The Semiotics of Performance and Success in Madonna J O S É I . P R I E T O - A R R A N Z Introduction T HIS WORK AIMS AT ANALYZING THE CULTURAL PRODUCT, OR rather agent of cultural production, which is Madonna, who remains as controversial today as when she first gained notoriety almost three decades ago. As a good Irish Catholic, Steve Allen unambiguously attacked Madonna from the pages of this very journal, seeing in her nothing but a “professional prostitute” (5). In so doing, he refuses to acknowledge Madonna’s unquestionable influence on contemporary popular culture. With over 300 million albums sold to date, she is arguably the world’s most successful female singer, owning a conglomerate of multimedia companies (Brown 4) and having recently signed an unprecedented global partnership with the world’s leading live events company that is likely to determine the way the music industry will evolve in the forthcoming years. Madonna seems to have defied all generational laws. Among her numerous followers one can find the young of the 1980s but also those of the 2000s. And this is not all: Madonna is a household name for the parents and even grandparents of the actual consumers of her products, since Madonna, rather than a singer, is a global multimedia phenomenon. This partly explains why the 1995 edition of the prestigious Cambridge International Dictionary of English quoted “Like a Virgin” to contextualize usage for its entry “Virgin” (Guilbert 82), The Journal of Popular Culture, Vol. 45, No. 1, 2012 © 2012, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 173 174 Jose´ I. Prieto-Arranz thus acknowledging the existence of what Stephen Brown refers to as today’s “economy of entertainment” (7). This article will mostly be of a semiotic nature since, to put it simply, Madonna’s output is in many respects nonverbal (Guilbert 27), pure performance, either through the videos showcasing her music or on stage on some of her world tours. It is, therefore, necessary to refer to Charles S. Peirce’s well-known typology of the sign (see Hoopes) and, most particularly, what he called “iconic signs,” that is, signs in which Signifier (the sign’s material manifestation) and Signified (meaning) bear a close resemblance or could even be said to appear fused (Bignell 15). The greatest interest of an icon lies in that, whereas in most other signs the relationship between Signifier and Signified is entirely arbitrary (e.g., why is black the color of mourning in the western world?), the icon’s Signifier and Signified apparently relate in a nonarbitrary way, a view no doubt fostered by the parallel rise of photography—the photograph is the iconic sign par excellence—and philosophical Positivism (Bourdieu 162; Robins 153). However, photography has been shown to be one more textual genre and, as such, a mere transcription involving rules, conventions and, to say the least, “an arbitrary selection” of elements (Bourdieu 162), and not the faithful reproduction of reality Positivism had taken it for. Consequently, no instance of visual representation deserves to be referred to as truly “iconic” (Eco Theory of Semiotics 191, 216). Furthermore, the complexity of the iconic is best understood if we take into account that, besides its literal or “denoted” meaning, connotation (Mortelmans 182–85) is also an inextricable part of the icon (Bignell 16), all of which makes it not only arbitrary but also inevitably polysemous (Barthes 16). In order to help disambiguate meaning, Barthes recognizes the existence of special techniques such as anchorage or relay, both of which involve complementing the image with verbal language, which will at least help fix the otherwise quite wide range of possible meanings of the visual text. A good example of the former is the photo caption, which “holds the connoted meanings from proliferating.” The latter, on the other hand, can be seen in comic strips and most film or TV productions, in which “text…and image stand in a complementary relationship” (Barthes 20). Performance and Success in Madonna 175 Madonna’s output is to a large extent nonverbal. Apart from her ever-changing look and live performances, the importance cannot be ignored of the music video as an essential promotional tool in her career. Pat Aufderheide analyzes the history of this genre, covering its early stages, rapid expansion paralleling the launch of MTV in 1981, and nonstop rise after 1984, when the channel clearly became profitable. Interestingly, 1984 also saw the release of “Like a Virgin,” Madonna’s first chart-topping single. Its accompanying video underwent heavy MTV rotation and Aufderheide analyzes it as prototypical of the genre (68). The evolution of the music video could indeed be studied through Madonna. The impact and permanence of some of the images these videos have generated is such that they have often influenced the singer’s mise en sce`ne in her live performances, thus creating interesting “intertextual chains” (Fairclough 79). At this point, the aim of this work can be more clearly stated: the figure of Madonna will be analyzed by focusing mostly (but not exclusively) on two of the themes she has traditionally touched upon in her work, namely sex and religion, which will be used to exemplify her condition as a postmodern icon. Emphasis will be placed on the period 1983–2006, although brief references will also be made to later years. Sex + Religion = Madonna Icon? Quite surprisingly, there was nothing overtly sexual, let alone religious, in the lyrics to Madonna’s first album songs. The only remarkable aspect was the image of the artist herself, soon to