Whenever Madonna is mentioned these days, it’s usually for an attention-seeking reason. Last week marked the 30th anniversary of her 1992 book S.E.X. It was said to be pretty controversial at the time. I have no memory of it since I was only three, but yes, the content definitely would have been considered controversial then and not so much now. But, instead of noting the ways in which societal norms change over time, Madonna took an interesting position and invoked the names of several other celebrity women with sexuality-related controversy of their own and literally said “you’re welcome bitches” with a clown emoji. Cardi B rightfully chafed at Madonna’s comments and use of her name and responded on Twitter.
Madonna is reflecting on the time when she created her iconic book, Sex.
The Grammy Award winner, 64, celebrated the 30th anniversary of her controversial 1992 book Friday with a statement on her Instagram Story, in which she called out those who have sex-shamed her while she empowered a whole new generation of stars.
“Thirty years ago I published a book called S.E.X. in addition to photos of me naked. There were photos of men kissing men, woman [sic] kissing woman, and me kissing everyone,” she started. “I also wrote about my sexual fantasies and shared my point of view about sexuality in an ironic way.”
“I spent the next few years being interviewed by narrow-minded people who tried to shame me for empowering myself as a woman. I was called a whore, a witch, a heretic and the devil. Now Cardi B can sing about her WAP. Kim Kardashian can grace the cover of any magazine with her a— and Miley Cyrus can come in like a wrecking ball. You’re welcome bitches…….” Madonna added, with a clown emoji.
Cardi, 30, did not appear too amused by the Madame X artist’s statement, pointing back to an Instagram caption of her own in which she referred to Madonna as “my real life IDOL” after performing for her at the music icon’s 2018 Academy Awards after-party (where Kardashian was also in attendance).
“I literally [paid] this woman homage so many times ’cause I grew up listening to her… she can make her point without putting clown emojis and getting slick out the mouth. These icons really become disappointments once [you] make it in the industry. That’s why I keep to myself,” Cardi wrote on Twitter.
Not long after, however, the “Up” rapper said that she and Madonna spoke to one another and cleared the air. “I talked to Madonna …It was beautiful ….Have a great day and drive safely yallll,” she tweeted.
Madonna also shared a tweet, writing, “I love you @iamcardib !! Always have and always will.”
I like Cardi B’s “I’m not angry, I’m just disappointed” energy. That truly works every time. And it is, in fact, disappointing! There was no reason for Madonna to mention Cardi, Kim, and Miley in the way that she did. Madonna clearly feels that she was a trailblazer, and she was, but there is a gracious way to remind people of that and that wasn’t it. The phrasing was snide and resentful and the clown emoji and “you’re welcome bitches” was rude and immature. To my knowledge, none of them have ever said or done anything to warrant such animus from her. It seems like Madonna is just pissed that they make more headlines than her these days and she wanted to remind people that she is still around. Well this is not the way to do it. Cardi is right and it is disappointing to see an icon become so insecure and reduce herself to taking cheap shots at women decades her junior in some odd bid for relevancy. Like, you’re Madonna, you don’t need to prove you’re relevant, except she clearly feels she does and the try-hardness of it all is not a good look. Cardi came with the receipts of her previous praise and homage to Madonna and apparently they talked separately to squash the beef that Madonna materialized out of thin air. Maybe Madonna learned from this experience and the next headline about her will come without a caveat? Eh, we’ll see.
photos credit: Backgrid, Getty and via Instagram
Madonna refusing to age gracefully has been disappointing. She’s freaking MADONNA. She doesn’t have anything left to prove, but you can tell she’s severely struggling with being a legacy act, rather than the “main pop girl” of the moment.
I agree. If ever I thought one of my teenage idols would age with an IDGAF attitude, it would have been Madonna. But nope. Thank God for Jamie Lee Curtis.
Madonna has always been try hard and she has never been “ironic.” She is an icon, but chill isn’t in her DNA.
yeah the facial surgeries are scary and they make me sad to look at her. I see old pics of her and I’m like DAMN she messed up her face.
I was 25 when S.E.X. came out and the media made a big deal out of it for ratings of course. Back then it was cool to call Madonna all those awful names they called her. Many people clutched their pearls with fake outrage. Those people called her the great wh*re of Babylon and the degenerate queen of sleaze. The Catholic Church denounced her freedom to express herself the way she did. So yes, Madonna blazed the trail for the next generations of performers such as Kim K, Miley Cyrus and Cardi B. to follow.
