Awescape
This book was so good! Despite being about 900 pages, it was incredibly addictive and I read it really fast and with pleasure. Madonna is an incredibly strong person, and her life was moving. The book covers her coming up as an artist, her decision to be an artist and embracing of her sexuality and strength despite her conservative Catholic upbringing, her years at dance school, going to New York where she became part of the New York art scene in the late 70s and early 80s, dancing at gay clubs and making friends with Basquiat and others. Madonna over and over championed her right to express herself and be an embodied, sexual, open women when both conservatives culture and feminists at times took issue with her. She's been through a lot and while not perfect still is inspiring to so many people, and her committment to her art is unwavering. The book described her attention to every aspect of her success, to every part of her shows, visual, auditory, and thematic. Madonna is a performance artist and views her much as a way to connect with people and express bigger themes, personal and political, and reading about her attention to detail, artistry, ambition, and focus was really moving in a culture that she forced to take her seriously even when they tried to make her a joke.
I deducted .5 stars because sometimes the book tried to ties themes of feminism into Madonna's story into other events happening at the time regarding politics ect to make a pleasing and neat universal narrative, which the author is not as educated in, especially in the later half of the book- for example, making sweeping statements about Hillary Clinton not being elected as a result of sexism and Hillary and Madonna being the same fighters of a sexist climate, in the middle of Madonna's story- where there may be some truth to that, Hillary's story is as complicated and nuanced as Madonna, and the trite, sweeping generalizations trying to tie Madonna's feminism and journey into a neat narrative involving other women or politics without proper research or nuance just felt really ham-fisted and like a different narrative that didn't belong in a book that was otherwise very objective and nuanced.
This book was so good! Despite being about 900 pages, it was incredibly addictive and I read it really fast and with pleasure. Madonna is an incredibly strong person, and her life was moving. The book covers her coming up as an artist, her decision to be an artist and embracing of her sexuality and strength despite her conservative Catholic upbringing, her years at dance school, going to New York where she became part of the New York art scene in the late 70s and early 80s, dancing at gay clubs and making friends with Basquiat and others. Madonna over and over championed her right to express herself and be an embodied, sexual, open women when both conservatives culture and feminists at times took issue with her. She's been through a lot and while not perfect still is inspiring to so many people, and her committment to her art is unwavering. The book described her attention to every aspect of her success, to every part of her shows, visual, auditory, and thematic. Madonna is a performance artist and views her much as a way to connect with people and express bigger themes, personal and political, and reading about her attention to detail, artistry, ambition, and focus was really moving in a culture that she forced to take her seriously even when they tried to make her a joke.
I deducted .5 stars because sometimes the book tried to ties themes of feminism into Madonna's story into other events happening at the time regarding politics ect to make a pleasing and neat universal narrative, which the author is not as educated in, especially in the later half of the book- for example, making sweeping statements about Hillary Clinton not being elected as a result of sexism and Hillary and Madonna being the same fighters of a sexist climate, in the middle of Madonna's story- where there may be some truth to that, Hillary's story is as complicated and nuanced as Madonna, and the trite, sweeping generalizations trying to tie Madonna's feminism and journey into a neat narrative involving other women or politics without proper research or nuance just felt really ham-fisted and like a different narrative that didn't belong in a book that was otherwise very objective and nuanced.