tag:theconversation.com,2011:/global/topics/madonna-26069/articlesMadonna – The Conversation2023-09-26T20:07:20Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2142582023-09-26T20:07:20Z2023-09-26T20:07:20ZMillie Bobby Brown’s debut novel is a bestseller. Does it matter that the 19-year-old actor didn’t write it?<p>Stranger Things actor Millie Bobby Brown’s debut novel, <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/products/nineteen-steps-millie-bobby-brown?variant=41037404373026">Nineteen Steps</a>, revolves loosely around true events. In 1943, the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-35938274">Bethnal Green tube disaster</a> claimed the lives of 173 Londoners, due to faulty stairs in the station used as an air raid shelter.</p>
<p>This tragedy, the UK’s largest loss of civilian life in the second world war, was one Brown’s own grandmother survived. Brown describes her novel as a “<a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CqLZVfKAIYR/">really special project</a>” inspired by her family’s WWII history.</p>
<p>But she didn’t write Nineteen Steps. A ghostwriter named <a href="https://kathleenmcgurl.com/">Kathleen McGurl</a> did. McGurl described the process in <a href="https://kathleenmcgurl.com/2023/03/28/a-new-departure/">a blog post</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I was sent a lot of research that had already been pulled together by Millie and her family, and plenty of ideas, and we had a couple of Zoom calls. And then I knuckled down and wrote the first draft, while Millie continued sending more ideas via WhatsApp. The book went through several drafts since then, as we refined the story.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>There’s been <a href="https://i-d.vice.com/en/article/ak3npe/millie-bobby-brown-nineteen-steps-review">vocal backlash</a> against the book – partly due to Brown’s outsourcing, but also for its quality. The novel’s first paragraph, which has been shared widely (and derisively) on social media, ends with the line:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It was hot — the kind of heat that makes you long for the weather to cool down and the leaves to fall, but then you berated yourself for wishing away the good weather.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/j7tFHlXkjmY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">I read Millie Bobby Brown’s book so you don’t have to.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Social media users have further lambasted the dubious origins and quality of Nineteen Steps by posting <a href="https://twitter.com/credenzaclear2/status/1705728852163473449">screenshots</a> from classic novels, cheekily attributing the opening lines to Brown.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ghostwriters-haunt-our-illusions-about-solitary-authors-42048">Ghostwriters haunt our illusions about solitary authors</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Credit where credit’s due?</h2>
<p>Ghostwritten novels have long haunted debates surrounding issues of <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1057/978-1-137-31313-3">authorship and authenticity</a> in publishing.</p>
<p>It’s a phenomenon we seem to tolerate in some genres, usually when the real author’s ghostly presence is an open secret (even subtly acknowledged), or when authorship takes a backseat to story. It’s more common in mass-market than literary fiction.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550172/original/file-20230926-16-x4km04.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550172/original/file-20230926-16-x4km04.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550172/original/file-20230926-16-x4km04.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=877&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550172/original/file-20230926-16-x4km04.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=877&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550172/original/file-20230926-16-x4km04.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=877&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550172/original/file-20230926-16-x4km04.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1103&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550172/original/file-20230926-16-x4km04.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1103&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550172/original/file-20230926-16-x4km04.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1103&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For example, anyone who’s devoured a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hardy_Boys">Hardy Boys</a> novel or an instalment of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Baby-Sitters_Club">The Baby-Sitters Club</a> owes hours of enjoyment to the invisible authors behind household names Franklin W. Dixon and Ann M. Martin. These serialised books for young readers revolve around familiar characters and the comforting rhythms of formulaic story arcs.</p>
<p>Blockbuster writer James Patterson co-authors his novels, coming up with outlines and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/james-patterson-doesnt-write-his-books-and-his-newest-readers-dont-read/2016/06/06/88e7d3c0-28c2-11e6-ae4a-3cdd5fe74204_story.html">working with collaborators</a> to conceive, co-write and curate them.</p>
<p>We also know ghostwriters regularly work with celebrities when they publish memoirs and autobiographies. Sheryl Sandberg’s <a href="https://leanin.org/">Lean In</a> (2013) was co-authored by TV and magazine writer Nell Scovell, best known for creating the hit series Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Prince Harry’s controversial <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/spare-9780857504791">Spare</a> was famously penned by <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64217330">acclaimed</a> ghostwriter J. R. Moehringer.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/paparazzi-blooding-and-a-body-count-hunting-and-being-hunted-dominate-prince-harrys-royally-discontented-memoir-195575">Paparazzi, 'blooding' and a body count: hunting and being hunted dominate Prince Harry's royally discontented memoir</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>What makes a celebrity novel, such as Brown’s, different?</p>
<p>One obvious answer is that this type of ghostwriting feels inherently more murky and disingenuous.</p>
<p>When working with a public figure or celebrity to tell their life story, the writer’s purpose is to help them excavate their circumstances, memories and perspectives – and to then shape them into a readable book. Their task doesn’t necessarily include representing the celebrity “author” or collaborator as a competent, imaginative writer.</p>
<p>A novel, on the other hand, implies a distinct relationship between author and text that a ghostwriter more clearly undermines. The point of writing a novel is typically <em>to write a novel</em>.</p>
<p>If Hemingway was right, and all it takes is to “sit at the typewriter and bleed”, we have good reason to worry about who gets the credit for bleeding a fictional story into being. When somebody puts their name to a novel, they’re staking a claim to an act of skill, imagination and perseverance that even the world’s most successful writers admit is tough.</p>
<p>But our discomfort runs deeper than the concealment of identity and therefore labour. Our discomfort lies more with how a bestselling celebrity novel reconfigures the book as <em>merchandise</em>.</p>
<p>As Noongar Australian author Claire G. Coleman recently <a href="https://twitter.com/clairegcoleman/status/1705606123787845639">tweeted</a> about Brown’s Nineteen Steps: “This book will outsell books by real authors because her name is on it.”</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1705606123787845639"}"></div></p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ghostwriters-haunt-our-illusions-about-solitary-authors-42048">Ghostwriters haunt our illusions about solitary authors</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Ghost in the machine</h2>
<p>Pointing the finger at capitalism seems almost too easy. But ready-made audiences are seductive to publishers, who do business in a notoriously competitive domain. Ghostwritten celebrity novels may not always be a critical success, but they often succeed commercially – at least for a while.</p>
<p>You may remember that British YouTuber Zoe Sugg (better known as Zoella) broke records back in 2014 when her <a href="https://time.com/3615753/zoella-girl-online-record-sales/">debut novel</a> sold almost 80,000 copies in its first week on shelves. Shortly afterwards, the book made headlines again when it came to light that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/dec/11/zoella-ghostwriter-sioban-curham-controversy-childrens-author">a prolific children’s author</a> had written it. </p>
<p>The fallout was immediate and intense. But Sugg went on to publish several more novels, this time bearing the names of her co-authors on the covers. She also sells homewares, apps and even a monthly “sexual wellness subscription box” through <a href="https://zoella.co.uk/shop-zoella/">her website</a>.</p>
<p>Celebrity authors – some using ghostwriters (and some crediting them), others writing their own books – have long been a trend in children’s publishing, from <a href="https://popcrush.com/madonna-childrens-book-english-roses-series/">Madonna</a> and model <a href="https://www.hachette.com.au/cara-delevingne/mirror-mirror">Cara Delvigne</a> to <a href="https://justbecausebook.com/">Matthew McConaughey</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/mar/22/celebrity-deals-childrens-authors-publishing">Critics say</a> widespread ghostwriting in books for kids undermines quality and means there’s less money available to sign other authors.</p>
<p>And let’s not forget Millie Bobby Brown has starred in one of Netflix’s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stranger_Things">most popular offerings</a> to date. She’s amassed close to 64 million followers <a href="https://www.instagram.com/milliebobbybrown/">on Instagram</a>. That’s an awful lot of admiring fans who might drop $32.99 on a paperback, much as they might buy any other celebrity merch.</p>
<p>We may expect more from fiction. But celebrity novels remind us books always occupy an uneasy position as both artistic creation and commodity. This is why many of us who care about reading and writing will find we can’t agree with the ghostwriting firms that insist books are “<a href="https://priceonomics.com/the-ghostwriting-business/">just products</a>”.</p>
<p>Writing, as I often remind my students, is primarily a <em>process</em>. It is the means, not the end.</p>
<p>As celebrity authors remain a fixture of contemporary publishing, and AI platforms such as ChatGPT <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/confessions-viral-ai-writer-chatgpt/">complicate the nature</a> of creative practice even further, the war of words around Nineteen Steps is another opportunity to think about why we read books – and what we want from them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214258/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amber Gwynne does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Celebrities have long employed ghostwriters to help them tell their life stories. But their involvement in creating celebrity children’s books and novels is more recent – and more controversial.Amber Gwynne, Sessional Lecturer in Writing, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2104232023-08-09T16:31:17Z2023-08-09T16:31:17ZTaylor Swift tickets are pricey, but fans get a blockbuster show and intimate connection with their idol<p>The ticket scramble for Taylor Swift’s latest tour has caused such a furore that even the likes of Nobel prize-winning economist Paul Krugman have <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/20/opinion/taylor-swift-economics.html">weighed in on it</a>.</p>