Madonna hasn’t done a thing for Black and Latina women like Cardi B except use them as props and steal from them. Don’t even get me started on her Vogue era.
Nah Haylie, Madonna has evolved into alot of shitty things, but her version of pop female superstar is what alot of these modern entertainers take inspiration from. That’s why she could have had Beyonce, Miley in her videos. That’s why alot of these hip hop artists like Lil Kim and Foxy Brown could lean into their sexuality and be unapologetically who they were and are. She she appropriated but she provided a blueprint too. That said her post was extremely unwise.
@ Carnivalbaby
You can’t appropriate something and and claim to be the blueprint because that means you stole it from somebody who did it before you. Just like Columbus didn’t discover America because you can’t discover something were people already lived.
💯
Similarly, every single thing she is using as being a “trailblazer” are the exact things Cardi B, Miley, and Kim K are called every single day….so, where is the progress we should bow down to?
I am a child of the 80s, I loved Madonna, but seriously, get some fcuking perspective.
“I was called a whore, a witch, a heretic and the devil.”
……..as are Miley, Kim, and Cardi B, today, in 2022.
Madonna appropriated a lot of what she did from the Black and gay communities. The people who paved the way for Cardi B are artists like Lil Kim and Foxy Brown. NOT Madonna.
Ameerah M , Exactly! Look I’m an 80s baby so I grew up listening to Madonna and she was someone I respected and looked up to as a young Southern girl. “Like a Prayer” video had me shookth as a child. How and ever, I am disappointed in the person she has become. Now that we know better it astounds me how much Madonna was inspired by and riffed from Black culture and Gay culture, but she never gets the negative press that Beyonce does for sampling. At least Beyonce gives credit for every millisecond of sound and she is dedicating space to her inspirations. Just astounding how much of a non-fan I am for Madona.
Preach on it. And we had Donna Summer, Grace Jones, etc. doing the damn thing in the 70s.
I rolled my eyes at Madonna’s comment and just sighed. She’s always stepping in it.
ChillinginDC Grace Jones does not get her flowers at all! Now Grace Jones was a pioneer. I remember seeing her in Red Sonya as a kid and just being in awe of her. Just a commanding and striking woman. My mom respected Grace Jones, but I didn’t realize her raw sexual energy until I was way older, and her star had dulled by then. Just so sad that she doesn’t get more accolades.
100 agree @Ameerah M. Madonna needs to STFU.
And Madonna was fun because she was on MTV. You had to know people who were Black and/or gay or who partied in those scenes the 1970s and 80s to know about Grace Jones, and Lil Kim was everything! And, in Los Ángeles, chola culture is everywhere.
Madonna pushed sexuality to the masses because Black and brown women couldn’t break into mainstream culture unless you were more “apple pie/white” and suppressed your non-white side: Jayne Kennedy, Diana Ross, Linda Ronstadt. If you listen to old blues, sex was up front in a lot of the music.
Madonna is part of a long history of “blue eyed soul”, regardless of what she believes.
You can (and I think everyone *does*) acknowledge the huge trailblazing effort of Madonna in making it okay for female artists to own their own sexuality, while also not agreeing that modern female artists owe her and *only her* some kind of tithe.
I will add Salt N Pepa, TLC and Khia to the list of black female artists who sang and rapped first so Cardio could slay.
*Cardi, not Cardio. Lol.
Hell yeah to Khia!! I blush just thinking about her music! Her songs are joy!
Millie Jackson. That’s all. And yes, Madonna is an icon and I was a huge fan until she decided to trash her legacy!
Thank you for missing the entire point
If Madonna was truly living her best life and doing whatever she wanted I’d be thrilled for her but she seems SO desperate to still be relevant/shocking/noticed that it’s just sad. And yes, disappointing!
For people like Madonna is very hard to let it go. She was once young, beautiful with a great career ahead of her and now it is all behind her. That’s a hard pill to swallow. Let’s cut her some slack please.
She can gave the same slack she gave to Cardi, Kim and Miley.
It wasn’t that long ago that Madonna was pulling this same crap with Gaga, calling her “reductive.”
