SARAH PICKETT and SAM INMAN try to answer the question LOVE HER or hate her, you can't ignore Madonna. Reputed to be worth around 70 million, she is the single most. successful American businesswoman in recent years. Singer and songwriter, cancer ano actor, producer and business person, Madonna oozes sex and success.
Constantly evolving her image she is one step ahead of everyone else, a creative FILMS genius. Warren Beatty, co-star in 'Dick Tracy' and one-time lover of Madonna's, attributes her success to her courage, energy and the fact that she works damn hard.
Madonna's own theory is that it comes from a rebel liousness and a desire to fuck with people'. Whatever the recipe and however controversial, it certainly works.
Yet when she stormed into the charts in 1983 with the squeaky disco hit 'Holiday everyone saw her as just another bimbo.
The real key to her success and the reason for much of the surrounding controversy is that she's turned this cultural stereotype on its head. Powerful and sexually assertive, Madonna is the ultimate 'wannabee' for literally millions of young women around the world.
What really gets up the noses of most Madonnabashers though, is her use of sex and sexuality in her art. The latest outcry from the moral right came with the video for 'Justify my love' where she is seen in bed with another woman.
This fuelled the debate seen in the tabloids last year around Madonna's sexuality -a debate initiated by her close friendship with famous les bian comedian Bernhard.
The focus of controversy amongst feminist and left critics is over Madonna's ocfor Express Yourself showed tion of playing up to the woman-as-victim stereotype.
Critics cannot see that she is teasing their sensibilities. Some male critics had theirs masturbation on stage at Wembley last year. As Judith Williamson wrote in the Guardian in a blistering attack on such male art critics last year -they just don't understand that women can camp it up too!
Madonna herself recognises the difference between fantasy and reality, consensual and non-consensual sex. In a recent Channel 4 interview shesaid, 'I chained myself. There wasn'ta man standing there making me do it. Degradation is when someone else is making you do something your wishes.
'I may be dressing like a bimbo but I'm in charge - of my fantasies, my career, my life. Isn't that what feminism is all about? In society a who is overtly sexual is to be feared. What I am saying is, 1 can dress this way, behave this way - but I'm in charge' Madonna breaks sexual taboos. But she wants to provoke open discussion on sexuality, particularly with young people. She has also used her status to take up the question of HIV, AIDs and 'safe sex not no sex'.