Yes: ELLEN JONESDear Madonna,
I admire your exuberance. I think your musical longevity is the product of a formidable mixture of determination and talent. And I will never get tired of doing a dramatic rendition of “Like a Prayer” into my hairbrush. I don’t want you to fade into middle-aged obscurity and pop up to do the occasional Susan Boyle tribute show.
However, I am concerned that you’re not having much fun. You do a very good job of looking as if you’re having fun, but I don’t entirely buy it.
I don’t think it’s actually possible to have fun when one is eating a macrobiotic diet, describing vegan cupcakes as a “treat” and practising yoga for hours on end.
Also, one particular line in your new song “Give me all your Luvin” worries me. In it, you claim “I’m a different kind of girl”. (Don’t try and tell me this song is not about you. You even mention your own name.)
You’re not actually a girl. You’re a woman. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Women are amazing. They may have a few more lines and wrinkles than girls, but they have wisdom and experience and the very attractive quality of knowing what they want and how to get it.
Growing old gracefully doesn’t mean getting a blue rinse or tuckshop lady arms (hell, my mum has better guns than yours and she’s nearly 60 and upholsters chairs for a living). But endless attempts to fight the ageing process are not graceful.
Aside from being ultimately futile, they distract from time which might be better spent enjoying yourself and eating cheese.
You’ve always explored issues of sexuality, but sexuality is not only the domain of people who look like they’re 25. Sadly, those representations are the only ones we see. It seems you have to be 25, or pretend you’re 25, or fade away. Show us it doesn’t have to be that way. Let yourself go a bit. If you could do that, and still be a huge star, then I reckon you’d be setting a good example for women everywhere. If anyone can do it, you can.
Kind regards,
Jones.
No. ERIN SOMERVILLE
YOU'RE only as old as you feel.
That’s what my great-aunty told me last month at her 78th birthday party before walking down the aisle of a karaoke bus in Sydney, seizing the microphone, and leading a pack of strangers in a stirring rendition of a Kylie Minogue song.
She doesn’t have children, still parties and jetsets all over the world.
My great aunty certainly doesn’t act her age, that’s what makes her who she is.
It’s great to see people these days defying age.
I’m not talking about defying age with botox and facelifts, but doing it with energy and attitudes.
By shaking off society’s expectations that come with the number they carry.
There is no denying that Madonna, now 53, shoved these expectations when she wowed the world during her Superbowl performance.
She shook many ageist attitudes with her energetic and gymnastic show.
Her stylish outfits were a far cry from either promiscuity or a grandma get up, and she kept the critics quiet. Basically, the Queen of Pop kicked butt. But it didn’t stop a few articles popping up the next day recommending Madonna act her 53 years of age.
So what exactly is a 53-year-old meant to act like, and who makes those rules?
If you ask my parents, it’s an age to kick back in your post-child life and renew friendships that were lost during years of sleepless nights, headlice emergencies and hormones, and spending money that used to be soaked up by junior sport fees on things like outdoor furniture and exotic holidays.
If you ask my friend’s mother, it’s an age to knit booties for a child that should have been born five years ago and sit around and wait to go to the big vineyard in the sky.
The concept of acting your age is stupid.
It is obviously just a line created for people to spin to make them feel better whenever someone has aged better than them.
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