All of us have to deal with growing old and most of us have to do it with the prospect of never having a great career.
@Lolo86IL
Ya no Madonna has been doing this for years and the moment she used to N word to get attention and be cool. Mag has had years to get therapy to help her through this transition, people don’t have to deal with Madonna BS because she chooses not to get the help.
C, your comment has hit me in the gut. I should have said, “GTFO, Madonna, I have been an accountant since I was 23”, because you are exactly right. Tell me how amazing your life has been, while you are very, very rich, and then scoff at those who are younger than you for just being younger than you.
Agreed. I loved Madonna in the day so seeing her desperation to seem cool to the youths instead of growing into a person who is yourself and knows that is enough is very sad. I look up to Cher and Cindy Lauper as my aging icons, among others.
Agree dlc. Cher slays.
I was 20 for her book, I clearly remember Justify my Love, Deeper & Deeper, Like a Prayer and how controversial she was.
How iconic she was, she truly embraced reinventing herself.
I clearly remember Holiday, Like a Virgin, I was a teenage & seeing this gorgeous hot girl writhing around was unheard of.
She is iconic. For me, she’s bigger than anyone will ever be again. The advent of Madonna, in the early 80’s, just as videos & MTV was beginning, it was unbelievable.
I’m sorry she’s gone this route. Picking fights, plastic surgery, she looks so horrible it’s hard to even look at her face anymore. She will be more remembered for that, than the trailblazing she did.
Remember Truth or Dare?! I watched that movie so many time 😭
It’s really unfortunate because she was this huge trailblazer, her mark on music and the entertainment world is huge, but this just reeks of desperation at this point and its not a good look for her IMO.
Oh, also love Cardi. I think she learns and grows and tries to stay authentic.
Cardi B is a clown. How is she minding her business when she actually tweeted a response to Madonna. CardiB has to respond to everything and lash out at everyone even her own fans. Also, her surgeries are worse than Madonnas. Cardi is young and has already ruined her face and body.
Cardi B was in fact minding her own business hun. Madonna needs to keep other artist’s names out of her mouth. She’s been doing this schtick since the 90’s when she would talk about Whitney and Mariah. And then again in the 00’s when she started talking about Gaga. No one here is talking about surgeries. We are talking about being a mean girl. Which Madonna is and always has been.
@ Fabiola
Seat down you sound ridiculous with this comment.
Look, I know very little about Madonna any more than the average person knows about her as a famous icon. But what little I have seen of her in action on talk shows, for example, is that the woman is a Grade A, rude, petty bitch. I watched her on Graham Norton once. He had some superfans in the audience who had made these amazing dolls of Madonna in her iconic costumes and they showed them to her. She was so f***ing rude and dismissive and it was heartbreaking to see the two fans’ excitement and pride fade to hurt and disappointment right there on camera. I mean she literally couldn’t even summon the energy to be gracious to them for a minute or two. Even Graham looked stymied by her rudeness.
She may be a huge star but she’s a very small person.
A fan once tried to give her flowers and instead of accepting them graciously, she rejected them and told the fan she hated those type of flowers. She is not a kind person.
She was minding her own business. She was name checked and had every right to respond.
I had the SEX book. My Mom got it for my 21st birthday. Madonna was it for me growing up. I never thought she is the trailblazer she thinks she is. I think she pushed and opened those boundaries that other female stars of the past could not. Josephine Baker broke the rules and Madonna was in the right time in history to break those rules further.
I agree with Cardi about disappointments.
Women being sexually explicit is not new. Madonna appropriated a lot from the black and gay communities so she can have several seats. I’m glad Cardi B called her out. It was frustrating to see people try to gaslight her on Twitter about this. Madonna clearly has a lot of resentment and anger and fear of being forgotten and could have made her point without being spiteful.
Did Madonna unapologetically use her sexuality and push buttons in the early and middle parts of her careers, which did possibly help other female artists coming up after her? Yes. Did she also appropriate other cultures throughout her career, first Latina, then African American, gay culture, etc. etc. Also yes. She was a marketing genius but she is also a petty, resentful and vicious person. All these things can be true. At this point she is so full of self loathing that she can’t do anything but put others down in order to prop herself up. It is hard to go from incredibly important in the culture to a complete joke, but I feel like she has done much of this to herself.
