Thursday, 18 August 2022
Meet the JournalistsPremiumAucklandWellingtonCanterbury/South Island
CrimePoliticsHealthEducationEnvironment and ClimateNZ Herald FocusData journalismKāhu, Māori ContentPropertyWeather
Small BusinessOpinionPersonal FinanceEconomyBusiness TravelCapital Markets
Politics
Premium SportRugbyCommonwealth GamesCricketRacingNetballBoxingLeagueFootballSuper RugbyAthleticsBasketballMotorsportTennisCyclingGolfAmerican SportsHockeyUFC
NZH Local FocusThe Northern AdvocateThe Northland AgeThe AucklanderWaikato HeraldBay of Plenty TimesHawke's Bay TodayRotorua Daily PostWhanganui ChronicleStratford PressManawatu GuardianKapiti NewsHorowhenua ChronicleTe Awamutu Courier
Covid-19
Te Rito
Te Rito
OneRoof PropertyCommercial Property
Open JusticeVideoPodcastsTechnologyWorldOpinion
SpyTVMoviesBooksMusicCultureSideswipeCompetitions
Fashion & BeautyFood & DrinkRoyalsRelationshipsWellbeingPets & AnimalsVivaCanvasEat WellCompetitionsRestaurants & Menus
New Zealand TravelAustralia TravelInternational Travel
Our Green FutureRuralOneRoof Property
Career AdviceCorporate News
Driven MotoringPhotos
SudokuCodecrackerCrosswordsWordsearchDaily quizzes
Classifieds
KaitaiaWhangareiDargavilleAucklandThamesTaurangaHamiltonWhakataneRotoruaTokoroaTe KuitiTaumarunuiTaupoGisborneNew PlymouthNapierHastingsDannevirkeWhanganuiPalmerston NorthLevinParaparaumuMastertonWellingtonMotuekaNelsonBlenheimWestportReeftonKaikouraGreymouthHokitikaChristchurchAshburtonTimaruWanakaOamaruQueenstownDunedinGoreInvercargill
NZ HeraldThe Northern AdvocateThe Northland AgeThe AucklanderWaikato HeraldBay Of Plenty TimesRotorua Daily PostHawke's Bay TodayWhanganui ChronicleThe Stratford PressManawatu GuardianKapiti NewsHorowhenua ChronicleTe Awamutu CourierVivaEat WellOneRoofDriven MotoringThe CountryPhoto SalesNZ Herald InsightsWatchMeGrabOneiHeart RadioRestaurant Hub

Advertisement

Advertise with NZME.
Lifestyle

Have you hit the age of irrelevance?

13 Jun, 2019 09:23 PM5 minutes to read
Madonna, performs at the 64th annual Eurovision Song Contest, held this year. Photo / Getty Images

Madonna, performs at the 64th annual Eurovision Song Contest, held this year. Photo / Getty Images

Financial Times
By Jo Ellison

COMMENT:

Madonna rails against ageism in the media, but the truth is harsher than that, writes Jo Ellison of the Financial Times.

"To say that I was disappointed in the article would be an understatement," wrote Madonna on Instagram after reading the recent New York Times magazine cover story and interview dedicated to the singer, "Madonna at Sixty".

She expressed her outrage at both the "never-ending comments about my age which would never have been mentioned had I been a MAN!", as well as the author's "focus on trivial and superficial matters such as the ethnicity of my stand-in or the fabric of my curtains".

People like myself, who subsequently raced to the news website in the hope of discovering whether Madge prefers her drapes dressed in velvet or jacquard, however, will have been crushed to discover such information absent. Instead they would have found a generally reverential piece written by features writer Vanessa Grigoriadis, a long-term fan who first heard the "household icon" when she was 11 and sang along to her performance of Like a Virgin at a Madison Square Garden concert in 1985 "without understanding what the word meant".

Although the interview wasn't quite the usual hagiography one has come to expect of the modern celebrity profile, it's hard to see what had Madonna spluttering with rage. Perhaps, as has been customary over the course of her decades-long career, and on the eve of a new record (her 14th studio album, Madame X, is released this week), she was simply poking the embers of a marketing campaign that then ignited, very successfully, at her bidding. I suspect, however, that it wasn't the mention of "60" thrumming throughout the copy that caused the singer such grief, but another indignity entirely. The tiny whisper that Madonna has entered the age of irrelevance.

View this post on Instagram

Madame ❌ on the cover of N.Y.T. Magazine photographed by my dear friend @jr..........Also sharing my fav photo that never made it in, along with pre-shoot chat and a celebratory glass of wine 🍷 after many hours of work! To say that I was disappointed in the article would be an understatement- It seems. You cant fix society And its endless need to diminish, Disparage or degrade that which they know is good. Especially strong independent women. The journalist who wrote this article spent days and hours and months with me and was invited into a world which many people dont get to see, but chose to focus on trivial and superficial matters such as the ethnicity of my stand in or the fabric of my curtains and never ending comments about my age which would never have been mentioned had I been a MAN! Women have a really hard time being the champions of other women even if. they are posing as intellectual feminists. Im sorry i spent 5 minutes with her. It makes me feel raped. And yes I’m allowed to use that analogy having been raped at the age of 19. Further proof that the venerable N.Y.T. Is one of the founding fathers of the Patriarchy. And I say—-DEATH TO THE PATRIARCHY woven deep into the fabric of Society. I will never stop fighting to eradicate it. 💔