be copied by millions of teenagers across the world: teased, bow-tied hair, street market fashion, rubber bangles, and her true trademark: the ostensible use of lacy underwear and the cross/crucifix as a fashion complement. Indeed, a young girl who, not being particularly beautiful, seemed to take pride in her plumpish body, oddly ornated with religious symbols, was bound to shock. This early Madonna was already characterized by three features that would remain constant throughout her career: (1) Iconicity. Transgression, novelty and shock will not normally come verbally—explicit lyrics are only rarely found in her 176 Jose´ I. Prieto-Arranz repertoire: Madonna will instead construct her body as a complex, meaningful text. (2) Sex-religion interplay. Throughout most of her career, Madonna will to a greater or lesser extent resort to these two variables. (3) Multilayered meaning. The metaphor of the palimpsest, that is, the manuscript which has been written on, scraped off and used again, can indeed be used for Madonna. Her work has gradually developed multiple layers of signification, the validity of each being in turn ambiguous: do the upper, more recent layers invalidate the lower, older layers, or do they on the contrary simply complement them? A brief analysis of the early Madonna (1983– 1985) may well serve to illustrate this question. Her classic “Like a Virgin” (1984) provides a good example. As usual, its lyrics are at best ambiguous but could hardly qualify as explicit. During this same stage, the constant exhibition of her own body is perhaps her least polysemous Signifier, and could indeed be taken as a vindication of the female body. But what is the meaning of her superposition of religious symbols? Did she simply want to be seen as a blasphemous, anti-Catholic rebel? In a famous 1983 shot by Deborah Feingold,1 a huge cross hangs from Madonna’s right ear. The portrayed, dressed rather decently, seems to sustain an image of innocence, emphasized by the lollipop she holds in her mouth. Yet, this innocent layer may well be covered by another not quite so innocent: Madonna looks straight into the camera, seeking contact with the viewer and placing herself at their same level. Her gaze is selfconfident, unsettling, challenging, and completely subjects the viewer. Moreover, there is a clear association between the lollipop motif and oral sex, which, it is suggested, the portrayed practices while staring at her lover: control and power are therefore clearly connoted. Thus interpreted, the sex-religion binomy is given a new, destabilizing dimension and points to a vindication of the role of (sex-charged) Woman in Christianity. Kate McCarthy, for whom Madonna tops the list of women singers transcending mere sexuality, linking it to both spirituality and gender construction, would probably agree with this interpretation. Indeed, the physical and the divine have been traditionally dissociated in the Christian (and specially Catholic) world. As McCarthy herself points out, gnostic teacher Valentinus contended that divine Performance and Success in Madonna 177 Jesus could not defecate (69). The association of bodily and divine matters is even more irreverent when the body is female—a good case in point is the desexualized maternity of the Virgin Mary that has traditionally yet unofficially presided over the Catholic Church. For McCarthy, Madonna epitomizes a whole generation of artists who have (sometimes unconsciously) become pillars of the so-called “3rd-wave” or even “postmodern” feminism, which clearly opposes and goes beyond the traditional association between sexual sin and womanhood (70–71). Ultimately, this feminism understands gender as a mere yet powerful social, cultural and psychological construct imposed on biological differences (McElhinny 22).2 Madonna has indeed often made a point of blurring gender conventions, which makes this a productive line of research. Which interpretation should then be adopted? A vindicative Madonna à la “political celebrity,” as John Street sees her? A deliberately obscene, sacrilegious Madonna whose only aim is to shock and court controversy? A Madonna who reconstructs the concepts of gender and religion/religiosity as well as the relationship between them? Or simply a young woman in a secular era (Michel Foucault would call it “episteme”) enabling formerly religious signs to retain their Signifier with a purely aesthetic function but dissociating them from their original Signified?—see Foucault, Arche´ologie du Savoir and Les Mots et les Choses. What is interesting about Madonna is that all these semantic dimensions may well be equally valid. From a very early stage, Madonna has deliberately cemented her popularity on ambiguity, thus appealing to not one but many social groups and subcultures. Madonna as a Postmodern Icon Economic growth, the concentration of capital and the technological breakthroughs in the fields of communication and transport have changed the face of the earth and turned it into a global village. Globalization or “transnationalization,” although an economic phenomenon with origins rooted in the postimperial, postindustrial evolution of nineteenth century colonialism (Hall 19–28), now has far-reaching consequences beyond the purely economic (Saskia Sassen 206). 