I’m old enough to remember when Madonna was accused of copying Marilyn Monroe. And, yes, I’m old enough to remember when Marilyn was alive. Madonna was not the original sex symbol that many younger people seem to think she was. Maybe she channeled it into music but that’s it.
She copied so many people from the downtown hipsters, Marilyn Monroe…the list goes on and on. People forget how much she used the latin community in the early days, even before La Isla Bonita. I am old enough to have been very aware of her from the start so I totally understand. She wasn’t the first nor the last, she was just everywhere so she made an immediate impact in her time.
Madonna’s book was so hilariously disappointing. The men in my office pooled together the $100 to buy it and brought it back like it was some kind of treasure. It had a metal cover so that every time you turned the pages it would cut through the paper and pretty soon the whole thing was a mess of loose pages. And I remember the content was so staged and fake – nothing erotic or sexy or even all that shocking, just a lot of trying. Everyone got bored pretty quickly.
Wasn’t the production so shoddy that all the books feel apart because it was a spiral bound book? It was all very staged to be controversial and didn’t feel at all genuine to her true sexuality.
Exactly, it was spiral bound, but also had a brushed aluminum cover – and the holes in the cover were sharp and scraped at the spiral. Anyway, the book started falling apart the moment it was opened. Yes, very staged and the photography wasn’t that good, either. But it sold well because it was sealed in plastic so you had to buy it in order to be bored.
read an interesting article a short while ago about the supposed “backlash to sex”, and one of the issues raised was the question of if the sexual revolution *truly* “liberated” women, or just made it easier/more acceptable to be exploited – as we’ve been exploited all throughout history, except nowadays it’s sometimes with our own consent.
the author wondered whether if it was really empowering that women “owned their sexuality” in the very loud, very in-your-face way that celebrities do. like, why does anyone who is truly sexually liberated constantly screaming about it?
sometimes when i see stuff like this coming out (even when there are female filmmakers behind it, but esp if it’s men obvs) – who exactly is the audience of these gratuitous, over-the-top nudity scenes? and how is this “empowering” to anyone?
some food for thought…
taris, I feel as if this conversation and observation have been going on for a while. As a teenager back in 1998 when Girls Gone Wild was going hard in the paint, I was just astounded at how sexual freedom was being turned around to exploitation, and as I went through college, it just kept getting more and more obvious. Like no this isn’t actually better for us.
yep.
while i don’t think many of us would want to return to the extreme purity culture of yore (that was esp brutal to women, too) – and personally i do believe women can absolutely own their sexuality (it just doesn’t need to be screamed about all.the.time) and do as they deem best with their bodies – i truly think it’s been rather sad to see how much of “women’s liberation” in the west has become sooo much about sex.
For some women and queer people it is empowering to use fashion and art to reject respectability politics, for others it’s not. I think it’s a mistake to expect it to be one-size-fits-all in the first place, because not everybody’s experiences have been the same. The fact that exploitation still gets blamed on women who choose to be immodest is violence in and of itself.
If we’re being honest, all movements or attempts by marginalized people to free themselves from something unfair can be exploited by some bad people. It’s sad but true. Women wanting to abstain from hook-up culture and be modest, poc speaking about cultural appropriation and other issues related to racism, LGBT males coming into their sexuality and standing up to religion- all of these kinds of people and issues have been exploited. Yet somehow on the left we still manage to keep the blame and the rage where it belongs. The same needs to be done with slut-shaming and victim-blaming- we need to stop blaming sexual abuse and exploitation on in-your-face immodest women.
And as for the gaslighting “stop screaming about it, god, why do these girls focus liberation around sex, so obsessed” crowd, you’ll stop hearing about it when it’s no longer a problem. When there’s no longer a hierarchy putting certain women at the top when it comes to who deserves empathy, and who deserves feminist support.
There’s no real liberation if the subject is only about sex. Sex is only one part of life – if you aren’t economically equal, if you don’t have an equal say at the political table, if your health isn’t as important as a man’s health, if you can’t make the choice of whether to get pregnant or not, if society still thinks that “you’re asking for it,” then what kind of liberation and ownership is this?
i don’t care what any person does with their life or body, i’m saying one being a willing co-optee in their own exploitation is tragic. i guess i should have given some examples above to make my point clear: eg, when in movies/TV/music videos where ONLY women get naked; when madonna publishes a book of herself naked, ostensibly for “empowerment” but ends up being ogled by pervs; women’s bodies continue to be used as cheap titillation and meat – who tf is being “liberated” by all this?
the fact that as a society we keep denying or ignoring this persisting exploitative and demeaning reality for many women really bothers me. it bothers me even more that there are women who actively participate in this.
