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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 11, 1992)
Madonna taking pulse of society I Madonna. The name is syn onymous w ith sex. She cer tainly knows how to push all the right buttons. Businesswoman or boy-toy? Irrcgardless, her effects on your culture arc loo pervasive to overlook. j Madonna to me is becoming in creasingly more curious ever since her lucrative $60-million Warner Bros. Inc, deal, her self-styled role in “A League of Their Own,” her new record and video titled “Erotica” and a book, atop the best sel ler list no less, that is so racy you can’t flip through it at the book store. __ Madonna is so intrigu ing because I cannot determine what she epitomizes. I don’t think anyone else can either, wh ich is probably why so many people abhor her. Is she simply mimicking society, dishing out in excess the things it desires most? Or, is she so in tune with the pulse of the United States that she intuitively recreates the morality front of society with the things she single handedly exposes us to? In response to theory No. 1 ,.lan or not, Madonna isa sex symbol. She has at least the capacity to be one of the — most beautiful and enticing female icons of the late 20th century. Her Marilyn Monroeisms take mimicry to new heights. It’s one thing to clone the airy, breathy, dizzy aura and the hazy line between enticing sexual innocence and full-blown carnal know-how. It is another thing entirely to caricature these personality trails in part homage and part parody so it seems as though Madonna reinvented Marilyn. So is Madonna, in essence, doing the same and self-determined woman can be seen in her autobiographical movie, “Truth or Dare.” Her final cultural assault,“Erotica,” is so racy it was banned from MTV’s normal rotation hours, a marketing, ploy Miss M has been successful with in the past (See Economics 211 — Law of Supply and Demand). The video’s explicit material includes bondage, homosexuality and sadomasochistic procedures. After seeing the video, I started to realize how uncomfortable I was with the content. 1 feel this same burning lump in my throat every lime I view another Madonna spectacle. But yet, like every first, the shock wears off and you become numb to the initial feel i ngs a v idco or song of hers cl ici ts. And, it is this shock value that makes Madonna stand alone in the music industry and allows her power. Even if, like me, you feel Madonna has crossed a line into a distasteful, unsolicited, sex-sells mindset, it’s easy to concede that she piques interest in herself to the point of massive sales disguised as idolatry. It’s as if Madonna is playing a collective poker game with society, upping the ante every round as she introduces more taboo subjects to the game we all play by engaging in mainstream ideology. So, it Ls in this way that she has the power to metamorphosize us, changing, mold ing our traditional views into a head on confrontation with the fantasies and freaks in the recesses of our own minds, begging the acceptance of the tangential and arcane elements of a society she sees as whole and without the moral dictation and ignorance that creates divisivcncss. Krnlssc is a senior pre-med major and a Daily Nebraskan columnist. Reflecting the cycles of life at 29 Something is in the chill No vember air, the bare branches swaying in the wind against a slate-gray sky, that makes one reflect on the cycles of life, of its progression and ending. And I’m only 29. Gads. I'm loo young for this morbidity. But, approaching the milestone of the beginning of my fourth decade on this mortal coil, I have begun to see [ things morcclcarly than I could have 10, or even five years ago. I think not in terms of next se mester or next year, but the next five years. I dif ferentiate people not as freshmen, sophomores, graduates or under graduates, but along generational lines. My soul is caught between two worlds, balanced on the cusp between the baby boomers and their younger siblings. My musical tastes show an affinity for the older generation. Give me a good dose of early Slones, Janis Joplin, Eagles or Doobics any day over Madonna, Megadeth or any rap artist. This doesn’t mean, though, that I have any sympathy for the yuppie angst that was constantly gushed forth on “thirtysomething.” I cheered when it went off the air. Listening to a bunch of ex-flower children and war protesters cry about how unfulfilled they fell in their spank ing-new condos, with their Volvos and Cuisinarts, made me violently ill. It must be real damned lough to be that successful. If success means be ing that whiny,give me poverty! Thank God I don’t have the boomer psyche. However, the new generation that follows the boomers leaves me equally cold. When I think and talk about them, I worry I’m turning into my father. They dress funny. They talk incomprehensibly. Their music is weird — I have no idea who Pearl Jam is, I have little use for Nirvana and look askance upon the antics of Guns ‘N’ Roses. __ Moreover, I refuse to be consid ered a part of any demographical group that includes mousscdmal frals ,mca pablc of finding ihc United Slates on a map, who mindlessly spout the MTV - derived new social consciousness slo gans about env ironmcntalism, racism and every other “ism” known to hu manity. Despite my acquired skepti cism, I can’t buy into their gloomy mentality of “we’ll never have it as good as the previous generation, so why try to excel or dream?” Two things brought this genera tional gap home. The first was my recent acquisition of a significant other, some eight years younger than I am. When we began talking about memories of famous events, I real ized how large such a gap could be. I voted for president for the third lime this month; she for the first. When the