Madonna is not necessarily famous for her music, movies or image. She is an “artist”—her “art” being the way that she can craft and reassemble the Madonna machine. She does this with her style and her mode of address, changing music sound, creating a new image, new dance style, new hobbies, new friends, and voicing new beliefs. Her success though is granted simply to her skill in repackaging and mutating, allowing her to reach out to new markets.
If you look at Madonna as a brand say, she is modernizing and re creating the Madonna label to tap into minority groups or target new markets. Evidently, each new image pushes the boundaries of what is fashionable, what is common in society, and like a brand gives her a competitive advantage over her competitors. Each music phase she plunges into is slightly off what is “popular”, but gives this allusion that she is one step ahead, granting her a cool iconic status (By this I define “popular” as what is economically pleasing to record companies). Subsequently, Madonna is staying current with the youth of today, the biggest consumers of her music.
The other way of looking at her, is that her constant change of style is just part of the Madonna show. According to David Tetzlaff, “the purpose of Material Girl is for Madonna’s audience to witness her playing with her own persona, to indicate that she is the author of her image” (1993:246). As Madonna explores new ideas within herself, she wants the world to see the process in which she assembles her new machine. Each new process, each new structure is on show. He also looks at Madonna’s music, video clips and image as a postmodern text, and suggests that whatever we see on the surface of the text is meaningless, but only there to stimulate us. Certainly, her music and outfits is irrelevent, but what she does with them. She tries to be controversial, or as she states in In Bed with Madonna she likes to “push peoples buttons”. She is controversial in her sexual escapades, speaking freely about aids, homosexuals, war in Iraq, kabala and adopting children. She is on the forefront of what is new and underground, acting as a vehicle for us to assess it.
Consequently, once we have visibility to her art—her clothes, music etc— and have knowledge of these products, we can then find means to access it. Each new persona Madonna pulls out drives our fetishes, as we want what she has/looks like. Clearly, Madonna’s mutations feeds into other industries, industries that either sell Madonna as a commodity (her music, clothing label, costumes) or her way of life. Even her hobbies and activities such as kabala and yoga are made into commodities, as they are part of the Madonna package. From this we can see that her “art”— her continuum process of repackaging of the Madonna machine—is how she feeds and anticipates the commodity industry.
At the same time, Madonna seems to have an intrinsic drive to be in the spotlight—she clearly doesn’t need the money, but does it because she loves the fame and fortune, and it gives her a challenge, to come up with innovative ideas of marketing the Madonna label. Tetzlaff confirms this in stating that “Money isn’t really important to Madonna: success and control are” (1993:246).
Madonna is only one example of the celebrity machine—all celebrities have several behind the scenes factors and personal crafting their style and tell them how to address the public in order to attain a certain market. It is interesting though to look at other artists who have follower in Madonna’s footsteps and made their “art” their continuum process of mutating and recreating. Other diva type stars are obvious examples, such as Kylie, Beyonce, Brittany and Christina. They are such stars we only need to refer to them by their first name. However, most artist change, developing their sound as the band members switch and the artists mature. For example The Beautiful Girls are a band which only has one constant member, Matt McHugh, and the rest of the members come in and out, adding their creative ideas and inputs. consequently, their sound has also changed. Artists can also change their mode of address without changing their sound. The the White Stripes who once only released their music on vinyl and refused interviews, now release on CDs and itunes, and have a large public relations group driving the band on the front cover of every second magazine. Again, their mode of address has adapted to reach more people and expand their market.
Davis Tetzlaff (1993(, “Metatexual Girl” in The Madonna Connection: Representational Politics, Subcultural Identities, and Cultural Theory Ed. Cathy Schwichtenberg. St Leonards, Sydney: Allen and unwin: 239-263