But that’s part of the problem too. Who gets to decide for half of the population whether or not something is demeaning and exploitation? The women who don’t want to do it? Should women whose sexual and emotional boundaries aren’t as far away from what’s already considered respectable still be prioritized over other women? Blaming exploitation on women who take their clothes off or who do anything else that’s considered sexually immoral has always been a cop-out. It’s meant to make us feel good about bullying women. It allows us to re-frame victim-blaming as a call for accountability.
This is not a new debate as I’m sure people know and has been going on since Andrea Dworkin et al and other sex-positive feminists were going at it in the 70’s. Ironically the idea that sexual expression is a net negative for women is often championed by right-wing people who basically have the same opinion but for different reasons, so be careful with that.
Women don’t exist in a vacuum. I agree with Otaku Fairy in that the idea of whether something is exploitative or not is highly subjective. And the idea of the women being the ones perpetuating the violent structures in our consumption of women as it were, is flawed. It also kind of places priority on the reception of women “commodifying” themselves, therefore giving more agency to men, than examining how women take an active role in this and have to navigate it because of patriarchy.
Also, there are backlashes to certain eras of “women’s lib” which was what Susan Faludi’s whole book was about in 1991. Which yes, translates to more exploitative sexual imagery of women, but it’s a response to general trends of more equality, not just sex expression and positivity.
And there’s also the question of how many women have used sex to enrich themselves beyond what they could outside of that world, and what it means for gendered wealth.
D, Agree 100%.
Madonna’s going through some things.
Madonna, stay off the drugs lady. Live long icon.
I read the book, saw the pictures and thought it was ok but not THAT shocking to me. Having said that I remember how absolutely unhinged so many people became and yes she was called every name in the book and some that you’ve probably never heard of.
For her time she WAS blunt and in your face and unapologetic about who she was and how she felt. She was also a trailblazer because of that exact reason
I took my 2 oldest daughters to see her and endured some screeching and pearl clutching myself but meh, whatever. She put on a hell of a show. Surprised myself how much I enjoyed it
I suppose when you’ve been famous for so long it’s hard to let go, but she should and just sit back and be all “Yeahhhhhhh I had a hand in that”
For the record my favorite song of hers is “Rain”
Yeah, I recall looking at it, it was back when her schtick was Marilyn Monroe cosplay, photos were like Madonna-as-Marilyn nude hitchhiking, Madonna-as-Marilyn in a mask and leather garb fondling herself, Madonna-as-Marilyn pulling down some guy’s pants. Very clinical and not at all erotic or deserving of the hype IMO. I mean, looking at how try-hard and posey she is now, and then looking back over thirty years, the photos in the book were basically a precursor to her current cringy social media, except thirty years ago she was still young and still had her own face and body so it was less embarrassing.
Geez Granny got into the medicine cabinet again.
I was in elementary school when Madonna’s book came out. It was like watching a star evolve. I was one year old when her album debuted, so by the time Elementary school rolled around, Madonna was already an icon status. Her book seemed so taboo. My mom called her raunchy, nasty, and a mess. I looked at Madonna with awe because I got what she was trying to do, but now as an adult, it’s like, “wow! Madonna is cringe”. I will never get over how she basically bought and paid for those African adoptions. It has always rubbed me the wrong way.
I can’t tell Madonna apart from Pete Burns anymore.
It’s so weird for me that Madonna and others like Nicki keep coming at the younger artists coming up. Celebrate them! Why talk down and act like without you they wouldn’t be where they are. All of them got inspiration from someone else. And Madonna acting like only she was being sexually provocative back then just forgot about a ton of other singers who were doing the same thing even earlier than her.
Am I the only one who feels uncomfortable for James Baldwin with her Insta post? I can’t imagine what he would have to say about this, this makes my brain hurt.
Are those photos supposed to be Madonna?? Like, she knows we know her age, right? She knows we see unedited photos of her? Why has she basically turned herself into Jessica Rabbit’s cousin in a Who Framed Roger Rabbit underground sequel?