178 Jose´ I. Prieto-Arranz John Urry defines globalization as the existence of “nonlinear interdependencies between peoples, places, organisations and technological systems across the world” (“Time, Complexity and the Global” 3). Among its general features are the constant use of “technologies that shrink time and space,” the “flows of people and images” and, as could not be otherwise, cultural homogenization (he even goes as far as to speak of the “cocacolonization” of culture) (“Globalisation and Citizenship” 3–6). Urry, therefore, regards globalization as a constant flow of “global fluids”—information, material mobility (“Time, Complexity and the Global” 4)—which gives rise to what he calls “global hybrids,” among whom the “post-national” or “nomadic” citizens (e.g., international film or pop stars) play a significant role (“Global Media and Cosmopolitanism” 3). In other words, transport and IT, most specially the mass media, have pulled down traditional national borders, brought mobility up to levels deemed impossible not so long ago, and turned the individual into a hybrid being as part of a process which could be referred to as the “decentering of the self,” already identified as inherent to the postmodern condition (Scholte 159–83; see also Amin, Boulding, Hewitt, and Sassen). Postmodernism, therefore, understood as the age or period in which Western citizens currently live, results from the material conditions of life which have just been described as globalization. “Postmodern,” consequently, will be the adjective used to refer to the new cultural system underlying late capitalism (Jameson 193). And as such it could be defined as “a specific regime of signification in which particular cultural objects are produced, circulated and received” (Urry, The Tourist Gaze 83). Madonna: Global, Hybrid Fluid As a consequence of this network of global fluids, the first feature of postmodernism may well be “eliquation,” that is, the melting, fusion and free flow of up-to-now fixed and distinct entities (Punter 79). In turn, homogeneity disappears to be replaced by heterogeneity. In this context, the postmodern world, and most especially the postmodern city, has been seen as a celebration of difference (Hutcheon 6; see also Sassen), a true Babel of colors, languages and, of course, cultures Performance and Success in Madonna 179 brought to us daily by the different media. Little wonder, then, that in such a hybrid world theorists should forecast the end of individual identities in what has been termed “the death of the subject” (Jameson 195–96). Madonna may well fit the “postmodern individual” category. She undoubtedly is a truly global, hybrid fluid. Global because she is prominently featured in virtually all the media in the world. Hybrid because she has moved beyond the constraints of the supposedly provincial, middle-class identity of her native Midwest, absorbing and appropriating many other features that have come her way along her life and career. The media still refer to Madonna as an “ItaloAmerican singer.” Yet it is difficult to know to what extent Madonna would agree to describe herself as a singer. Indeed, she does sing and has so far sold more records than any other female singer but the messages she puts across transcend the physical borders of her lyrics. Her concerts are genre theory-defying shows featuring songs, of course, but also a spectacular mise en sce`ne with clear dance, cabaret, circus, mime, street theater and Broadway/West End musical influences, not to mention the importance of lighting and multimedia resources. Whether performing live or through her music videos, Madonna is to be seen rather than listened to, thus paving the road for a good many (especially yet not exclusively female) artists, including the latest sensation in the music recording industry, Lady Gaga. Equally doubtful is her “Italo-American” label. To start with, in emphasizing her father’s Italianness one tends to ignore her mother’s French-Canadian descent. True enough, Madonna herself has stressed her Italianness, especially when drawing attention to her strict Catholic upbringing (which she would later deconstruct in her work) or through hints like the famous “Italians Do it Better” T-shirt slogan she donned on her “Papa Don’t Preach” video. However, it would be a mistake to identify Madonna with an exclusively Italian cultural legacy. For a start, she does not speak the language. Besides, Madonna has never recorded in Italian: her entire output uses English, the only significant departure from it being Spanish. All in all, it can be quite safely stated that the Hispanic “is perhaps the most influential and revisited ‘ethnic’ style in her work,” as Santiago Fouz-Hernández claims in his article “Crossing the Border(line): Madonna’s Encounter with the Hispanic” (139). 180 Jose´ I. Prieto-Arranz It is not, however, the only one. Mostly in her 1992–1993 and 1998–2001 periods, Madonna also adopted, modified, subverted and deconstructed Asian (specially Thai, Hindu and Japanese) elements and imagery (see Angelo Tata and Gairola for further details). Finally, suggesting that her Italian heritage is nothing but a piece of a much larger mosaic, Madonna recovered her “Papa Don’t Preach” T-shirt on some of the dates of her 2004 and 2006 tours, replacing the word “Italians” to pay homage to Britain, Ireland, Japan and even her wellknown Kabbalist beliefs. This in turn somehow puts into question the importance of US heritage in Madonna’s artistic persona. This third element in the “Italo-American singer” label is equally blurred and debatable. Undoubtedly, she is mostly seen as Caucasian, especially when she sports blond hair (she referred to herself as “Blond Ambition” in 1990) and yet her use of US iconography or themes is not particularly abundant. Her lyrics are mostly written in English, her native language. As far as spelling, lexis and syntax are concerned, she occasionally allows her US