.” There has perhaps never been a more Taurean sentiment. For the Taurus can only love obsessively, devotedly–rarely forgetting an object of affection that jilted or betrayed them. And yes, the word choice, “object,” when referring to a love interest is befitting of the Taurean zeal for material things (“Material Girls” indeed). The lush imagery and breathtaking beauty of every scene in the Michael Haussman-directed video also speaks to a woman ruled by Venus, and her insatiable appreciation for aesthetic glory.
The agony and the ecstasy of Taurean existence is explored with acute precision in a narrative as seductive and ultimately fatal as this. As Loder remarks on the stricture of her corsets and lingerie while lolling about her hotel room, she agrees, “It is constraining, but that’s kind of like one of the themes of the video.” And no one knows better about that sort of suppression than Taurus. Because for all of the sign’s so-called indulgence, it is one all too adept in the art of muzzled yearning. Substituting their greatest pain with cursory pleasures as mere distraction from what they really want…or have already lost. Not to mention their general willingness to suffer physically if it means looking good.
Throughout the video, Muñoz wields his bullfighting prowess for the benefit of a bereaved-looking Madonna in the audience. And, naturally, she lusts after him even when she’s not watching him in the flesh, but instead from the perhaps too comfortable perch of her bedroom. In the end, both are left with an unfulfilled yearning, the bull that is their obstinate love never quite slayed.
Six years on from 1994 and Madonna has traded her European sense of glamor and tragedy for the “Old West” (read: a studio backlot). And, because of her choice to use Jean-Baptiste Mondino as her director, there was perhaps no better option but to film the video in an enclosed, controlled environment (just as her other Mondino videos, “Justify My Love,” “Human Nature” and “Love Don’t Live Here Anymore”). Undoubtedly, for the purposes of this choreography-drenched concept, there could have been no other milieu, with Madonna even doing a sendup of being on set when the camera pans back to reveal she is not walking on a deserted country road, but a treadmill against a fake background.
With “Don’t Tell Me” released (in 2000) during an era in her life in which she had surrendered at least some of her identity to being an “English Rose,” Madonna seemed to exhibit, once again, her inner Taurus in choosing to rebel against the British allegiance she had taken on in marrying Guy Ritchie (that inferior Earth sign of his being Virgo–though still not as inferior as Capricorn) and moving to London by showcasing her Midwestern roots. Down-home, to be sure. Kicking her heels up very literally like a provoked bull, a group of dancing cowboys appear on the screen behind her as everything in her body language seems to defiantly declare, “Shitkicker and proud.”
As for the chorus of the track, well, it’s just about as Taurus as one can get as she asserts her inherent dominance with, “Don’t you, ever/Don’t ever tell me to stop.” As if anyone could even try to with a Taurus on the warpath toward their goals, ambitions or desires. The eventual crop up of a mechanical bull (for Madonna always has her finger on the pusle of what’s trending, and 2000 was the year of the mechanical bull as established by Miranda on Sex and the City riding one in L.A.) was the latent manifestation of her non-compliance with being someone’s “British missus” (even if Ritchie continued to refer to her as “the missus” throughout their fraught marriage). An intercut shot of a cowboy riding a horse–specifically a Skewbald–and mimicking her same movements before falling off further indicates that while others are liable to be toppled by a rough road, Madonna, in all her Taurean, bull-like spirit, cannot be deterred. The cowboy, too, manages to get up again, underscoring that M believes even if you fall off the horse (which she literally did in 2005), you have to rise once more.
So it went in 2015, when “Living For Love” served as the first single for Rebel Heart. Going back to the bull in a less literal way this time, Madonna dressed her dancers in almost satanic-inspired horns as she was the one to take on the role of toreador in lieu of Muñoz this time around. Updating the toreador look with a bit of couture (and a touch of You Can Dance promo artwork flavor, bolo hat and all), Madonna takes on her bevy of humanoid bulls with aplomb and poise–just as any unflappable Taurus. For if there’s one thing you don’t want to do, it’s learn what a Taurus actually looks like when you manage to test their endless reserves of patience to the limits.
Mounting them here, pushing and pulling them there, Madonna manages to make the playful, yet tense dance look like a potential video outtake from her Sex book for all the S&M implications throughout. And yes, at times a relationship with a Taurus can feel that way–sadomasochistic. For no one will ever meet the Taurean’s expectations nor live up to what the Taurus sees as average human behavior. Their high standards for everyone including themselves being so often a blessing and a curse (mainly the latter) as humanity seeks to disappoint them again and again. But still they try. They fight. Until the bitter end.
Even the lyrical content of the song speaks to another side of the Taurus personality: living to be adored, admired (the bane of being ruled by that sordid minx, Venus). In short, for love. That’s why they never take it well when they’re slighted, seeing it as an affront, as well as a testament to the other person’s own poor taste in deigning to leave them for someone or something else. Tellingly, a performance of the song with the same setup as in the video at the BRIT Awards would lead to one of Madonna’s only overt faux pas while performing live: falling off the stage. Yet still, persistent, indefatigable M got back up again and kept on going. It’s the only appropriate action of those representing for the bull, and bull-headed. Otherwise known as: Taurus, motherfucker.