<p>The shows on the Eras tour, which runs until August 2024, are undoubtedly expensive. And the sales process has been chaotic. On the day tickets went on sale in the US, the Ticketmaster website crashed – the company had prepared itself for 1.5 million fans, only to find that 15 million logged on. </p>
<p>But Swifties – the most dedicated of Swift’s fans – were willing to endure a process that was, to say the least, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/jul/17/taylor-swift-problems-in-concert-ticketing-and-how-to-fix-them">complicated</a>. Ticket prices can depend on how close to the stage fans want to get and what VIP add-ons they agree to, reportedly <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/jul/17/taylor-swift-problems-in-concert-ticketing-and-how-to-fix-them">ranging</a> from £78 to £600 for a single ticket for the London shows.</p>
<p>Krugman argued that, comparatively speaking, the shows were good value. For the money, fans gained access not just to Swift’s live performance, but to the full panoply of technological effects that are an integral part of stadium gigs in the 21st century.</p>
<p>One can imagine Swift’s fans, some of whom spent days online (and a fair amount of money) trying to get tickets, greeting his argument with an exasperated sigh. However, he does have a point. Any ticket for the Eras tour gives its bearer access, not just to their favourite artist, but to a show that is one of the most technologically advanced of recent times. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/txk4Yzvh8Zw?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Large-scale performances like the Eras tour have tended not to feature in academic discussions of popular music. Thankfully, this is changing. Academics like me have <a href="https://research.birmingham.ac.uk/en/publications/planet-floyd-the-evolution-of-pink-floyds-live-performances">investigated</a> the development of live music in Britain and the US.</p>
<p>Studies have examined particular types of performance (in arenas and <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Music-Festivals-in-the-UK-Beyond-the-Carnivalesque/Anderton/p/book/9780367588571#:%7E:text=Music%20Festivals%20in%20the%20UK%20is%20the%20first%20extended%20investigation,attendances%20as%20small%20as%20250.">festivals</a>); looked at particular genres (metal, glam rock and <a href="https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=29375">K-pop</a>, for example); and explored the work of individual artists (such as Lady Gaga and <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9781315602134/prince-making-pop-music-phenomenon-sarah-niblock-stan-hawkins">Prince</a>). However, as yet, we have not dealt with these performances as theatre – as events designed to connect artist and audience, even in the largest venues. </p>
<h2>Big blockbuster stadium shows</h2>
<p>Since the 1970s, successful bands and artists have found a number of ingenious ways to construct shows that can fill the most cavernous arenas. The Eras tour is part of a stellar lineage that includes The Rolling Stones’ <a href="http://concertstagedesign.blogspot.com/2011/04/the-rolling-stones-tour-of-americas.html">unfolding lotus set</a> (1975-6); Pink Floyd’s <a href="https://durhamld.com/portfolio-item/the-wall-berlin-1990/">The Wall</a> (1980); the various MTV-influenced 1980s stage sets designed for <a href="https://www.dezeen.com/2016/04/22/prince-dies-aged-57-love-symbol-designer-mitch-monson/">Prince</a>, <a href="https://www.madonnatribe.com/ultimatemadonna/the-virgin-tour/">Madonna</a> and <a href="https://www.michaeljackson.com/news/did-you-know-mj-performed-5-off-wall-songs-triumph-tour/">Michael Jackson</a>; <a href="https://www.u2.com/tour/id/54">U2’s Zoo TV</a>; and big-spectacle contemporary sets like The Weeknd’s <a href="https://www.silasveta.com/projects/the-weeknd">After Hours Til Dawn tour</a> from 2022.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/DGwKGHjDL8M?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>The technology used on these tours serves two purposes. First, it ensures that the artist can be heard and seen, even in the largest venues. Second, it transforms the space into a setting that reflects the audience’s perception of the artist: their music, their public persona, their history – all the raw material audiences use to fuel their fandom. </p>
<p>In Swift’s case, that transformation is signalled in the name of the tour. The technology used on the Eras show enables both the artist and the audience effectively to travel through time.</p>
<p>The show is arranged around each one of Swift’s ten albums. As it moves from album to album, the stage transforms (white frames and primary colours for the <a href="https://time.com/5651207/taylor-swift-lover-songs-explained/">Lover-era</a> songs, snake motifs for the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/nov/10/taylor-swift-reputation-review-superb-songcraft-meets-extreme-drama">Reputation</a> tracks, red costuming and stage lighting for <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2012/oct/18/taylor-swift-red-review">Red</a>, a cottage backdrop for <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/aug/01/taylor-swift-folklore-review-love-and-loss-in-lockdown">Folklore</a>.</p>
<p>The audience is part of the spectacle: LED wristbands, cued by radio signals, illuminate the crowd in dramatically sequenced floods of colour. Carefully positioned <a href="https://www.streamingmedia.com/Producer/Articles/Editorial/What-Is-.../What-is-IMAG-84770.aspx#:%7E:text=IMAG%20is%20Image%20MAGnification.,can%20more%20easily%20see%20them.">IMAG (image magnification) screens</a> carry Swift’s image and the imagery associated with her music. The catwalk and the two secondary stages (commonly termed B stages) are themselves digital display screens. At one point Swift seems to dive into the B stage. Her digital image swims the length of the catwalk, and she reappears on the main stage as the song Lavender Haze begins. </p>
<p>The technology delivers all the spectacle needed to hold the audience’s attention as the three-hour show runs through Swift’s career. But it also delivers something else – something rather more unexpected.</p>
<p>As Swift starts the second verse of Anti Hero, an image of her dressed in the dowdy T-shirt and jeans she wears in the video swells to massive proportions on the giant screen at the rear of the main stage. She gingerly steps over tiny buildings, bats away intrusive helicopters and stares directly out at the audience, her face in huge close-up.</p>
<p>The song documents Swift’s insecurities; her face, magnified, has a trapped expression and she looks uncertain as her eyes sweep over the crowd. This moment of vulnerability and intimacy echoes others; moments where spotlights isolate the singer, or where the camera catches her in apparent joyous abandon, or reaching out and interacting with the crowd.</p>
<p>In gigs like this, technology earns back its cost, both by filling the space and by compressing it, creating an experience both spectacular and personal. Arenas and stadiums are designed for function, rather than aesthetics; they are not in themselves intimate spaces.</p>
<p>For Swift, the tickets her fans fight over help pay for technologies that transform the barest of venues into places where she and her fans can meet, connect and celebrate the history they share together.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210423/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Pattie does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>One of the most technologically advanced stadium tours, Eras ticket prices are high, but for fans the payback is a close and cherished experience with Swift.David Pattie, Associate Professor of Drama, University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2037512023-04-28T14:46:54Z2023-04-28T14:46:54ZBeauty ideals were as tough in the middle ages as they are now<p>After turning up at this year’s Grammys, Madonna was subjected to a <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/madonna-now-grammys-facelift-recent-b2279848.html">vitriolic online attack</a> over her appearance, particularly what was deemed her excessive use of plastic surgery. The irrepressible 64-year-old instantly hit back, saying:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Once again I am caught in the glare of ageism and misogyny that permeates the world we live in. I look forward to many more years of subversive behaviour pushing boundaries.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It’s a familiar story. Standards of beauty have been embedded in different cultures, in varying forms, from time immemorial. The standards that women and, increasingly, all people are expected to meet to embody a certain level of beauty, are often based on binary notions of idealised forms of femininity or masculinity, or both. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1627713003238965248"}"></div></p>
<p>Women’s bodies have been pathologised throughout history, from Plato’s notion of the “<a href="https://www.rcn.org.uk/library-exhibitions/Womens-health-wandering-womb">wandering womb</a>” which was used to account for every female physical and emotional ailment. In medieval <a href="https://juliamartins.co.uk/what-is-the-humoral-theory">humoral theory</a>, women were considered <a href="https://www.medievalists.net/2011/08/the-female-body-in-medieval-europe-theories-of-physicality-versus-practical-gynecology/">cold and wet in constitution</a>, and more prone to certain afflictions.</p>
<p>The association of beauty with health, and ugliness with disease, has been taken up in more recent feminist debate over the modern cultural obsession with women’s appearance as an <a href="https://www.waterstones.com/book/beauty-sick/renee-engeln/9780062469786">epidemic</a>. It’s no wonder that instances of anxiety, depression, eating disorders and dysmorphia can all be connected to modern – and indeed, pre-modern – people’s experience of beauty standards.</p>
<p>In her 1991 book <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2005/oct/18/classics.shopping">The Beauty Myth</a>, Naomi Wolf argued that the standards of western female beauty were used as a weapon to stagnate the progress of women. But in medieval culture, such pressures were doubly weighted, since beauty was closely aligned with morality: beauty was associated with goodness and ugliness with evil.</p>
<p>Such cultural associations are addressed by Eleanor Janega in her book <a href="https://www.waterstones.com/events/the-once-and-future-sex-eleanor-janega-in-conversation-with-cat-jarman/london-gower-street">The Once and Future Sex: Going Medieval on Women’s Roles in Society</a>. In her lively exploration of medieval women’s social roles, Janega shows how beauty “was a key to power”, crucially connected to wealth, privilege, youth and maidenhood – to create “a ‘perfect’ sort of femininity”. </p>
<p>Janega explores medieval gender norms to consider the ways that women’s roles have – and haven’t – changed. Focusing on female beauty standards and contradictions, sex and female sexuality, and women’s roles as workers, wives and mothers, Janega reflects on what this study of women in the middle ages means now:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Turns out that the way we think about and treat women is socially malleable, and while some of our constructs have changed, we continue to treat women as inferior to men. </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Weaponising beauty</h2>