origin to rise to the surface. Madonna’s singing accent, however, is one of the clearest examples of the hybrid “Mid-Atlantic English,” and hybridity also seems to have taken hold of her everyday accent, which she herself parodied in her 2001 International Female Brit Award video acceptance speech. Musically speaking, virtually all critics agree that Madonna, rather than export US music, has imported new (mostly European dance club) trends into US mainstream pop (Fishwick 76), with only one notable exception of late: her Hard Candy album (2008), widely seen as an attempt to win back the US market with marked urban undertones. It remains to be seen where her upcoming 2012 release will stand in this regard. In terms of iconography, US culture does not seem to have played a central role in Madonna’s work either. In many of her videos one can recognize typical US, yet not individualized, urban features. In fact, she frequently focuses on suburban life (“Papa Don’t Preach,” 1986), away from WASP canonicity (as in the barrio of “La Isla Bonita,” 1987). Often enough, however, the location used resists identification, or is presented as foreign and exotic.3 To say that Madonna never focuses on US symbols would, however, be something of an overstatement. She occasionally does, Performance and Success in Madonna 181 although never straightforwardly or as a mere act of patriotism to her home land. For many, Madonna embodies the “from rags to riches” American dream, and yet she does so in a most unorthodox way. Equally linked to the American dream is the “self-made man,” which Madonna has re/constructed, mostly due to the fact that she is not a man but a woman. This was perhaps first seen in one of her first big hits, “Material Girl” (1985), a hymn to materialism (Roosksby 16) which is, however, performed ironically, as seen in (1) the extremely high pitch she uses in the song; (2) the accompanying music video, which, as Georges-Claude Guilbert points out, deconstructs Marilyn Monroe’s “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friends” number in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) through a mise en abyme structure (Guilbert 143); and (3) live performances of the song. On her Virgin Tour (1985), Madonna refused to refer to herself as a material girl and rounded off the song giving away money bills from the stage; on her Who’s That Girl Tour (Ciao Italia 1987) she gave her performance a carnivalesque flair which would eventually become satire on her Blond Ambition Tour (1990) by turning the song into a beauty parlor conversation and replacing the line “Experience has made me rich” with “Experience has made me a bitch.” But this would not be the end. As Guilbert points out, on her 1990 tour Madonna once again gave away money bills, this time with her own effigy printed on them (Guilbert 44). As usual, meaning becomes blurred. Could this be a declaration of power, Madonna placing herself on a par with US Presidents? Or is this a huge metaphor for an imaginary country governed by different values? In any event, the song lyrics are quite clearly Madonna’s starting point, which she uses to build an entirely new message with each live performance, thus signaling that her “Material Girl” persona cannot be interpreted hurriedly. Over the last few years, Madonna, having teamed up with some of the biggest names in the retail sector, has successfully turned to designing. Interestingly, her teen-oriented clothing range, available from Macy’s department stores across the US, is labeled as “Material Girl.” Whenever Madonna uses US imagery in her artistic work, this is to be seen as much more than simple patriotic homage. On her 1987 tour she used images of the then US President Ronald Reagan whilst singing “Papa Don’t Preach.” This is one of her very few songs with fairly explicit lyrics which a young, unmarried mother-to-be addresses to her un-understanding father. In the context of this live 182 Jose´ I. Prieto-Arranz performance, this father was no other than the then metaphorical “father” of the nation, Republican Ronald Reagan, whom John Street would call a “political celebrity,” just like Madonna herself. Her opposition to the US Republican Party is notorious and she does not even hide it when performing songs which are apparently to be taken as mere invitations to dancing. This is noticeable, for example, in the musically uninteresting “I Love New York” (2005), whose lyrics include a veiled reference to President Bush made more than explicit when performed live on her 2006 tour. Something similar (and reminiscent of her 1987 “Papa Don’t Preach” performances) could be seen in her use of a remix of “Sorry” (2006) for one of the show’s interludes. This included visual input showing the Iraq War, Saddam Hussein and George W. Bush, thus transforming what originally was presented as a woman’s complaint to her ex-lover (“I’ve listened to your lies and all your stories”) into a political statement. A similar strategy would be used on her 2008-9 Sticky & Sweet Tour. This brings to memory the aborted launch of her satire of the American dream: “American Life” (2003). The original music video, first screened when the Iraq War was about to break out, pointed to the international scenario as a concoction by President Bush, presenting it as an extravagant fashion show. This was almost immediately withdrawn and replaced by an edited version which instead showed Madonna clad in a sexy military outfit against a changing background featuring the flags of different countries, the last of which is the Star‐Spangled Banner. This is more in tune with Madonna’s