Pam Grier, Grace Jones yes but Madonna did not open any doors or inspire Black women like that.
*THIS*
Let’s talk Josephine Baker, now she was an icon. Madonna clearly patterned part of her “persona” after her, even copying some of her hairstyles. She loudly and proudly battled racism in a day and age when doing so was very dangerous. She did secret work for the French Resistance and Red Cross during WWII, even smuggling important communiques in her cleavage and in her sheet music. America threw racist slurs at her while the French showered her with military honors. Compare that to Madonna who merely gives lip service to big issues and parrots what other artists have created.
I remember when her book came out and it was very controversial. It was in all the papers. I think some stores refused to sell it and if memory serves some places wrapped it up so you couldn’t look through it (or maybe it was sold that way?) Now it would barely be considered a thing. Like her or hate her, Madonna was a trailblazer. Her “Your welcome bitches” was probably meant to be funny and is kind of a throwback thing to say – very 1990’s and believe it or not kind of affectionate. Watch some movies from that time. Lol. She is a little out of touch that she wouldn’t see that nowadays younger people find it offensive. The fact that Cardi B called her and it’s all cool now should tell you something.
Madonna was an icon, who tragically doesn’t realize that to stay an icon you need to step back and let the next generation find you.
One thing I like about Cardi (and there are many) is that she settles her beefs quickly in most cases. She talks to the person, listens and says, “It’s over. We understand each other now.”
Madonna WAS an icon, she DID pave the way, she reintroduced herself on the regular and I still enjoy her old cuts. I remember sitting in my boyfriend’s basement watching her do “Like a Virgin” on the VMAs back in, I think, 1984. I remember the extreme controversy about her S.E.X. coffee table book (lol). All that being said, she is becoming embarrassing with her attention-seeking behavior. Hats off to what she did back in the day but now she is just cringe. Madonna should have nothing to prove anymore. I have to admit that I say to myself “oh, stop it, grandma” when she shows her butt or whatever. And I am a couple of years older. I get “if ya got it, flaunt it” but even the greats need to accept when the time comes to celebrate the new trailblazers who are living THEIR best lives and careers for a new generation. Just MHO.
Peridot, I just wanna say I love the way you write, I love the things you write about and I love your take on the things you write about
Thank you!
Madonna is a victim of herself, this never ending reinventing of herself, she has serious Stockholm syndrome continuing to believe in a persona that doesn’t exist, she dresses like a 14yr old one instance the next she’s showing us what she had for breakfast in the most comical and not sexual appealing poses (I’m sure some of them have turned straight men gay,). She needs to sit down now and just let her past music and videos be her legacy and not these unappealing, heavily filtered and, sad looking Instagram and tiktok posts, leave the future to the talent of today without trying to throw shade on them or trying to convince the world they wouldn’t be anywhere without her
Going to Meet the Man is one of the best short stories I’ve ever read by James Baldwin or anyone else. Chilling, poignant, on-target: you will never forget it. Genius.
True confessions…. Teenager in the 80s…. I did not like Madonna. I found her voice weak and music derivative. Good dancer, good at selling herself, not my cuppa. BUT where Madonna was more of a pioneer was that she made sure she kept her money. She was in control as soon as possible of how her money came in and how it went out. She partied and played and spent with the best of them, but she knew where her money was and made sure she always made more money than she spent. (And I do have a soft spot for Ray of Light, which is the only Madonna record I ever bought).
It also kind of freaks me out how much that filler plastic surgery face looks like a muppet.
Same here. I was not mad about Madonna when I was a teenager. I still think of her as a good entertainement artis more than a music artist. I like some of her songs, but I still love more Female artists as Annie Lennox, Grace Jones, Sade, ecc. As you said, she was really good in being in control, especially of her money.
Madonna’s desperation is so sad. I’m sure using Cardi B’s name has nothing to do with the fact that she has about 142M instagram followers compared to Madonna’s 18.5M…
Also why is Madonna pretending to shove a tiny pumpkin up her @rse in the photo carousel?
Hard agree Cardi
I’m with Cardi B on this. Madonna: you had everything a music performer can have, success, fame, money. Now let the young girls shine and learn how to age gracefully.