Challenger blew up, she was in the eighth grade; it was my last semester of college. I watched the first moon landings; she wasn’t even born yet. Had we fallen in love at any other lime, I would be in jail. The second thing that crystallized my thoughts on this and made me think was a book called, naturally enough, “Generations,” by William Strauss and Neil Howe. It lakes a different view of U.S history by trac ing the progress of different genera tions through their life cycles. The authors make some astonishing find ings, altering my view of the past. Things I had intuited before became clearer. Anyone serious about history must read it. I will try to do the theme justice here, but I suggest you gel a copy of your own and pore over it. Strauss and Howe make a lew pre dictions about the future based on what has gone before. What lies ahead? We’re in for big trouble, folks. Better yet, we can blame it all on the baby boomers and feel good about it. The boomers arc what Strauss and Howe call idealises. Their genera tional type came of age in a spiritual awakening, the ’60s, where conscious ness was raised for everyone. As they move into midlife, boomers arc still comfortable in making high moral Rronounccmcnts, telling the rcslof us ow to live—witness the health food and exercise revolution or the puri tanical crusade against “politically incorrect” behavior. The seemingly logical inconsistency of ex-hippies spearheading anti-drug and anti-drink ing campaigasis more readily under stood in this light. Boomers have little asc for my generation, which they see as lacking ' any moral compass. Translation — we didn’t have anything like Woodstock, so we’re all soul dead. The boomers’ idea of government is one that docs more to be “socially responsible.” They talk of apocalyp tic problems — the environment, for one — and equally severe solutions. Boomers have no trouble using gov ernment to tell others what to do, nor arc they troubled by bringing on a “cultural war.” Liberal or conserva tive, they’re of a type. That generational type has in the paslbroughtuslhcCivil War, the War for Independence, and things I ike Pro- r hibilion. Think on that fora minute, and then remember who we will have silting in the White House in a couple of months. A boomer, with an entire administration of generational cohorts. Feel that shiver up the spine yet? However, all is not lost. Strauss and Howe predict, based on the past, that the crisis to come won’t occur until the year 2020 — crises come every SO years, as do the spiritual awakenings, so there’s plenty of lime to lay away canned goods and ammo. When the boomers have brought us to the brink of disaster, then what? Who will save us? My generation, that’s who. The scorned mall rats and head-bangers will rise to pull everyone’s chestnuts out of the fire. Will we get any thanks or gratitude for it? Probably not — the boomers aren’t big enough to admit when they have made an incorrect judgment. However, my generation is used to abuse, and we will suffer society’s ingratitude in silence, with the inner satisfaction of knowing we did what all the harmonic convergences and guitar playing failed to do — we saved the world. Kepfidd is it graduate student in history, an alumnus of the LN'L College of Law, and a Daily Nebraskan columnist. Sign up to win at these businesses. Then, read the Daily Nebraskan every Friday to see if you won! Be a Cultural Ambassador through the JAPAN EXCHANGE AND TEACHING PROGRAM Teach English/ Work in International Relations APPLICATION QUALIFICATIONS: !1. Have excellent knowledge and usage of English y 2. Have a desire to live in Japan W 3. Hold U.S. citizenship 4. Hold or obtain at least a BachetoPs degree by July 20,1992 W FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, W CONTACT IMMEDIATE!. Y: Consulate General of Japan JET Program W 911 Main Street, Suite 2519 ^ Kansas City, MO 64105 (816) 471-0111 DEADLINE FOR RECEIPT OF APPLICATION IS DECEMBER 15,1992 REVLON introduces c 0 L O F TYLE (Sj FOR WOMEN OF COLOR > I 1 1 COMPOSTIONS NATURAL COLOR LMKrjNEMIM COLOR BALANCING ENRICHED OIL-FREE* MAKEUP EYECOLOR PRESSEO POWDER LIPSTICK flKKl REVLON"] I 00 off i ANY REVLON COLOR ■ STYLE PRODUCT k rnL — ^XPIRE^12-18 92 t with our society in her accurate but overblown magnification of our cu mulative psyche as Americans, so that, in effect, we arc buying into a mirror of ourselves? If you opt to agree with theory No. 2, Madonna as cultural student turned teacher, it is more than fair— impera tive is more like it— that the implica tions of the woman’s power come to light. Look at Madonna’s career in gen eral. Riding on thccoailailsof MTV’s inception, the material girl had her firslhit in 1983 with“Holiday,” spurn ing a new type of music genre — Dance Pop. Her 1984 hit, “Like a Virgin,” her first No. 1 Single, was also the first of a series of grand slams that were so anti-mainstream that they became hits. She upset the fundamen tal traditional values associated with marriage and chastity. After several pop-formula dance hits, virtually all reaching the lop of the charts and making music history, Madonna proved herself to be the equivalent of what Stephen King and Danielle Steele arc to novels—com mercialism personified. Madonna’s anti-cultural icon days started in full swing in 1988’s“Likca Prayer”-by wearing lingerie and Hanked by a Black Savior and burn ing crosses, a full-blown affront to her Calhol ic roots. 1 n th is v idco she stom ps on conventional religious imagery in the same pattern of mocking rever ence. And the hits continual with “Ex press Yourself,” a so-called feminist manifesto and finally, the Blonde Ambition tour, which some might argue is an oxymoron, not unlike the woman herself. Contradiction is her essence. 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