usual work. The flag is an easily recognizable symbol and potentially more neutral when used critically. On her Girlie Show (1993) Madonna sang “Holiday.” Both singer and dancers wore military-inspired coats with US flag linings and danced to a military beat against the background of a huge US flag, Madonna being clearly in command of her troop, ironically tyrannizing them and accepting no reply other than “Yes sir, Mrs Sir, Yes sir.” Thus, by blurring gender conventions, Madonna seemed to condemn the attitudes of surprise and shock at women occupying powerful positions still found in certain quarters.4 Moreover, and even if Sean Albiez would probably disagree here, by wearing—and not flying—the flag to a military beat, the first Gulf War still fresh in everybody’s mind, Madonna was not simply displaying her Performance and Success in Madonna 183 patriotism but probably parodying aspects of her country—her contribution to the 1990 Rock the Vote campaign (literally wearing the flag with very little underneath) or the final image in the “Erotica” music video (1992), featuring a Marilyn-styled Madonna hitchhiking in the nude in a suburban American street, can be similarly interpreted, given the Puritan middle-class values the latter connotes. A similar approach will be followed upon the release of her cover of Don McLean’s 1972 homage to Buddy Holly and American values, “American Pie” (2000). Madonna edited the song to accommodate it to dance-pop conventions. The accompanying video is one of Madonna’s simplest: images of Madonna singing and dancing in an almost spartan setting featuring a chair and the US flag as backdrop alternate with images of different sectors of the US population, emphasis being clearly placed on non-WASP America: gay and lesbian couples openly displaying affection, marginal families, Afro-Americans, Hispanics, and for almost the video’s total run, a yellowing, ragged US flag. Devoid of specific references, the song’s edited lyrics receive a totally new meaning, once again conveyed visually. The country evoked in Don McLean’s version, Madonna seems to say, does not exist. The values its flag represents are a construction well past its sell-by date. The expression on Madonna’s face when singing and dancing before the flag is difficult to describe but she jumps and smiles—at some point she even marches to a military beat, as she had done back in 1993 with “Holiday.” Note should be taken that the half malicious, half childish smiling Madonna wears a tiara, which she combines with ragged, low-rise, rear-displaying jeans. Madonna as Princess or even Queen in a Republican state (see Albiez 129)? Is this to be taken as further evidence of her disregard for established power? Or does she, on the contrary, crown herself Queen of the fictional country evoked in Don McLean’s song? Once again, Madonna leaves the door open for virtually any interpretation but one: blind patriotism. “American Pie” marks Madonna’s transition to her most obviously American ethnic image: the sequined, Wizard-of-Oz Dorothy-reminiscent cowgirl (Albiez 131), which will characterize her Music period (2000–2001).5 Taken at face value, Madonna’s cowgirl image can be seen as a deconstruction of the US male myth. And yet, as Albiez adds, the cowgirl once was a self-sufficient myth which Hollywood relegated to an almost invisible position in the 184 Jose´ I. Prieto-Arranz twentieth century (124–25). If this is really so, rather than deconstruct, Madonna may be seen to vindicate the validity of the cowgirl myth. Either way, hers is a tongue-in-cheek deconstruction/ vindication, as evidenced by the incongruence of the sequin and rhinestone-based outfits she will be wearing in this period. Was she claiming the validity of American West values for early twenty-first century urban life? Or was she, on the contrary, parodying them? In either case she presented them as yet one more construction, as seen in the “Don’t Tell Me” video (2000), characterized by up to three different levels of signification, apparently opposing—through yet another mise en abyme structure—the American West as a reality versus different levels of construction, even if everything eventually seems to melt into a huge construction which even admits homosexual connotations (see Albiez 132–33). Madonna: Pastiche and Collage Madonna’s status as a hybrid fluid leads to another feature identified as typically postmodern: the emphasis on pastiche and collage (Urry, The Tourist Gaze 85), a melting pot of imitations of whatever is considered to be peculiar or unique (Jameson 195), which in turn is nothing but what the media present as such. After all, in a world with blurred frontiers and identities, the unique and original cannot but be revered, whatever is most frequently copied being also the most appreciated (Groom 9). According to Nick Groom, today’s is a world of “original copies” or even blatant forgeries, in a culture where absolutely everything is mechanically and electronically reproduced, where seeing is believing (Urry, The Tourist Gaze 84–85) and, consequently, where the image and the reproduction can be more real than the real and therefore become “hyperreal” (Eco, Travels in Hyperreality). All such features can be seen in Madonna’s use of religious motifs and, most visibly, sex themes. As for the latter, Madonna has polished an increasingly sophisticated image, drawing inspiration from the likes of Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield or Marlene Dietrich but always reinterpreting and providing their poses with a new meaning and signification. Although visible from the beginning, Madonna’s