<p>I’ve recently been examining a type of weaponised beauty that some religious women in the middle ages appeared to practise to emphasise the more superior beauty of their inner selves. In BBC Radio Wales’s <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001l1rl">The Idea</a>, I explored how some medieval saints subverted standards of “traditional” female beauty to avoid living lives that would hinder their chastity and spiritual goals: in other words, taint the beauty of their souls.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520863/original/file-20230413-14-ozhcz7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An ancient pen and ink drawing of a female saint mutilating herself in front of vikings." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520863/original/file-20230413-14-ozhcz7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520863/original/file-20230413-14-ozhcz7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=798&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520863/original/file-20230413-14-ozhcz7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=798&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520863/original/file-20230413-14-ozhcz7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=798&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520863/original/file-20230413-14-ozhcz7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1003&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520863/original/file-20230413-14-ozhcz7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1003&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520863/original/file-20230413-14-ozhcz7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1003&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">St Æbbe and her nuns mutilate their faces in front of the Vikings.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ecclesiae_Anglicanae_Trophae_-_Plate_18.jpg">Giovanni Battista de'Cavalieri / Venerable English College, Rome / WIkipedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some of their tactics were extreme. In a female monastery in the Scottish borders, the abbess was a woman known as Æbbe the Younger, daughter of Æthelred, King of Northumbria. As marauding Vikings attacked the monastery, and terrified of being defiled, Æbbe attempted to repel them by disfiguring her face:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The abbess, with an heroic spirit… took a razor, and with it cut off her nose, together with her upper lip unto the teeth, presenting herself a horrible spectacle to those who stood by. Filled with admiration at this admirable deed, the whole assembly followed her maternal example. </p>
</blockquote>
<p><em><strong>From Roger of Wendover’s Flowers of History, Comprising the History of England</strong></em></p>
<p>Though the nuns’ mutilated faces did cause the Vikings to flee, they later returned to set fire to the monastery, burning the women alive. But in their martyrdom, the nuns’ souls remained beautiful and untainted, which was what they had desired.</p>
<p>In 15th-century legend, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilgefortis">Wilgefortis</a>, a young Christian Portuguese princess determined to live in perpetual virginity, was commanded by her parents to marry a pagan Sicilian king. At her refusal, her father had her imprisoned and tortured. Wilgefortis starved herself in penance and prayed to God that she should be disfigured.</p>
<p>Her prayers were answered and she miraculously grew a moustache and a beard. Horrified at the loss of her beauty the suitor rejected her, and her furious father ordered that she be crucified. As she died on the cross, Wilgefortis beseeched other women to pray through her to be delivered from vanity and erotic desire. </p>
<p>Wilgefortis’s metamorphosis from female-coded standards of medieval beauty to a type of <a href="https://www.health.com/mind-body/transmasculine">transmasculinity</a> offered by her beard and moustache, is, like Æbbe’s self-mutilation, an act of physiological resistance. Wilgefortis prays for deformity and God bestows her with the facial hair that repulses her suitor and secures the beauty of her soul.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520861/original/file-20230413-16-4lx37a.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman with a beard wearing a dress being crucified on a cross." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520861/original/file-20230413-16-4lx37a.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520861/original/file-20230413-16-4lx37a.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520861/original/file-20230413-16-4lx37a.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520861/original/file-20230413-16-4lx37a.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520861/original/file-20230413-16-4lx37a.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1132&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520861/original/file-20230413-16-4lx37a.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1132&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520861/original/file-20230413-16-4lx37a.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1132&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The bearded Wilgefortis was crucified by her own father for wishing away her beauty so she didn’t have to marry a pagan king.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/86/Hl_kuemmernis_museum_neunkirchen.jpg">Städtisches Museum Neunkirchen / Wikipedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Eternal beauty?</h2>
<p>Today’s cosmetic surgeons, in supplying women like Madonna with surgical answers to their supposed aesthetic problems, might also serve as God-like figures in the continuing quest to adhere more closely to the standards of beauty that medieval saints like Æbbe and Wilgefortis harnessed in order to subvert.</p>
<p>In fact, the “gods” of cosmetic surgery, like the God of medieval Christianity, somehow enable their worshippers to match their outward appearance with their inner feelings – the states of their souls – allowing them to make peace with the variants of beauty that they desire.</p>
<p>As in the medieval past, women today negotiate the parameters of beauty in which they have been historically confined, embracing change and letting their souls spill out as they decide what beauty means for them and their bodies.</p>
<p>The pursuit of youth and beauty – and beauty within – is rarely without pain, but as we know, that makes for a powerful weapon.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/203751/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Laura Kalas does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Standards of beauty have been embedded in different cultures, in varying forms, from time immemorial. What endures is that women are still regarded as inferior to men.Laura Kalas, Senior Lecturer in Medieval English Literature, Swansea UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1788662022-06-03T12:20:19Z2022-06-03T12:20:19ZGenetic paparazzi are right around the corner, and courts aren’t ready to confront the legal quagmire of DNA theft<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466687/original/file-20220601-48041-5tdwjf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C2309%2C1299&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">DNA is a trove of personal information that can be hard to keep track of and protect. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/dna-royalty-free-image/1369527112">Boris Zhitkov/Moment via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Every so often stories of <a href="https://ssrn.com/abstract=1684337">genetic theft</a>, or extreme precautions taken to avoid it, make headline news. So it was with a <a href="https://www.theweek.in/news/world/2022/02/12/explained-what-is-dna-theft-why-did-macron-refuse-russian-covid-test.html">picture</a> of French President Emmanuel Macron and Russian President Vladimir Putin sitting at <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-kept-macron-distance-snubbing-covid-demands-sources-2022-02-10/">opposite ends of a very long table</a> after Macron declined to take a Russian PCR COVID-19 test in 2022. Many <a href="https://www.firstpost.com/world/dna-theft-fears-why-french-and-german-leaders-refused-to-take-russian-covid-test-10386501.html">speculated</a> that Macron refused due to security concerns that the Russians would take and use his DNA for nefarious purposes. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz <a href="https://www.theweek.co.uk/news/world-news/russia/955813/why-world-leaders-refuse-give-russia-dna">similarly refused</a> to take a Russian PCR COVID-19 test.</p>
<p>While these concerns may seem relatively new, pop star celebrity Madonna has been raising alarm bells about the potential for nonconsensual, surreptitious collection and testing of DNA for over a decade. She has <a href="https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2016/02/19/madonna-may-suffer-dna-paranoia/">hired cleaning crews</a> to sterilize her dressing rooms after concerts and requires her own new toilet seats at each stop of her tours. </p>
<p>At first, Madonna was ridiculed for having <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2163460/Paranoia-Madonna-orders-sterile-sweep-dressing-room-gig-prevent-fans-stealing-DNA.html">DNA paranoia</a>. But as more advanced, faster and cheaper genetic technologies have reached the consumer realm, these concerns seem not only reasonable, but justified.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466685/original/file-20220601-66680-bioj3t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Putin and Macron sitting at opposite ends of a long table" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466685/original/file-20220601-66680-bioj3t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466685/original/file-20220601-66680-bioj3t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466685/original/file-20220601-66680-bioj3t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466685/original/file-20220601-66680-bioj3t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466685/original/file-20220601-66680-bioj3t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466685/original/file-20220601-66680-bioj3t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466685/original/file-20220601-66680-bioj3t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">For some, keeping one’s distance might be a preferable alternative to getting one’s DNA stolen.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/RussiaUkraineTalkingtoPutin/0778415f155a4cff94894c58f9fb6bb8">AP Photo/Pool Sputnik Kremlin</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://law.emory.edu/faculty/faculty-profiles/vertinsky-profile.html">We are</a> <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=OKxLE-QAAAAJ&hl=en">law professors</a> who study how emerging technologies like genetic sequencing are regulated. We <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3559405">believe that</a> growing public interest in genetics has increased the likelihood that <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/consumer-genetic-technologies/genetic-paparazzi/7B0D35C61C3CBD9DA3FE0D457C22BB9B">genetic paparazzi</a> with DNA collection kits may soon become as ubiquitous as ones with cameras. </p>
<p>While courts have for the most part <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/michellefabio/2018/04/23/madonna-loses-fight-to-reclaim-tupacs-letter-other-highly-personal-items/">managed to evade</a> dealing with the complexities of surreptitious DNA collection and testing of public figures, they won’t be able to avoid dealing with it for much longer. And when they do, they are going to run squarely into the <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3559405">limitations of existing legal frameworks</a> when it comes to genetics.</p>
<h2>Genetic information troves</h2>
