(Note: It's possible this video will disappear like many of the others of this performance on Youtube.)
I've been obsessing. It happens
I don't get it. People don't complain that Cher is too old (65) or Tina Turner (72) to get up on stage and shake their money-makers with their dancing boys. I don't remember any comments about Mick Jagger (68), who dances like he's having a seizure or Roger Daltrey (67), although I remember worrying at his age he might put his shoulder out. But those performers are all older than Madonna.
How about the ones who are her age? Michael Jackson would be 53 this year. I can't imagine anybody would have said he was too old to moonwalk. Prince, also 53, is probably the only man his age who could dance in those boots she wore. Most of us couldn't even walk in them.
She's an icon just like the other performers I mentioned, so what is it about Madonna that makes her too old?
I can understand hating on her for other reasons. Word is she lip-synched the performance. OK, I'll admit a dip in respect over that, but I'll bet she's not the first and won't be the last.
She's also rumored to have suffered a hamstring injury so maybe she wasn't as limber as she might have been, but I sure didn't notice that when she was doing those squats all in a row. I don't care how young or old you are, go ahead and try that shit in a pair of high-heeled, over-the-knee boots.
I can believe people might slut-hate her, but I'd again have to make the comparison to her male contemporaries. The king of pop, Michael Jackson, was the first to grab his crotch and hump his hand and call it dancing. Then he was charged (although not convicted) of being a pedophile. And then he hung his baby son off a balcony, but that's not slutty, it's just stupid. If he were still alive, would anybody say he was too old to perform this year?
And Prince? Prince is the king of slut. "Darling Nikki," "Little Red Corette, "almost any song he wrote and sang" reek of slut. And Purple Rain is still one of the most misogynistic movies I've ever watched. Maybe he has to make up for being so tiny. I dunno. But Madonna is not the first 1958 slut-baby to take the halftime stage.
I might have let the whole thing fade away but once I heard Madonna had aged out of being sexy, I was bombarded with incidences of ageism this week. I'll just mention three.
- A younger woman told Sue Sylvester to "wake up and smell the menopause" on Glee. It was part of a longer rant about how Sue was too old to .... I don't know. Live, maybe.
- I was grading a narrative one of my students had written. In three pages about going with her boyfriend to a Michigan game, she related stories about two "stupid old ladies" who pissed them off--one because she fell right in front of them and the other because she cheered too loudly for Michigan.
- When I showed one of my classes a "Most Interesting Man in the World" Dos Equis commercial, my students couldn't do a decent analysis of it because most of them couldn't get over him being so old he was "gross" and "disturbing." I've never gotten that reaction before, but it was one of those weeks.
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| He looks like a man who knows his cookies |
I considered asking them what they thought about Madonna being too old but I didn't want to hear it. Most of them couldn't keep up with her on the dance floor and she could probably beat even the guys at arm-wrestling, but I have no doubt they'd love telling me how gross and disgusting she is because ....
... she's 53 years old. I have a lot more I could say about how that makes me feel personally, but I'll just let Madonna respond.
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| Can you count to 53 by ones, children? |
What do you think? Is Madonna too old to take the stage and rock her iconic magic? Or is it finally time we stopped using age as an excuse to hate women?