sex load increases in 1990. Her “Vogue” video, which Performance and Success in Madonna 185 mainstreams what up to that moment had been a Harlem gay club dance (Guilbert 124), has Madonna adopt clearly Monroe-inspired poses. Yet, this is a tongue-in-cheek appropriation, as she would later show in her 1993 Saturday Night Live spoof of Monroe’s “Happy Birthday, Mr President” or her 1993 “Bad Girl” single cover image. Shot by Steven Meisel, this replicates a classic 1960 Marilyn Monroe picture taken by Eve Arnold except that Madonna clearly does away with Marilyn’s innocent aura and victim status. Whereas the Arnold image has a recently awoken woman decently covering her nakedness with her bedsheet, Meisel’s appropriation shows Madonna not covering but caressing her left breast, a cigarette carelessly hanging from her mouth—a clear sign of postcoital satisfaction. Furthermore, the song’s title, “Bad Girl,” exceptionally anchors this interpretation. A self-conscious distance from Monroe’s innocent and victim image can also be seen in Madonna’s Marilyn-inspired persona posing in contexts no one would ever associate with Monroe (e.g., the glamorously dressed Sex book Madonna defiantly looking at the camera while surrounded by stark naked gay club dancers) or her adoption of features from other film stars like Jayne Mansfield or the never candid Marlene Dietrich, whom Madonna appropriated in some of her most sophisticated poses (e.g., in her “Vogue” video) and her recurrent androgyny/sexual ambiguity interplay. Indeed, Dietrich consciously provoked by wearing typically male outfits, which helped consolidate her powerful sex appeal with bisexual undertones. Madonna will do this while performing “Like a Virgin” on her 1993 Girlie Show, taking her appropriation further by placing a walking stick between her legs and simulating an exaggerated erection. Around this period Madonna herself suggested new readings for this already complex palimpsest by declaring having had same-sex relations in the past and even fostering ambiguous interpretations of her friendship with comic actress Sandra Bernhard. The De-Differentiation Game De-differentation is another feature generally accepted as characteristic of postmodern life, and clearly affects the up-to-now clear-cut line separating “high” and “popular” culture, resulting in the birth of intertextual genres (Hutcheon 9–10; Crook, Pakulski, and Waters 186 Jose´ I. Prieto-Arranz 36–37). Madonna’s live performances have grown in sophistication and developed into a genre of their own, a 4-act show fusing elements from Broadway musicals, theater, ballet and all kinds of art/street performance. Each act showcases a series of songs, the greatest interest lying in how older songs are newly performed and give rise to intertextual chains. One of the most interesting is, again, that made up of the different performances of “Like a Virgin,” which was also used to open the Blond Ambition Tour’s second act (1990). Aided by new musical arrangements and choreography, the song transported the audience to the Western concept of the erotic/exotic Orient (Said). Sensuality was emphasized by the brassiere worn by Madonna on this occasion, whose golden color highlighted the visibility of what in principle was a piece of underwear, as well as the cones covering Madonna’s breasts. The sexual connotations of these were obvious, but their interpretation is far from simple. On the one hand, they could be taken as an idealization of the female breast. It is equally possible, on the other, to see in them an inverted representation of the uterus, the container par excellence, or even a phallic symbol supplanting the female attributes. Supporting evidence could be found in the mirror image of the elongated bras worn by the dancers, which they would occasionally touch with movements suggesting masturbation, itself cataphoric of Madonna’s performative climax. Should this be taken into account, an interpretation of such bras becomes increasingly plausible as sexual forms fusing in principle antithetical male and female features into a neutralized and therefore fluid, hybrid, thus typically postmodern and truly effective sexual sign. The climax of this 1990 version of “Like a Virgin” was emphasized by the music suddenly coming to a total stop. Then Madonna would look up and a voice-over (clearly Madonna herself) would pronounce the word “God.” Very much like an adversative conjunction, this introduced the next song, the religiously themed “Like a Prayer.” But like the cigarette on the “Bad Girl” cover, it could also be taken as an exclamation signaling orgasm. Both readings could in fact be complementary. This is beyond any doubt the moment when sex and religion, two constants in Madonna’s career, achieved their most perfect union. In actual fact, this moment can be read as a combination of both, marking the union Performance and Success in Madonna 187 of the worlds of sexuality and spirituality, and thus confirming a conception of sex as God-given pleasure. This song’s latest rewriting was presented on the 2006 Confessions Tour. There, “Like a Virgin,” used as the central piece of the show’s first act, was once again given a new layer of meaning through highly successful intertextual chains. For this first act Madonna wore black, horse riding-inspired (and S/M-related) gear, a reminder of her Dita persona in the “Erotica” song and video (1992). In the latter, however, Dita only exerts her power on a puppet, whereas in the first act of her 2006 tour Madonna held the reins of power and exerted it on flesh-and-bone men who, characterized as horses (in