<p>You <a href="https://journalofethics.ama-assn.org/article/shedding-privacy-along-our-genetic-material-what-constitutes-adequate-legal-protection-against/2016-03">leave your DNA behind you</a> everywhere you go. The strands of hair, fingernails, dead skin and saliva you shed as you move through your day are all collectible trails of DNA.</p>
<p>Genetic analysis can reveal not only personal information, such as existing health conditions or risk for developing certain diseases, but also core aspects of a person’s identity, such as their ancestry and the potential traits of their future children. In addition, as genetic technologies continue to evolve, fears about using surreptitiously collected genetic material for <a href="https://news.gsu.edu/2020/04/28/genetic-paparazzi-could-celebrity-dna-become-public-domain/">reproductive purposes</a> via <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/jlb/lsv057">in vitro gametogenesis</a> become more than just paranoia.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Eb_o8hQNUFI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">In vitro gametogenesis (IVG), while still in development, could allow prospective parents to create egg or sperm from other parts of the body, like skin.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Ultimately, taking an individual’s genetic material and information without their consent is an intrusion into a legal domain that is still considered <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108874106.012">deeply personal</a>. Despite this, there are <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3559405">few laws</a> protecting the interests of individuals regarding their genetic material and information. </p>
<h2>Existing legal frameworks</h2>
<p>When disputes involving genetic theft from public figures inevitably reach the courtroom, judges will need to confront fundamental questions about how genetics relates to personhood and identity, property, health and disease, intellectual property and reproductive rights. Such questions have already been raised in cases involving the <a href="https://www.virginialawreview.org/articles/genetic-privacy-after-carpenter/">use of genetics in law enforcement</a>, the <a href="https://www.science.org/content/article/us-supreme-court-strikes-down-human-gene-patents">patentability of DNA</a> and ownership of <a href="https://scholarship.law.nd.edu/ndlr/vol93/iss3/5/">discarded genetic materials</a>. </p>
<p>In each of these cases, courts focused on <a href="https://columbialawreview.org/content/dna-by-the-entirety-2/">only one dimension</a> of genetics, such as privacy rights or the value of genetic information for biomedical research. But this limited approach disregards <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1748-720x.2007.00161.x">other aspects</a>, such as the privacy of family members with shared genetics, or property and identity interests someone may have in genetic material discarded as part of a medical procedure.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1336309197697413123"}"></div></p>
<p>In the case of genetic paparazzi, courts will presumably try to fit complex questions about genetics into the legal framework of <a href="https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/jcl/vol19/iss4/4/">privacy rights</a> because this is how they have approached other intrusions into the lives of public figures in the past. </p>
<p>Modern <a href="https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/hclwpo11&div=16&id=&page=">U.S. privacy law</a> is a complex web of state and federal regulations governing how information can be acquired, accessed, stored and used. The right to privacy is limited by First Amendment protections on the freedom of speech and press, as well as Fourth Amendment prohibitions on unreasonable searches and seizure. <a href="https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1633&context=jcl">Public figures</a> face further restrictions on their privacy rights because they are objects of legitimate public interest. On the other hand, they also have publicity rights that control the commercial value of their unique personally identifying traits.</p>
<p>People whose genetic material has been taken without their consent may also raise a <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3357566">claim of conversion</a> that their property has been interfered with and lost. Courts in Florida are currently considering a conversion claim in a <a href="https://gizmodo.com/how-a-legal-brawl-between-two-rich-guys-could-change-ho-1824191082">private dispute</a> where the former CEO of Marvel Entertainment and his wife accused a millionaire businessman of stealing their DNA to prove that they were slandering him through a hate-mail campaign. This approach replaces the narrow legal framework of privacy with an even narrower framework of property, reducing genetics to an object that someone possesses.</p>
<h2>What the future may hold</h2>
<p>Under existing laws and the current state of genetic technology, most people don’t need to worry about surreptitious collection and use of genetic material in the way that public figures might. But genetic paparazzi cases will likely play an important role in determining what rights everyone else will or will not have.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466689/original/file-20220601-48776-susuv1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Open 23andMe genetic testing kit" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466689/original/file-20220601-48776-susuv1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466689/original/file-20220601-48776-susuv1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466689/original/file-20220601-48776-susuv1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466689/original/file-20220601-48776-susuv1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466689/original/file-20220601-48776-susuv1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466689/original/file-20220601-48776-susuv1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466689/original/file-20220601-48776-susuv1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">As DNA testing technology advances, questions about genetic privacy and ownership will only become more complex.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/this-illustration-picture-shows-a-saliva-collection-kit-for-news-photo/1074407824">Eric Baradat/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The U.S. Supreme Court is very unlikely to recognize new rights, or even affirm previously recognized rights, that are <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/03/25/ketanji-brown-jackson-roe/">not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution</a>. Therefore, at least at the federal level, individual protections for genetic material and information are not likely to adapt to changing times.</p>
<p>This means that cases involving genetics are likely to fall within the purview of state legislatures and courts. But none of the states have <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3559405">adequately grappled</a> with the complexities of genetic legal claims. Even in states with laws specifically designed to protect genetic privacy, regulations cover only a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/nrg3113">narrow range</a> of genetic interests. Some laws, for example, may prohibit disclosure of genetic information, but not collection.</p>
<p>For better or for worse, how the courts rule in genetic paparazzi cases will shape how society thinks about genetic privacy and about individual rights regarding genetics more broadly.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/178866/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Both Macron and Madonna have expressed concerns about genetic privacy. As DNA collection and sequencing becomes increasingly commonplace, what may seem paranoid may instead be prescient.Liza Vertinsky, Professor of Law, University of MarylandYaniv Heled, Professor of Law, Georgia State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1139022019-04-23T10:43:24Z2019-04-23T10:43:24ZWhat Leonardo’s depiction of Virgin Mary and Jesus tells us about his religious beliefs<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/270063/original/file-20190418-28116-1ed39ai.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Leonardo da Vinci's Virgin of the Rocks.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/leonardo-da-vinci-the-virgin-of-the-rocks">National Gallery London</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>On the 500th anniversary of Leonardo da Vinci’s death, Italian academic Francesco Caglioti’s <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/these-little-figures-could-be-leonardo-da-vincis-only-known-sculpture-180971678/">recent claim</a> that a sculpture held at a London museum bears close similarities with the work of the Renaissance genius has opened up a fresh discussion. </p>
<p>The Victoria and Albert Museum in London has been cautious and <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/these-little-figures-could-be-leonardo-da-vincis-only-known-sculpture-180971678/">said</a>: “A potential attribution to Leonardo da Vinci was first proposed in 1899, so Professor Caglioti’s study opens up the discussion of its authorship afresh.”</p>
<p>It is a <a href="http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O70263/the-virgin-with-the-laughing-statuette-rossellino-antonio/">charming and jovial image</a> of “The Virgin with the Laughing Child,” in which the young Mary appears to be enjoying the magic of motherhood with her son resting comfortably on her lap. Baby Jesus has a joyous expression as he entwines his right hand with his mother’s left. </p>
<p>Whatever the final outcome on this finding, <a href="https://gufaculty360.georgetown.edu/s/contact/00336000014RfKvAAK/diane-apostoloscappadona">as a scholar of religious art</a>, I would suggest that, beyond the immediate charm of his art creations, Leonardo invites viewers into a religious message. </p>
<p>Leonardo’s Virgin and laughing child expresses both church teachings and what it means to be a human.</p>
<h2>Leonardo: Religion and his art</h2>
<p>Leonardo was one of the greatest artists in history. However, very little is known about his early life and even less so about his religious one.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/270053/original/file-20190418-28100-1cs7gjr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/270053/original/file-20190418-28100-1cs7gjr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=756&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270053/original/file-20190418-28100-1cs7gjr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=756&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270053/original/file-20190418-28100-1cs7gjr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=756&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270053/original/file-20190418-28100-1cs7gjr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=950&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270053/original/file-20190418-28100-1cs7gjr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=950&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270053/original/file-20190418-28100-1cs7gjr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=950&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Portrait of Leonardo da Vinci.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/411913">The Metropolitan Museum. Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1953</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>What is known is that he was baptized as an infant in the presence of 10 witnesses and that at the end of his life <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Leonardo-da-Vinci/Walter-Isaacson/9781501139161">he asked for a priest</a> to hear his last confession and administer the Last Rites. He was <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Leonardo-da-Vinci/Walter-Isaacson/9781501139161">given a Catholic funeral</a> and buried in consecrated ground. </p>