A post shared by Madonna (@madonna) on Jun 6, 2019 at 5:58am PDT

Grigoriadis was once her biggest fan. I, too, listened to True Blue on repeat, devising a dance routine in its honour as well as incorporating fingerless lace gloves into my daily uniform of Eighties expat chic. But the article seemed to be explaining her greatness, rather than assuming it, and the numbers don't lie: Madonna's last album, Rebel Heart, was her worst selling yet. Her Instagram following (13.8m) is a fraction of that claimed by younger female stars such as Miley Cyrus (94.5m) or Ariana Grande (154m), both latter-day incarnations of the empowered femininity and sexual liberation first embodied by the singer. And her new single, I Rise, has garnered 2.46m views on YouTube since its release in May, fewer than half the number of people who have in the past three days checked out the latest footage of Korean pop sensation BTS finessing a dance routine.

Discovering that no one really cares for your once potent, valued point of view is pretty ghastly: I'm still nursing the bruise my ego suffered when FT Weekend "retired" me for being too old to contribute to the millennial issue last year. For Madonna, who, according to Grigoriadis, once "literally controlled the light around her", the slide into irrelevance must be brutal.

Advertisement

Advertise with NZME.

The new album might be phenomenal. A stunning return to form. This paper has awarded it an inconsequential three stars — which is about the most irrelevant rating ever — but surely it's near-impossible to sustain career longevity when your creative persona is still entwined with a pose of cultural significance and fruity post-adolescent pulpesse.

Ageism isn't the issue here. No one is bothered that Patti Smith is 72. The 53-year-old Björk is always current because her work is predicated on her being otherworldly kooky. Kate Bush remains hypnotic as a hermit savant. Arguably the reason they continue to captivate the zeitgeist is because they never seemed to care about it in the first place.

Related articles

Entertainment

Madonna: I lost my children to social media

06 May 08:50 AM
Entertainment

Madonna: MJ is "innocent until proven guilty"

07 May 07:39 PM
Entertainment

Madonna says she felt 'raped' by New York Times

08 Jun 02:02 AM
Entertainment

Unfair reason Hollywood dumped Megan Fox

28 Dec 06:02 PM

None of us will be spared from eventual obsolescence, but while most of us only learn the extent of our irrelevance when we realise we are mentally incapable of programming the Sky box, or have become the last refusenik to subscribe to the office's new "collaboration hub", it's a far bleaker world for creatives who must suffer the ignominy of age while simultaneously having fame wrested from their fingertips by younger models.

In a rare moment of industry candour, while speaking at the FT luxury summit last month, fashion designer Jonathan Anderson dared to talk about his own creative lifespan. "I'm already dealing with the idea that one day I will no longer be fashionable," the 34-year-old told the audience. "Creativity has a shelf life. No one is safe."

He speaks the truth. But Anderson is lucky. Still only a child by industry standards, and currently riding the crest of comfortable critical and commercial success, he can afford to be blasé about his future. For older creatives, the spectre of irrelevance hovers far closer: it was perhaps this fear that compelled the late designer Karl Lagerfeld to produce some 16 collections, under three different brand names, every year until his death at 85, and what drove him to remain so relentlessly curious. On his death, he may not have been the most modish designer, but he kept his bejewelled finger on the pulse. And his prescience was spooky.

Madonna, meanwhile, is caught up in introspection. And getting tangled up in her press. She may still control the light, but instead of looking at the world, she's gazing at her navel. And there's nothing less relevant than that.

Written by: Jo Ellison

© Financial Times

Advertisement

Advertise with NZME.

Advertisement

Advertise with NZME.

Latest from Lifestyle

Premium
Lifestyle

What I've learnt from a year without booze

18 Aug 12:00 AM
Lifestyle

Why my marriage sabbatical from Piers Morgan worked wonders

18 Aug 12:00 AM
Lifestyle

16 lightweight jackets to see you through spring

18 Aug 12:00 AM
ROYALS

Chilling words of Queen's 'crossbow intruder' revealed

17 Aug 10:29 PM
ROYALS

Meghan and Harry trying to 'create woke royal family'

17 Aug 08:57 PM

Most Popular

Scrap metal fire: Toxic smoke warning, residents to stay inside; blaze to burn across day
New ZealandUpdated

Scrap metal fire: Toxic smoke warning, residents to stay inside; blaze to burn across day

18 Aug 12:51 AM
Wet, warm and windy: Auckland and Northland battered by heavy rain overnight
New Zealand

Wet, warm and windy: Auckland and Northland battered by heavy rain overnight

17 Aug 09:25 PM
Nelson to New York: TV's David Lomas and an emotional reunion of long-lost father and son
Entertainment

Nelson to New York: TV's David Lomas and an emotional reunion of long-lost father and son

17 Aug 08:59 PM

Advertisement

Advertise with NZME.
About NZMEHelp & SupportContact UsSubscribe to NZ HeraldHouse Rules
Manage Your Print SubscriptionNZ Herald E-EditionAdvertise with NZMEBook Your AdPrivacy Policy
Terms of UseCompetition Terms & ConditionsSubscriptions Terms & Conditions
© Copyright 2022 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP