Done it again
Sunday, June 18, 2006

Madonna is a very consistent woman. Consistently taking cultural elements and personal ideas, then branding them as her own creativity.




For example:



Like a Virgin > Stole the lyrical concept of Like A Virgin from group Hide The Babies

Material Girl Video > Copied Marilyn Monroe's Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

Like a Prayer Video > Catholicism in general

Vogue > Stolen from Poor black Gay New Yorkers who used dance offs as a means of expression most of all died of AIDS (See Film Paris Is Burning).

Justify My Love > Stole Ingrid ChavezÂ’s style and lyrics

Frozen > Stole Belgian writer Salvatore Acquaviva's own song & got caught

Ray of Light Video > Copied Italian director Stefano Salvati's short music video

Hollywood Video > Stole Guy Bourdin's photography & got caught


Swept Away movie > Stole filmmaker and Law and Order actor Vincent D'Onofrio's idea to do a remake


Should I go on?

So it comes as no surprise that her new video has similar themes taken from others. Not that the theme is any new concept anyway. Just take a look at the below clips of Dashboard Confessional (I knew I'd seen it before somewhere!) and Madonna's latest video Get Together.

Posted by Cade 11:15 AM    

Labels: MUSIC

1 comments:

At 2:33 PM jay said...

I have been known to refer to her as 'the cultural rapist', harsh but true. She takes anything that means something to a sub-culture, religion or collective which fights to establishes thier ideology and reduces it to a digestible product for mass social consumption. All the politics and meaning behind why these people express themselves (pardon the pun/song title) in this was is disolved.
Homework, Malcom Mclaren stole voguing too, research the roots, an astounding sub culture that challanged dominant hetrosexist culture by batteling within thier ranks without violence (dance offs) to create a hieracal establishment in the New York club scene that reflected the socio-political battle that these GLBTI people faced in the early 80's when the AIDs epidemic was not yet apparent but had begun to pervade the community in an implicit and incidious fashion and the sense of self identity as a GLBTI person was being formed in a western contemporary world that is obbsessed with autonomy and capitalism (oh America, and then we all followed).
Krumping and Parkour which feature in her newest videos are also very important to contemporary cultural identity and challange the basic establishments of power that sorround us such as government power, hegemoney and social conditioning, these movements are what evolve society and collective conciousness bringing us ever closer to equality and a persuit of unconditional humanity in all senses from gender, sexuality to religion and ethics.
Have a look at the Parkour links on my blog, it started in france and my brother is a part to the development of it in Australia, its philosophy is basic but poinient, walk a different path, be critical in your negotiation of your physical and social sorroundings and express your findings and analysis in a visible practice that encapsulates or embodies this code of (mis)conduct. By doing this it becomes visible and cannot be ignored, these people are not misfits they are merely exercising thier right to be heard which is fundamental to positively developing our fragile modern world. Maddona is a remarkable figure of popular culture and reflection of the inconsiderate western psyche that co-opts cultural ideologies and churns them out as fashion or farce. She is not the only one but she sure sets a bench mark.
Blah Blah Blah, just had to get that off my chest...
Cheers
Xjay

 

Post a Comment