bridle-and-bit-including apparel), literally allowed their mistress to ride them: “Erotica’s” Dita had come back with a vengeance. With this performance, Madonna once again vindicated sex, this time for middle-aged women who, like herself, could also feel “touched for the very first time.” In so doing, Madonna contended, and still does contend, that being the object of sexual desire need not weaken the position of women. She is exposed because she wants to, possibly because pleasure can also be derived from exhibitionism, but she remains in control, literally subjecting the men around her and even suggesting that she does not really need them since in this performance she ended up alone on the stage, riding a mechanical bronco (yet another intertextual reference, this time to both the “Don’t Tell Me” video and Drowned World Tour live performance) and even lap dancing around its phallus-evoking pole. Interestingly, the analysis of Madonna’s intertextual chains would not be complete should it fail to account for the recurrence of visual motifs. In other words, intertextuality in Madonna’s career is to be seen not only through the different stagings of the same songs but also through her use of the same symbols in live performances of (or videos accompanying) different songs. This is specially the case of her characteristic use of religious symbology. The half shocking, half vindicative early Madonna icon, epitomized by Deborah Feingold’s “lollipop” portfolio, was based on the fact that the lyrics accompanying such visual input were in no way religious. This encoding perhaps reached a turning point in 1989–1990, with the (KKK-reminiscent or anti-orthodoxy?) burning cross motif and updated Maria Magdalena role she adopts in her 188 Jose´ I. Prieto-Arranz controversial “Like a Prayer” video (1989). A change can indeed be noted in Madonna’s work by this time. Although the religion-sex binomy still seems to be at work, religious themes no longer appear only visually but also in her song lyrics. Perhaps for the first time in her career Madonna’s aim to shock comes hand in hand with an aim to raise awareness and so the Madonna sign comes to represent religious (albeit hardly orthodox), critical thinking. This is best seen in her production in the late 1990s and 2000s. Ray of Light (1998) encapsulates a newly found profundity and, occasionally, mysticism in her lyrics, which quite fittingly matches her © Clare Parmenter--http://www.madonnalicious.com FIGURE 1. Embodying the sacred: the Confessions Tour onstage crucifixion (2006). Performance and Success in Madonna 189 clearly evolved public persona, by now well known for her yoga and kabbalah-inspired lifestyle. What becomes interesting in this most recent period is not quite so much the religious dimension Madonna’s Signified seems to develop as the development experienced by its Signifier: the tendency to ornate her body with religious symbols remains (the kabbalah writsband or her Re-Invention Tour “Kabbalists do it better” T-shirt bear testimony to this) although clearly secondary to another. Taking her skill to construct her own body as text one step further Madonna has of late taken to embodying (and not only wearing) the sacred. Her Hindu goddess Laxmi impersonation in a famous David LaChapelle portfolio (1999) and, perhaps most notably, her 2006 Confessions Tour onstage crucifixion (see Figure 1) are but two relevant examples which have certainly helped fix unorthodoxy and nonconfessional religiosity as essential elements of the Madonna Signified. Conclusion This article has presented the figure of Madonna as an icon, arguing that the meaning and signification of the Madonna sign largely depends not quite so much on her song lyrics as on a complex nonverbal Signifier. Focusing on two of her pervading themes, sex and religion, it has showed how Madonna became an icon in the early stages of her career by clearly choosing to use her own body as Signifier. Likewise, this iconicity has always been characterized by a twofold complexity derived from (1) the growing sophistication of both her onstage and music video performances; and (2) the multilayered meaning her messages always seem to convey. In this regard, Madonna has been treated as an icon imbued with all the features generally attributed to postmodernism, and accordingly presented as a hybrid, global fluid defying all pre-established (national, ethnic, religious, sexual) identities whilst always remaining easily recognizable. In addition, Madonna’s use of pastiche and collage has also been noted not only in the inspiration she permanently draws from late artists but also, and above all, in the constant re/ visions she makes of her own work, each re/vision introducing at least one further level of meaning/signification. Finally, Madonna has been presented as a consummate advocate of de-differentation, constantly 190 Jose´ I. Prieto-Arranz fusing old and new, the elitist and the popular, thus giving rise to new interpretations of old songs or, conversely, presenting new songs to fit semantic fields she has traditionally explored in her almost thirty years as a solo artist. Urry adds that de-differentation in the postmodern world may even affect the border between the artistic and the commercial (The Tourist Gaze 85; see also Jameson 203–05, and Storey 131–32). There probably is no better example than Madonna herself, the best-selling female artist of all time, when every move of hers has been calculated to boost sales; no better example than Madonna, the artist with whom a new, hybrid, intertextual, half-artistic and half promotional genre—the music