<p>Art historian <a href="https://www.museumsassociation.org/museums-journal/news/17102018-luke-syson-appointed-director-fitzwilliam">Luke Syson</a> has argued that Leonardo had solid knowledge of religious symbolism and contemporary Catholic teachings, which he combined with a humanistic approach to his art’s subjects. </p>
<p>An example is how Leonardo transformed the traditional image of “The Last Supper” into a more human-centered drama. </p>
<p>The traditional emphasis of the Last Supper is on the institution of the Eucharist. It forms the scriptural basis for Communion, in which bread is seen to be a symbol for Jesus’ body and wine as a symbol for his blood. </p>
<p>Leonardo, instead, emphasized the announcement of the betrayal by one of the disciples.</p>
<p>He had a <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/La_biblioteca_perduta.html?id=V9InMQAACAAJ">large collection of religious books</a> in his personal library and is known to have made regular references in his notebooks to religious ideas. </p>
<h2>Leonardo’s drawings as evidence</h2>
<p>In fact, much of what is known about Leonardo has been found through <a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/art/metpublications/Leonardo_da_Vinci_Master_Draftsman">the visual evidence</a> of his drawings, paintings and notebooks. And they reveal another side to him.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/270052/original/file-20190418-28084-uiu11c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/270052/original/file-20190418-28084-uiu11c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=710&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270052/original/file-20190418-28084-uiu11c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=710&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270052/original/file-20190418-28084-uiu11c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=710&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270052/original/file-20190418-28084-uiu11c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=892&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270052/original/file-20190418-28084-uiu11c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=892&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270052/original/file-20190418-28084-uiu11c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=892&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Leonardo’s sketches.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://images.nga.gov/?service=asset&action=show_zoom_window_popup&language=en&asset=61227&location=grid&asset_list=52895,152896,85622,61227&basket_item_id=undefined">National Gallery of Art</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Beyond being an artist, Leonardo’s creativity expanded into the study of science, human anatomy and military armaments. </p>
<p>The pages of his numerous notebooks are filled with anatomical drawings such as his studies of the fetus and the eye. His study of human anatomy was not simply through live models but more significantly through <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Heart_of_Leonardo.html?id=tCSMkQEACAAJ">participation in autopsies</a>. His drawings are used today as illustrations in medical textbooks. </p>
<p>Yet, at the same time, his notebooks are also filled with sketches and drawings of religious figures. His art <a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/leon/hd_leon.htm">reflected his meditations</a> on the Bible and his knowledge of Christian symbolism. These were an <a href="https://www.zonebooks.org/books/66-leonardo-s-incessant-last-supper">important basis</a> for “The Last Supper” and <a href="https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/exhibitions/past/leonardo-da-vinci-painter-at-the-court-of-milan">his paintings</a> of the Virgin of the Rocks. </p>
<h2>Picturing the Bible</h2>
<p>Leonardo reinterpreted traditional Christian iconography.</p>
<p>From its earliest days, Christian art employed signs and symbols like flowers, animals and colors to identify individuals and ideas. As the majority of the population at the time was unable to read, Christian art was a <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/dictionary-of-christian-art-9780826410658/">form of visual literacy</a>. It helped teach stories of faith. </p>
<p>In Leonardo’s time, additional books were being written about the Christian faith, especially those given to episodes in the life of Christ and of his mother.</p>
<p>Leonardo’s sculpture expanded the forms that Christian art had taken until then. </p>
<p>One of the most popular themes of Christian art was that of the <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Mary_in_Western_Art.html?id=qd7EZAFouDgC">Madonna and Child</a>. Madonna meant “my lady,” which was the title for the Virgin Mary from the Middle Ages.</p>
<p>Typically, the Madonna was presented as an elegantly dressed and beautiful woman with a halo and surrounded by angels. The artist’s emphasis was on identifying her as the regal mother and queen of heaven. </p>
<p>Over the course of his life, Leonardo drew and painted many images of the Madonna. Leonardo <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Mary_in_Western_Art.html?id=qd7EZAFouDgC">emphasized Madonna’s humility</a> by removing her crown and halo and replacing her extravagant costumes with simpler dress.</p>
<p>In 1483, he painted the Virgin of the Rocks. This image illustrated a new doctrine on the <a href="https://www.beliefnet.com/entertainment/movies/the-da-vinci-code/leonardo-his-faith-his-art.aspx?">Immaculate Conception of Mary</a>. This teaching emphasized that with God’s intervention, Mary was conceived without the stain of “original sin” even though she had two human parents. This differed from the belief regarding Mary’s miraculous virginal conception of Jesus. </p>
<p>Typically in images that promoted this teaching, the artist depicted a prayerful Mary dressed in white being elevated by a group of angels. Leonardo painted her as an earthly mother with her young son and his cousin, the young John the Baptist, in a landscape setting. </p>
<p>His paintings of baby Jesus and the Virgin Mary do not simply show “any mother” or “any child.” He both depicted the naturalness of their relationship and touched upon the religious meaning of their identities. He also <a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/337494">emphasized</a> the emotional intimacy between the two.</p>
<p>He communicated ideas and feelings through their hand gestures, facial features and body poses. </p>
<h2>Both divine and human</h2>
<p>As scholars of cultural history like <a href="https://theology.nd.edu/people/lawrence-cunningham/">Lawrence Cunningham</a> and <a href="https://www.cengage.co.uk/author/john-j-reich/">John Reich</a> have <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Culture_and_Values_A_Survey_of_the_Human.html?id=UTMD_LaZRNgC">noted</a>, Leonardo was interested in a Renaissance worldview which centered around the human person. This interest resulted in not only his works that depicted a natural view of the human body but one that explored the personalities of the individuals he drew and painted.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/270057/original/file-20190418-28106-gjht8g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/270057/original/file-20190418-28106-gjht8g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=782&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270057/original/file-20190418-28106-gjht8g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=782&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270057/original/file-20190418-28106-gjht8g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=782&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270057/original/file-20190418-28106-gjht8g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=983&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270057/original/file-20190418-28106-gjht8g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=983&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270057/original/file-20190418-28106-gjht8g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=983&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Madonna of the Carnation by Leonardo da Vinci.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Madonna_of_the_Carnation_Leonardo_da_Vinci.jpg">Alte Pinakothek Art Museum</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Even as the final word is awaited from Victoria and Albert Museum – and it might take many years to resolve – I would agree with the <a href="https://www.theartnewspaper.com/comment/another-new-leonardo-is-a-reason-to-be-cheerful">scholars</a> who support the view that The Virgin with Laughing Child bears Leonardo’s hallmarks.</p>
<p>The mother is dressed, but the child is totally naked. While this naturalism of their human figures is typical of the Renaissance, what I propose is that the presentation of a laughing but naked baby Jesus made visible the complex theological idea of the Incarnation – that God became flesh in Jesus.</p>
<p>For Christians, Christ was the unique son of God who was miraculously human and divine at the same time. He was <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+1%3A14&version=KJV">identified</a> in the New Testament as “…the Word was made flesh…” </p>
<p>In all his art, Leonardo made this visible through the joyful demeanor of baby Jesus and the obvious display of his fully human form. Simply put, Leonardo illustrated how Jesus’ humanity came from his mother and his divinity from God.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/113902/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Diane Apostolos-Cappadona does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Leonardo da Vinci emphasized the naturalness of the relationship of Jesus and Mary in his art, while also inviting viewers into a religious message.Diane Apostolos-Cappadona, Haub Director of Catholic Studies, Georgetown UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1054372019-02-17T09:27:03Z2019-02-17T09:27:03ZWhat the Village’s People’s leather-clad singer can teach heterosexual men<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/258699/original/file-20190213-90479-ewbbfa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Village People's Glenn Hughes (second from left) epitomised the leatherman look.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mario Casciano</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>“Leathermen” are gay men who wear leather clothes that draw inspiration from masculine institutions like the military, the police, and motorcycle gangs. They also take great pride in their muscular bodies, dressing in leather to cultivate an image of “hypermasculinity” – a term that’s usually used to describe how some heterosexual men look and behave to prove that they are “manly”.</p>
<p>Leathermen are attached to a thriving subset of gay and lesbian subcultures all over the world. The “leathermen look” is often referenced in popular culture: think Glenn Hughes from the 70s disco group, the Village People; Robert Mapplethorpe’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/gallery/2017/oct/28/robert-mapplethorpe-the-male-gaze-in-pictures">photographs</a>; Lady Gaga’s video for “Bad Romance” and Madonna, who is the most ubiquitous referencer of the “leathermen look”, from videos to world tours.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/qrO4YZeyl0I?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Leathermen in Lady Gaga’s ‘Bad Romance’.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Leathermen are tacitly accepted by the gay and lesbian “movement” because, after all, they are gay. However, mainstream gay and lesbian communities tend to be more sceptical about leathermen’s sexual practices. These are rooted in Bondage, Discipline, Sadomasochism and Masochism (BDSM); this kind of sex is generally viewed as abnormal by society at large, bar the “gentle whip” and “naughty spank” popularised by the <em>Fifty Shades of Grey</em> series.</p>
