It seems every time that Madonna appears without the very filters she’s mocked for using, she ends up subsequently being mocked tenfold for not using them. And so, as usual, the latest public shaming/flogging is a result of her revealing herself in all her unfiltered glory in a post for TikTok. Which was kind of awesome because one is all for “scaring” Gen Z off the accursed app. And obviously, Kim Kardashian doesn’t know from breaking the internet after this seemingly unremarkable few seconds that have somehow turned into something as overanalyzed as the Kennedy assassination. Including a plastic surgeon giving a breakdown of all the things “wrong” with Madonna’s face (perhaps wanting to finagle some of her business for himself by making her feel insecure… like one could ever do that to a Leo).
Headlines surrounding the innocuous video have also been shaped to form the narrative for “what ‘fans’ are thinking,” regardless of whether they truly feel that way at all, with such titles as “What Happened to Madonna’s Face? Fans Left Worried Over Her Latest TikTok Video,” “Madonna Fans Horrified By Her Bizarre TikTok Video,” “Madonna’s Latest TikTok is Leaving Fans Unsettled,” “Madonna Being Cringey Again!” and so on and so forth. The dissection of Madonna’s face (even more than her body—which also gets its occasional critiques, with especial focus on hands, arms and ass) is nothing new. It reached another apex in 2008, when a photo of her leaving the Kabbalah Center in a 1-888-2-Confess shirt prompted a number of tabloid headlines and online articles, including one from then “it” website, Gawker. Called—not misogynistically at all—“Why Does Madonna Look So Awful Lately?”—this little “examination” also makes use of a plastic surgeon’s take on what M has had done to her visage. As if it’s really anyone’s concern.
But back in 2008, her publicist (still Liz Rosenberg at the time) felt obliged to actually comment on the backlash with the assurance that it was merely a “bad angle.” Bad angles, of course, meaning that Madonna had done the unthinkable and shown some sign of aging. At the same time, people continue to criticize her for not aging “correctly” (which is a caveat that only women must adhere to). So it’s obviously a no-win situation. And in the present, there’s really no point in trying to dissuade the internet-based public of their opinion via celebrity gossip magazines like People and Us, which have far less clout than they once did in influencing perception.
A perception that has long been determined to put Madonna out to pasture (a phrase she used herself in a prescient 1992 interview with Jonathan Ross). What’s more, people tend to forget that Madonna transcended into a pop star at a rather “old” age to begin with: twenty-four. And yes, she was already lying about how old she was in 1982, for the purpose of trying to land a role on the TV show version of Fame, saying in her audition tape that she was “around twenty-one” when she was, in fact, twenty-four (yes, the audition was the same year she landed her Sire Records deal).
Obviously, she didn’t get the part, and was far better off without Fame once she got a taste of real fame post-Like A Virgin. And throughout the 80s, she was deemed a sex symbol—part and parcel of labels like “whore,” “slut,” “floozy,” etc. Not just because of the pre-fame nude photos that Playboy and Penthouse released in 1985, but because she was the first woman of her kind (since Marilyn, that is) who patently enjoyed her own sexuality. Had an auto-erotic fixation, if you will. And was flaunting her then-infamous belly button for the pleasure of no one but herself.
As 1990 rolled around (better known as: M’s thirties a.k.a. when women in entertainment are supposed to crawl into a hole), Madonna was certain to barrel into the year with a number of projects designed to assure the masses that she wasn’t going anywhere just because it was a new decade. This included a world tour unlike any other ever performed (Blond Ambition), a major movie (Dick Tracy) and an accompanying soundtrack (I’m Breathless) that gave her a hit single you may have heard of called “Vogue.” It was arguably Madonna’s peak oversaturation point. Until the tour documentary that was released in 1991. And, ever since around the time after M’s Truth or Dare era, there’s been an overt obsession among the public with her age. Specifically, what age is “appropriate” to keep “being a pop star.” As though it’s something you can simply “stop” at any time. As if. Especially not when you, like, invented the modern concept of it (sorry, Cher).
What’s more, did anyone ever stop to think that maybe the public obsession with Madonna aging that began in the 90s is part of what made her, in turn, so obsessed with remaining youthful-looking? Meanwhile, The Weeknd does old man/plastic surgery drag and it’s art. Madonna tries her best to remain as fresh-faced as women in the public eye are expected to and she’s practically stoned to death (in the metaphorical internet trolling sense). She shouldn’t be “allowed” to have so much plastic surgery, people say. When, in fact, if she didn’t, there’s a high likelihood she would be even more picked apart for the “sin” of aging. One form of body shaming thus leading to another. And shaming people for their plastic surgery is just that: body shame.
There are those who would say it isn’t because the person in question “made the choice” to look “that way.” But nonetheless, that is how they look, and they shouldn’t be made fun of and/or have to apologize for it (Fredric Brandt being one prime example of someone who couldn’t take the very public lampooning he was given on Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt). Being that body shaming is defined as “the act or practice of subjecting someone to criticism or mockery for supposed bodily faults or imperfections,” it’s undoubtedly ironic that the very reason Madonna (and so many other women in entertainment) continues to partake of plastic surgery is to mitigate any such “faults or imperfections.” Only to be utterly castigated for daring to look “off” in a video. Again bringing up the point that a female celebrity of her heights is damned if they do and damned if they don’t. So Andy Warhol’s philosophy it is. And anyway, all the cunts who make fun of Madonna now for her appearance will eventually learn that the older you get, the more you understand her plastic surgery fetish.