video—has developed to be later imitated by fellow artists. There still is a question that needs to be addressed, namely the relation (anchoring or relay) that can be said to exist between the verbal and the nonverbal in the case of Madonna. If only isolated performances were to be analyzed, it could be maintained that Madonna’s is a fairly clear case of relay between the verbal and the nonverbal. Her lyrics are generally ambiguous, and these are only (partially, hardly ever totally) disambiguated through performance— anchoring is therefore to be ruled out. In any case, neither relay nor anchoring will suffice in a possible account of the semiotic richness of Madonna’s work, since neither truly explains how her recurrent intertextual chains can be tackled. The possibility is always there for the audience to infer that each new re/vision cancels out earlier meanings. This work suggests that such re/visions are not about cancelation but complementation, and from this only apparent contradiction a hybrid, universal Madonna so far risen victorious, with a slightly different message for each and every one of her millions of followers worldwide. As a post-scriptum of sorts, it should be added that, after performing on the world’s most successful tour ever by a solo artist (the Sticky & Sweet Tour, 2008–9, in support of her Hard Candy album), and parting ways with Warner Bros., 2012 promises to be a milestone in Madonna’s career. Morphed into a blonde starlette from the 1930s–40s, she has been busy of late promoting her upcoming directorial effort, which revisits the relationship between King Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson. Madonna’s latest impersonation fosters comparisons between herself and the controversial American socialite. The artist’s new album will also be released this year, hunger for which Performance and Success in Madonna 191 will surely develop when she performs during the Superbowl’s Halftime Show. Even if critics are waiting to see how she resists competition from Madonnaesque figures like Britney Spears, Rihanna or Lady Gaga, one thing is for sure: a new Madonna era is dawning and, with it, new layers will be added to the Madonna palimpsest. To be continued…. Notes 1. This image can be accessed online at <http://www.madonnalicious.com/gallery1983.html>. Thanks are due to this site and her editor, Ms Clare Parmenter, for kindly granting the author permission to reproduce copyright material. See also Deborah Feingold’s own Web site at <http://www.deborahfeingold.com>. All other images discussed in this article, including those from live performances or music videos, can be retrieved from the relevant galleries at <http://www.madonnalicious.com> and the media section at <http://www.madonna. com>. 2. In any case, many feminists would reject this definition on the grounds of oversimplification, as, from a clear presumption of heterosexuality, it seems to imply that there are two and no more than two sexes. Many babies are born with chromosomal, genetic, hormonal or genital dysfunctions. Consequently, such newborns do not fit the standard male or female categories, and medicine and surgery have often been used “to bring their recalcitrant bodies into closer conformity with either the male or the female category” (Eckert and McConnell-Ginet 11). 3. Nonindividualized US features can be seen in, for example, “Borderline” (1984), “Open your Heart” (1986), “Secret” (1994), “American Pie” (2000), or “Love Profusion” (2003). On the other hand, locations are deliberately blurred in most of “Erotica” (1992), the surreal “Bedtime Story” (1995) and even “Frozen” (1998). Finally, exoticizing videos are particularly abundant. Consider, for example, the carnivalized sensuality of “Like a Virgin” (1984); the evocation of Fritz Lang’s 1927 Metropolis in “Express Yourself” (1989); French eroticism and decadence in “Justify my Love” (1990); the Andalusian Spanish flavor in “Take a Bow” (1994); the Argentinian theme used for the Evita-related material (1996–1997); the Japanese influence in both “Rain” (1993) and “Nothing Really Matters” (1999); or even her particular homage to the British twenty-first century metropolis in “Drowned World (Substitute for Love)” (1998), “Beautiful Stranger” (1999), or “Hung Up” (2005). 4. Using gender and queer theory concepts, and as Mark E. Casey has suggested to the author of this article, Madonna can be seen to have borderlined a “female drag king” performance in her portrayal of maleness. The Girlie Show performance of “Holiday,” as well as that of “Like a Virgin” can indeed be interpreted along these lines. 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Web. 26 April 2001. ——. “Time, Complexity and the Global.” Department of Sociology, University of Lancaster. 2000. Web. 26 April 2001. ——. The Tourist Gaze. Leisure and Travel in Contemporary Societies. 1990. London: Sage, 2000. Print. José I. Prieto-Arranz is an associate professor at the University of the Balearic Islands’ Department of Modern Languages. He holds a European PhD in English from the University of Oviedo (Spain). He has published in the fields of EFL, translation and, most specially, cultural studies, his main interest being the expression and representation of identity. He has authored and edited several volumes, including A Comparison of Popular TV in English and Spanish Speaking Societies: Soaps, Sci-Fi, Sitcoms, Adult Cartoons, and Cult Series (The Edwin Mellen Press, 2010, with Marta Fernández-Morales) and is currently working on a comparative study of British and Spanish historical cinema from a national identity perspective.