<p>In a recent piece of <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10130950.2018.1498238?journalCode=ragn20">research</a> I show how leathermen in South Africa finally became visible with the advent of Facebook in 2009. Prior to the advent of Facebook they were hidden from society at large but thrived as an underground subculture. Academic John K Noyes <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/26304332?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">argued</a> that historically in South Africa, the most active BDSM community was the white gay male community. </p>
<p>They were allied to the gay and lesbian movement (they were participants in Pride marches from the outset). But it became complicated. That leathermen enjoy “men only” spaces and the most visible leathermen communities are white men does not sit well with South Africa’s non-racial rainbow gay and lesbian movement. </p>
<h2>Marlon Brando</h2>
<p>Internationally, the leathermen “look” can be traced to post-World War Two motorcycle clubs in the US. Returning servicemen, who were homosexual, resented homosexuality being <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17135117">associated with femininity</a>. They started dressing like members of motorcycle gangs. Over time other leather objects from the military and police were incorporated to achieve the “leatherman look”. These include biker’s jackets, breeches, chaps, pants, knee-high biker boots, harnesses, cuffs (biceps and wrists), belts adorned with motorbike insignia, Sam Browne belts, shirts, ties, gloves and Muir caps (also known as the Master’s hat). </p>
<p>A young Marlon Brando dressed in biker leather in the 1953 American film, <em>The Wild One</em>, <a href="https://www.advocate.com/arts-entertainment/art/photography/2014/05/14/photos-pioneers-leather-and-biker-scene-la">epitomised</a> the look best.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/258702/original/file-20190213-181612-1lqm6tv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/258702/original/file-20190213-181612-1lqm6tv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=772&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/258702/original/file-20190213-181612-1lqm6tv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=772&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/258702/original/file-20190213-181612-1lqm6tv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=772&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/258702/original/file-20190213-181612-1lqm6tv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=971&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/258702/original/file-20190213-181612-1lqm6tv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=971&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/258702/original/file-20190213-181612-1lqm6tv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=971&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Actor Marlon Brando, shown in this undated handout picture in a scene from his 1953 film ‘The Wild One’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These leathermen did not want to be associated with other gay men and managed to pass as “real” men at a time when homosexuality was outlawed. Homosexuality was only “legalised” in 2003, and in a post-war America homophobia was particularly virulent. </p>
<p>The HIV crises of the late 1980s and 1990s decimated many leathermen communities in the US, most specifically in San Francisco.</p>
<p>One way for the community to show unity was by holding a pageant where the presentation of leather was foregrounded. This has become an institution in leathermen subcultures worldwide, South Africa included; it is the cultural highlight of the year for these communities.</p>
<h2>Rainbow pageant</h2>
<p>However, back in 2015 South African leathermen’s annual leather pageant was seen as being too white and too male. A breakaway pageant group was set up to reflect the diversity of the country’s gay and lesbian movement. The breakaway group held its own rainbow pageant, where the winners were a white leatherman and a black leatherwoman respectively.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/259247/original/file-20190215-56229-1xwxqaj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/259247/original/file-20190215-56229-1xwxqaj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259247/original/file-20190215-56229-1xwxqaj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259247/original/file-20190215-56229-1xwxqaj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259247/original/file-20190215-56229-1xwxqaj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1006&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259247/original/file-20190215-56229-1xwxqaj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1006&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259247/original/file-20190215-56229-1xwxqaj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1006&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The leathermen pageant on Facebook.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Supplied</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The winners were lauded in popular gay and lesbian websites as Africa’s first “true” leatherfolk. However, “rainbow leather” lasted but a moment and has never been heard of again. </p>
<p>The reason for this I argue is that the strong contestation over the image of “gay leather”, as reflected in the pageant posters on Facebook, is about “the public” consumption of these images and what they say – not about leathermen, but about the gay and lesbian community by association. The gay and lesbian movement did not want to be associated with the “underbelly” of the leathermen scene, the sex, the drugs, the cruising and the promiscuity. </p>
<p>The purist leathermen, however, thrive on members’ only social media cites. They’re once again hidden from view and disowned by the gay and lesbian movement.</p>
<p>It’s true that leathermen in South Africa are mostly white, male and hypermasculine. But internationally, the leathermen community is the same – despite its membership being open to all gay men. And just because leathermen of colour are not visible doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Leatherwomen worldwide have also set up their own pageants and chapters, often <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/from-drag-queens-to-leathermen-9780195390186?cc=us&lang=en&">in alliance</a> with leathermen. </p>
<p>So why are leathermen in South Africa sidelined and even rejected? In my research I argue that this group is a source of shame to the assimilationist and lifestyle orientated gay and lesbian movement in South Africa, where <a href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/splp/article/view/125208">marriage</a> is viewed as the pinnacle of citizenship. The leather, the weird sex, the men only spaces, the bulging muscles and crotches are just too much for the larger queer community.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WyhdvRWEWRw?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Madonna often referenced the ‘leatherman look’ in her videos.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Archaic culture</h2>
<p>The leathermen subculture is not understood in mainstream communities (perhaps only as part of deviant BDSM). It’s also misunderstood in gay and lesbian communities. That’s because it is seen as an example of an archaic culture that no longer has a place in mainstream gay and lesbian communities in post-apartheid South Africa. </p>
<p>This is a pity. There is much to be learnt about masculinity and gender from leathermen.</p>
<p>As a subculture, leathermen achieve their “manliness” in opposition to heterosexual hypermasculinity. They conduct their sex in safe and consenting environments, develop muscular bodies to attract other men and wear leather clothes that draw inspiration from the most masculine of heterosexual cultures – all without enacting the violence often associated with such cultures. </p>
<p>Leathermen actually expose the myth of hypermasculinity by refusing the violence and aggression which is normally attached to it. Instead, they produce their own cultural meanings of masculinity and gender.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/105437/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>TL McCormick does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Leathermen expose the myth of hypermasculinity by refusing the violence and aggression which is normally attached to it.TL McCormick, Lecturer of Applied Linguistics, University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1016152018-08-15T11:23:21Z2018-08-15T11:23:21ZMadonna: pop’s superlative shapeshifter turns 60 with style<p>One of the first albums I owned was a tape of Madonna’s 1987 remix collection <a href="http://www.madonna-decade.co.uk/you-can-dance.html">You Can Dance</a>. I’m not sure where I got it from – and I’m not sure I even liked it – but the bright red cover and Madonna’s hard, direct stare are etched in my mind’s eye even now, 30 years later. </p>
<p>What I know I <em>did</em> like was her previous studio album, <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/true-blue-255348/">True Blue</a> – and especially the title track, which I played on repeat (of course, in the days before CDs, “repeat” meant endlessly rewinding the tape on my Walkman). But it turned out in years to come that what I was really enjoying about that track was what it was riffing on. She fused the rhythms, melodies and harmonies of 1960s pop with the iconic 1980s drum machine sound to create a soundtrack to the Marilyn Monroe look Madonna sported at the time, a look most visible in the video for Material Girl.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/coWCUTM23QM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>This is what Madonna is known for – at best she’s an alchemist, repackaging signifiers from the fringes of popular culture, transforming them into nuggets of commercial gold. At worst – if you believe her critics – she arguably treats popular culture like “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2007/jul/06/heymadonnaleavethatbandal">one great big pick'n'mix counter</a>”, taking the bits she likes best and somehow making them her own. All the while, she’s a shape-shifting shaman, mutating her own image to accompany whatever soundtrack she’s peddling – whether it’s the 1960s hippy chick style (Ray of Light), the African-American drag scene (Vogue), S&M iconography (Human Nature) or any of the other dozens of iconic looks she’s sported over a 35-year career.</p>
<p>And, at each turn, she’s needled away at conservative conceptions of identity and “appropriate” behaviour. The black Jesus in the Like a Prayer video was one incident, strapping herself to a crucifix on the Confessions tour was another. She was <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/05/28/madonna-toronto-like-a-virgin-blonde-ambition-arrest_n_7459798.html">threatened with arrest in Toronto</a> in 1990 for simulating masturbation on the Blond Ambition tour <a href="https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/6289038/britney-spears-manager-larry-rudolph-on-madonna-vmas-kiss">and kissed</a> both Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera at the MTV Music Awards in 2003.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/79fzeNUqQbQ?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>But perhaps the most challenging of her metamorphoses is the one she hasn’t been able to orchestrate completely herself, the one that which we can mark every August 16 – her ageing. “Age is just a number,” we might proclaim (louder as each year passes), or “You’re only as old as you feel.” If we do go as far as setting store by a specific number, then let’s not forget that “life begins at 40” – or even, as has been asserted in recent years, that “60 is the new 40” (I turned 40 recently myself, so this is excellent news).</p>
