Its 20 years since we were In Bed with Madonna, it was controversial and shocking, but do today’s pop stars come anywhere as close to pushing boundaries and challenging audiences?
Was I supposed to be shocked that Lady Gaga released a song called Judas on Good Friday, and its accompanying multi-million dollar film clip shows the pop star cavorting with Jesus and Judas in the Barrio and the bathtub? Well it’s probably not me per se that’s supposed to be offended, but wasn’t someone meant to be up in arms.
While the youth will claim that Lady Gaga is ‘all that’, for those over a certain age you can’t help but notice that Lady Gaga is just repeating the moves made by Madonna twenty years ago. Pop star causes offence with religious imagery, check; see the Like a Prayer video from 1989. Pop star makes incredibly over the top video that costs millions, check; see Madonna’s Express Yourself video that still holds up pretty well 22 years later.
While Lady Gaga amuses us with her travels by egg, dresses of meat and horn implants – does she ever actually shock anyone?
So we were debating the importance of Madonna in the OUTinPerth office and compiling a list of the most shocking and controversial Madonna moments. Its 20 years this week since Madonna descended the staircase at the Cannes film Festival surrounded by paparazzi to launch the controversial film ‘In Bed with Madonna’. I remember none of my friends would come with me to see the film in the cinema – they all felt Madonna had finally gone too far.
Looking back it’d hard to remember what was actually controversial in this film, was it the bit where Madonna demonstrated fellatio on a bottle, shocking in 1991, or the naked cavorting with her backing dancers, so shocking, or was it the depiction of masturbation in her live concert?
Madonna had shocked us before rolling around in the stage in a wedding dress, surprisingly causing offence by singing about not getting an abortion, playing a stripper and dancing around young boys, dancing in front burning crosses, out on the town dancing around Sandra Bernhard and the kinky bedroom hopping video of Justify My Love gave a glimpse of future shocks in the Sex book and Body of Evidence.
Madonna caused controversy but got us talking about lesbianism, homosexuality, the right to choose and heaps more. I’m not sure if Lady Gaga is starting the same types of conversations and if 20 years from now, in 2031 will we be reminiscing about the time Lady Gaga turned up at the Grammy’s in an egg.
Graeme Watson
