*disclaimer: I am a Madonna fan forever and always, but everyone has their limits now and again
Regardless of whether or not it was Mother’s Day in England on March 22, and maybe Madonna just wanted to treat herself, as a matriarch of a six-large brood, to a soothing bath, it doesn’t change the tone deafness of her most recent “musing” on coronavirus, or what she so elegantly refers to as its more sci-fi name: COVID-19. Yet another in a series of quarantine videos that primarily feature her doing her Madame X on typewriter gambit, she sits in her decadent rose petal-filled bath to tell us: “That’s the thing about COVID-19, it doesn’t care about how rich you are, how famous you are, how funny you are, how smart you are, where you live, how old you are, what amazing stories you can tell. It’s the great equalizer. And what’s terrible about it is what’s great about it. What’s terrible about it is it’s made us all equal in many ways, and what’s wonderful about it is that it’s made us all equal in many ways. We’re all in the same boat, and if the ship goes down, we’re all going down together.”
And this is when we cue the Naomi Campbell (who, incidentally, co-starred at times with Madonna in the Sex book) line: “Don’t compare yourself to me ever. You are not on my level, and you never will be on my level.” That level being the same as that of the common man or, more to the point, plebe. Because no famous person ever will be, no matter how “salt of the earth” their origins before making a shit ton of money. And, talking of Campbell, she, too, is another prime example of making coronavirus about “what celebrities are doing” as she dons a full hazmat suit, goggles and gloves to travel. Insisting she’s just as at risk as anyone else, Campbell explained of the ensemble in a video, “It’s not a funny time, it’s not a humorous time, I’m not doing this for laughs. This is how I feel comfortable traveling.” Wow, so great that you still even have the luxury to travel on a plane that poses minimal contagion threat, since chartering a private jet is, indeed, a quintessential privilege of the rich fleeing the fucking scene when shit gets too gross in the cities they claim to love (oh yeah, and how fucking quick the environmentalism goes out the window when one is trying to escape on a non-commercial flight, eh?).
So no, Madonna (and any of the other number of celebrities of late trying to show their “solidarity” via leaden means… like Britney Spears doing yoga poses on the beach [again, one that looks private] to “cheer us up”–bitch that don’t cheer anyone up, it angers them), rona is not the great equalizer, and jealousy is a virus as powerful as corona. Sure, Madonna isn’t wrong about saying that even celebrities are not immune to the virus (particularly not C-list ones like Andy Cohen and that guy who was on The Bachelor), as Tom Hanks and Idris Elba have recently shown us. But, as an entire basketball team has also shown us, these celebrities can 1) get tested immediately and 2) have the money for treatment if it’s a particularly severe case, as well as the cush housing accommodations to comfortably “shelter in place.” Accommodations Madonna loves to parade in her quarantine diaries as she attempts to play the role of martyr in order to fit in with the rest of us. But darling, like your song, “Come Alive,” says, “Stand out, no, I don’t wanna blend in, why you want me to?”
Trying to seem “with it” by feigning knowledgeability of what it’s like to truly fear coronavirus while in the average daily trenches that a normal person is comes across not only as incongruous, but insulting. And not in the good way that Madonna usually insults, by, say, burning crosses or suspending herself on a cross or any number of other crucifix-related and Catholic-centric controversies. No, this is a colorless, disingenuous way. One that makes her seem less Che Guevara (a freedom fighter she also stylized herself after on the cover of 2003’s American Life) and more Marie Antoinette: oblivious and oblique.
The Marie Antoinette Syndrome has infected more celebrities than corona, to be sure. With each one seeming to take this opportunity not to help in useful ways that they, unlike the average person, actually could (e.g. putting out new music for free or spending their money on equipment that hospitals are desperately in need of), but instead to showcase all the ways in which they’re “setting an example” by self-quarantining. Using it as a rare chance for self-care and self-actualization. Blithely unaware that most people trapped at home are living a waking nightmare, whether stuck at home with their children (who don’t have a goddamn nanny to corral them) or simply ensnared in a standard-issue shitty apartment that damn sure ain’t gonna have a rose petal-filled bathtub in it. This is the thing celebrities ought to be more sensitive to than ever right now: parading their class as they talk about how they totally “get it,” what the plebes are going through.
These pathetic attempts bring up a larger point about how terrified celebrities in general are right now (just another way corona has generated an instance of unprecedentedness). For never has their livelihood been this threatened by the prospect of literally losing their mini cash cows. Each person–each fan–having the potential to be financially wiped out–or just full-stop wiped out–right now thanks to a virus that’s as of yet untreatable. And, of course, American fans have the highest value to them because no one understands the capitalist joys of spending money on frivolities like concerts and memorabilia better than they. But how can they spend money on such things if they’ve lost their job or have to exhaust all their cash on hospital bills, or just basic survival?
It’s a scary time indeed for the Marie Antoinettes of this world, because the money runs out real fast when one spends 10-20K a day on “personal maintenance.” Where will they get their next cash haul from if everyone is broke or dead? Ah, but surely some of them have enough savings to join Elon’s cabal and defect from the planet. And yet, the same way those ordinaries trapped in quarantine feel as though a part of them has died from lack of socialization, so, too, would many celebrities die without anyone to “perform” for. Well you know how they can help keep their audience? Stop fucking baiting people to make them worthy heads for the guillotine. Just be quiet–a.k.a. go dark on social media–or donate some dough. That’s the best thing any celebrity can do right now if they’re not going to make their art available for free.
On a side note, it’s no coincidence that Madonna has dressed up as Marie many times in her storied career, from the 1990 performance of “Vogue” at the MTV VMAs to her Reinvention Tour in 2004 to her fifty-fifth birthday party in the (quelle surprise) South of France back in 2013. Relating to this dauphine as a star of her caliber does to having a taste for the finer things in life while still playing at some kind of “woman of the people” role.