<h2>Age as sexism</h2>
<p>So what does age mean for Madonna, as she turns 60 this week? Even as long ago as 2005’s <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/confessions-on-a-dance-floor-190195/">Confessions on a Dancefloor</a>, at the tender age of 47, she found herself at odds with the standards of the popular music industry – which often have operated at the intersection of ageism and sexism. </p>
<p>The video for the lead single from the album Hung Up saw Madonna writhing around on a dance studio floor in a pink leotard. This quickly turned out to be ripe for parody: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fWYyQcmxgU">pregnant mums</a>, <a href="http://funnyordie.com/m/2ddb">Naomi Grossman</a> and French & Saunders all had a pop. The parodies themselves are obviously not conclusive evidence of misogyny and ageism in the industry, but we should certainly pay them some heed – given that the video was voted the “<a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/music-news/6366152/Madonnas-Hung-Up-least-sexy-music-video-of-all-time.html">least sexy</a>” video of all time in 2009 by music video website Muzu.tv (and reported on with glee by the Daily Telegraph).</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GuJQSAiODqI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>And we should certainly start to get worried when we compare them with <a href="https://www.thesun.co.uk/tvandshowbiz/3127817/david-hasselhoff-64-goes-topless-and-flashes-his-abs-as-he-films-new-scenes-for-knight-rider-with-fiance-hayley-roberts/">The Sun’s</a> description of a 64-year-old topless David Hasselhoff as “flashing his honed body”. Or how about <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-3134933/Richard-Gere-65-puts-amorous-display-bikini-clad-Spanish-socialite-girlfriend-32-relax-Italian-beach.html">The Daily Mail’s</a> reassurance in 2015 that Richard Gere had “still got it” at 65 as he was spotted sunbathing with his 32-year-old girlfriend. </p>
<p>Popular culture points to these men and so many others like them with admiration, framing the visible signs of their ageing as evidence of sophistication, not degeneration. Nobody’s telling them to “<a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1126410/JAN-MOIR-Oh-come-Madge-Isnt-time-away.html">put it away</a>”, like (oh, so predictably) the Daily Mail did to Madonna nearly ten years ago.</p>
<h2>Age as triumph</h2>
<p>But Madonna remains visibly physical at 60. She emphasises her body instead of hiding it “gracefully” – in outfits like the one she wore at the <a href="https://hollywoodlife.com/2016/05/02/madonna-dress-met-gala-2016-ball-butt-breasts/">Met Gala</a> in 2016, or by spreading her legs for a <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1106024/Put-away-Madonna-Singer-strikes-raunchiest-pose-Louis-Vuitton-ad-campaign.html">Louis Vuitton ad</a> in 2009. She sets out to situate herself in a provocative position in popular culture – as has been her trademark ever since Like a Virgin.</p>
<p>Although the Twitter storms of disgust rage on in response to her persistently unapologetic embodiment, there is in turn a backlash against those storms, with <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/brogan-driscoll/madonna-met-gala_b_9827558.html">The Huffington Post</a> reminding readers that the underlying cause of the discomfort is the lack of potential to commodify the body in question.</p>
<p>Madonna has consistently railed against contemporary taste, battling fiercely on the fronts of race, religion, age, gender and sexuality. In so doing, she paved the way for the likes of Lady Gaga, who will carry the torch as we continue to explore new expressions of identity in all these areas. But Madonna still has the edge, simply because what she’s doing now cannot be done by someone younger.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/101615/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Freya Jarman received funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Board from 2000 to 2005 to undertake a PhD in which she worked on Madonna's changing sonic and visual image. </span></em></p>Happy birthday Ms Ciccone – you redefine age.Freya Jarman, Reader in the Department of Music, University of LiverpoolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/867012017-11-08T11:11:14Z2017-11-08T11:11:14ZVolunteer tourism: what’s wrong with it and how it can be changed<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192983/original/file-20171102-26472-evd7h4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Madonna with her adopted son, David Banda, at an orphanage, 40 km from the capital Lilongwe April 19, 2007.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Siphiwe Sibeko/Reuters</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Volunteer tourism, or voluntourism, is an <a href="https://www.cabi.org/cabebooks/ebook/20013143345">emerging trend</a> of travel linked to “doing good”. Yet these efforts to help people and the environment have come under <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17450128.2010.487124">heavy criticism</a> – I believe for good reason. </p>
<p>Voluntourists’ ability to change systems, alleviate poverty or provide support for vulnerable children is limited. They simply don’t have the skills. And they can inadvertently perpetuate patronising and unhelpful ideas about the places they visit.</p>
<p>The trend of voluntourism has come about partly through initiatives by large-scale, well established organisations such as UNICEF, Save the Children, CARE International and World Vision. They raise money for programmes they have developed for orphans and vulnerable children. </p>
<p>Their <a href="https://www.savethechildren.org.uk/how-you-can-help/emergencies/rohingya-crisis">appeals</a> have been effective because needy children tend to <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520271173">arouse compassion</a> and because modern communication technology makes it easy to share the call to help.</p>
<p>But there are dangers in these appeals, which are mostly aimed at Western audiences. For example, singer Madonna, in her documentary <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrZMwi0g-hc">I Am Because We Are</a>, says Malawi is in a “state of emergency”. She says there are over a million children orphaned by AIDS in the central African country and that they are</p>
<blockquote>
<p>living on the streets, in abandoned buildings, and are being abducted, kidnapped, and raped.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Madonna’s description is inaccurate. There are <em>not</em> a million children living on the streets of Malawi, nor are there <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1099-0860.2010.00313.x/abstract">high levels of abduction and rape</a>. </p>
<p>Aside from sometimes creating an inaccurate impression, these appeals have attracted increasing numbers of student volunteers, best described as amateur humanitarian workers. They intend to serve people, especially children, but do they?</p>
<h2>The trouble with voluntourism</h2>
<p>Most students bring few relevant skills to their volunteer sites. They are not required to commit to long-term involvement either. Instead, volunteers take part in service projects like basic construction, painting, tutoring in English and maths, distributing food, or “just being a friend” to children perceived as alone and in need of social support. </p>
<p>Voluntourism with children also perpetuates the notion of a desperate Africa needing the benevolence of the West. Volunteers are led to imagine that their engagement directly addresses suffering. Many believe the children they work with don’t have any other social systems to support them materially or socially. </p>
<p>This is evident from the images and anecdotes they circulate of a suffering, sick Africa. The images they portray is that Africa is incapable of escaping poverty and violence without Western intervention. </p>
<p>The ways volunteers get involved tend not to address the <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09669582.2016.1263308">causes of suffering</a>.</p>
<p>The design of these programmes leads to superficial engagement for volunteers. This makes it hard for them to think about – or do anything about – the structural issues that create humanitarian crises in the first place. </p>
<p>These issues include the history, social, political and economic conditions that frame people’s lives.</p>
<p>My <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09669582.2016.1263308">research</a> suggests that students who engage in these programmes actually contribute towards the mystification of larger systems that produce inequality, poverty, particular patterns of disease distribution, and various forms of violence. </p>
<h2>Programmes need to be reworked</h2>
<p>The problems outlined here do not necessarily mean that volunteer work should be abandoned. In an increasingly violent and xenophobic world, these kinds of cross-cultural engagement can help people understand and appreciate each other. </p>
<p>But if this is to be achieved, volunteer experiences need to be reframed and programmes reworked. Any organisation taking young people to volunteer sites in Malawi ought to be preparing them with adequate information before they go as well as opportunities for critical discussion during and after their trips. Many of these programmes are associated with college campuses or organised religious groups that have the capacity to learn about, teach, and support a more sophisticated cultural exchange. </p>
<p>Students need to learn about the political, social, economic and cultural histories of the places they visit. They should be given the opportunity to explore systems of poverty and inequality in greater depth. </p>
<p>Most importantly, students need to think about these experiences as cultural exchanges meant to generate knowledge and respect about other ways of being and not as trips that “help” the poor. </p>
<p>If volunteers can understand the people they work with as citizens with rights rather than objects of charity, they can begin to think about long-term partnership, justice and structural change. </p>
<p>I believe long-term commitment is key. Doctors, engineers, computer scientists and particular types of educators have important skills and could make more enduring contributions. Doctors, for example, they could train medical personnel on new procedures to use once the volunteer leaves. </p>
