For years, the Catholic Church's huffy responses to Madonna's antics have earned her only more fame. I am basically a fan, but I've thought the insulting Catholics thing was a little tired since at least that video where she makes out with the iconography.
Finally, the Catholics have learned to fight back. Here is the Catholic League's press release, in its entirety:
May 22, 2006
MATERIAL GIRL STRIKES AGAIN
The singer Madonna kicked off her “Confessions” tour in Los Angeles yesterday. Between political statements and oral sex jokes, Madonna found the time to don a crown of thorns, hang from a mirrored cross and croon her ballad “Live to Tell” in front of a screen flashing images from the Third World.
Commenting on this is Catholic League president Bill Donohue:
“When the Material Girl first embraced Kabbalah, we thought her new-found faith would inspire her to show some respect for religion. It stands to reason that a woman whose faith is so important to her that she drags her rabbi to her concerts would not want to mock the faith of others.
“But I guess you really can’t teach an old pop star new tricks. Madonna has been spicing up her act with misappropriated Christian imagery for a long time now. Perhaps she can’t arouse any interest in her work without it. Poor Madonna keeps trying to shock. But all she succeeds in doing is coming across as a boring bigot.
“Do us all a favor, Madge, and stick to singing and dancing. Knock off the Christ-bashing. It’s just pathetic.”
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I would have left out the "oral-sex jokes" reference at the beginning, but otherwise, it's a masterpeice of talking to her fans in their own language IMHO.
I like especially the phrase "boring bigot." It just rings in the head.
Well played.
CC
5 comments:
Ha!
OK, the line about the 8-minute dance remix is funny.
Had Madonna just performed in fron of the images of kids, I wouldn't have a beef.
But between the nun costumes, her makign our with inconography in her "Like a Prayer" video and this, she really very clearly does have a huge thing with the Catholic church.
I do think she is intolerant.
CC
I vacillate between being really sympathetic towards the Catholic Church and frustrated with them. All it takes for me to feel anger is when I think about how the Catholic Church has not used its power or influence to challenge some of the horrendous atrocities committed by governments that control the lives of millions of Catholics. Same for the Evanglicals. These religious institutions had nothing to say about Guatemala, for example.
That just pisses me off. So I don't care if Madonna makes the church feel uncomfortable, though I wish she'd be more specific.
Matt,
While I don't think the Vatican necessarily represents the views of all Catholics, I am disturbed at the way it uses its undeniably enormous influence), and on what issues it remains silent on. I find that a lot more offensive than anything Madonna does. If anything, she is doing the Catholic Church a favor, by putting it in a position of being "victimized" - an idea I find laughable.
I think the first time, that response would have been jsut fine.
Madonna has been doing this in one way or another for most of her career. ("Like a Prayer" came out over 15 years ago.)
She's been getting rich off of makign fun of Catholics for getting close to two decades and I think Matt is right that her only real religion is the almighty dollar.
(I don't find calling her a bigot inappropriate. If she were mocking Jews over and over, would we hesitate to call her an anti-semite?)
CC
Ayup.
CC
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