<p>For the shorter term, volunteers should see their presence as a cultural exchange rather than as humanitarian relief.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/86701/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrea Freidus does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Voluntourists’ ability to change systems, alleviate poverty or provide support for vulnerable children is limited. They don’t have the skills and can perpetuate patronising and unhelpful ideas.Andrea Freidus, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, University of North Carolina – CharlotteLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/795752017-07-06T20:16:49Z2017-07-06T20:16:49ZFriday essay: double standards and derision – tracing our attitudes to older women and beauty<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176384/original/file-20170630-8231-yjdqi5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Madonna and fashion designer Jeremy Scott arrive at this year's Met Gala in New York.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lucas Jackson/Reuters</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Brigitte Macron, wife of French President Emmanuel Macron, is a rare example of an older woman in the public eye who has attracted <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-4483918/How-DOES-Macron-s-wife-defy-age.html">praise</a> for her appearance. At 64, Macron is 24 years older than her husband, but her healthy figure and youthful style of dress saw her <a href="http://www.vogue.co.uk/article/brigitte-macron-style-analysis">described in Vogue</a> as “rock ‘n’ roll”.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176382/original/file-20170630-8176-l4c3ga.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176382/original/file-20170630-8176-l4c3ga.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176382/original/file-20170630-8176-l4c3ga.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176382/original/file-20170630-8176-l4c3ga.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176382/original/file-20170630-8176-l4c3ga.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176382/original/file-20170630-8176-l4c3ga.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176382/original/file-20170630-8176-l4c3ga.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176382/original/file-20170630-8176-l4c3ga.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Brigitte Macron.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Gonzalo Fuentes/Reuters</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While Macron is admired for her penchant for leather pants, women regularly face policing of their clothing and cosmetic choices once they reach <a href="http://www.whowhatwear.com.au/turning-30-fashion">the age of 30</a>. Ageing only brings about further restrictions, with few older women who cultivate their appearance successfully negotiating the line between looking acceptably young or upsettingly unnatural. </p>
<p>Madonna, who will turn 60 next year, is a case in point; her attempts to retain a sexy image are sometimes described with <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/whats-so-gross-about-madonna-getting-older-it-seems">revulsion</a>. Piers Morgan described her as <a href="https://twitter.com/piersmorgan/status/587554092467228672?lang=en">“50 Shades of Granny”</a> after her 2015 kiss with Drake. Her famous muscles, which keep her skin taut, were called “monstrously sculpted and bloodcurdling veiny corpse arms” <a href="http://www.tmz.com/2009/07/27/madonnas-gruesome-twosome/">by TMZ</a> as the publication had a dig at her “toyboy” Jesus Luz. </p>
<p>In contrast, Cher, at 71, <a href="http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/music/billboard-music-awards-2017-red-carpet-best-and-worst-dressed-stars/news-story/1407925bc4fdaa00ae700ccbb843dd86">recently wore</a> a replica of a near-nude costume from 1989 at the Billboard Music Awards and was generally praised as “amazing” and “owning it”. </p>
<p>What is Cher doing to invite praise that Madonna isn’t? And where did restrictive ideas about beauty and ageing come from? When did we decide that there was a particular age at which women might incite criticism or disgust for attempting to look beautiful or desirable?</p>
<p>A closer look at women’s magazines from the 19th century — the era in which modern advertising and celebrity culture were born — reveal the origins of many of our hang-ups about older women and beauty.</p>
<p>In the first half of that century, beauty was understood as God-given or natural. Beliefs in physiognomy also suggested that the inner character of a woman might be visible in her face. In 1849, in an article that commented on the process of women’s ageing, the English magazine <a href="https://archive.org/details/worldoffashionco15lond">World of Fashion and Continental Feuilletons</a> observed:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Neither rouge, artificial ringlets, nor all the resources of the toilet, can retard the relentless progress of that terrible foe to beauty, Time. But every one must have noticed how lightly his hand rests upon some, how heavily upon others … A good conscience is the greatest preservative of beauty. High and noble thoughts leave behind them noble and beautiful traces, meanness of thought and selfishness of feeling league with Time to unite age and ugliness together.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This dismissal of cosmetics is typical of attitudes that saw beauty as a quality that a woman was either born with or not and its loss inevitable.
In the final decades of the 19th century, however, women’s magazines transformed this belief. </p>
<p>With the growth of advertising and beauty advice columns, there was gradual acceptance that fading looks should be combated by almost any means necessary. For older women, being visibly made up gradually became more tolerable, though the degree to which the cosmetics might be detectable was a point of contention. Women who foolishly attempted to recreate the charms of their youth were still harshly judged.</p>
<h2>Cosmetics and ageing</h2>
<p>The 30s were understood as a threshold for women entering middle age and no longer being considered at the peak of attractiveness. An advertisement for Madame Dupree’s Berlin Toilet Soap from 1890 promises “a return to youthful beauty” and specifies that the soap can “make […] a lady of 35 appear but 25”.</p>
<p>A 1904 beauty manual by Lady Jean, Beauty as a Fine Art, is generous enough to suggest that a woman of 40 “is just entering upon a long summer of useful and enjoyable existence”. Yet it goes on to suggest that “anything that threatens to rob her of the outward sign of youth” could be “combated and defied by all reasonable means”.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176355/original/file-20170630-14603-11otfz5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176355/original/file-20170630-14603-11otfz5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176355/original/file-20170630-14603-11otfz5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=895&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176355/original/file-20170630-14603-11otfz5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=895&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176355/original/file-20170630-14603-11otfz5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=895&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176355/original/file-20170630-14603-11otfz5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1125&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176355/original/file-20170630-14603-11otfz5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1125&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176355/original/file-20170630-14603-11otfz5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1125&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Pears ad showing a woman who is 50 but supposed to look 17, from June 1 1888.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Myra’s Journal of Dress and Fashion, p. 325.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The rise of advertising and consumer culture in the Victorian period saw the birth of thousands of brand-name beauty products. Many promised readers that they could retain the markers of youth: a full head of luxurious hair with no bald spots or grey, a full set of teeth, a trim waist, and a clear and smooth complexion.</p>
<p>Importantly, an overall distinction was made between products that might “preserve” youth, such as soaps, treatments and baths, and those that attempt to artificially conceal aged skin, such as obvious coloured cosmetics. </p>
<p>There was greater acceptance of certain cosmetics such as powder and rouge in the late 19th century. However, lingering views about natural beauty and the unpleasantness of older woman attempting to present themselves as youthful ensured that cosmetic advertisements denied the artifice involved in their products. </p>
<p>Advertisements for soaps, dyes and related beautifying aids emphasised their capacity to preserve what beauty women already possessed. Advertisements for hair restorers claimed (surely erroneously) they could renew grey hair to its original colour without the use of dye. An ad for Rossetter’s hair restorer from around 1880 also claims to give the hair “the lustre and health of youth”.</p>
<p>In small print at the bottom of an undated advertisement for Blackham’s hair restorer, it is acknowledged that their Electric Hair Stain is a dye – but purchasers are reassured that this “cannot be detected”. In a similar vein to today’s attitudes to cosmetic surgery, this claim signals how women had to ensure improvements to their appearance were seen as natural and, ironically, unnoticeable.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176354/original/file-20170630-2996-1sndrrq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176354/original/file-20170630-2996-1sndrrq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176354/original/file-20170630-2996-1sndrrq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176354/original/file-20170630-2996-1sndrrq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176354/original/file-20170630-2996-1sndrrq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176354/original/file-20170630-2996-1sndrrq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176354/original/file-20170630-2996-1sndrrq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176354/original/file-20170630-2996-1sndrrq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Blackhams tonic ad, circa 1895.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Soap was the most acceptable of commercial products for preserving youthful skin. Actresses and famous figures often provided written testimonials or directly featured in Victorian advertising. Sarah Bernhardt, a French actress, regularly appeared in beauty advertisements, including for Pears soap and her own rice-based face powder.</p>
<h2>Ageing disgracefully</h2>
<p>In contrast to frequent advocacy for soaps and home remedies in women’s magazines, the services and treatments of the infamous cosmetician <a href="http://www.victorianweb.org/science/health/rappaportch2.html">Madame Rachel, Sarah Rachel Levison</a>, provided well-publicised examples of older women who were imagined as foolish and vain for seeking to improve their appearances.</p>
<p>Products provided at her London salon included Circassian Beauty Wash, Magnetic Rock Dew Water of Sahara for removing wrinkles, and Youth and Beauty Cream. In 1863, Rachel published a 24-page pamphlet, entitled “Beautiful For Ever!” It told how she now had the sole right to sell </p>
<blockquote>
<p>the Magnetic Rock Dew Water of Sahara, which possesses the extraordinary property of increasing the vital energies – restores the colour of grey hair – gives the appearance of youth to persons far advanced in years, and removes wrinkle, defect, and blemishes, from whatever cause they may arise.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176353/original/file-20170630-5317-8ksje7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176353/original/file-20170630-5317-8ksje7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176353/original/file-20170630-5317-8ksje7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=916&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176353/original/file-20170630-5317-8ksje7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=916&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176353/original/file-20170630-5317-8ksje7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=916&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176353/original/file-20170630-5317-8ksje7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1151&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176353/original/file-20170630-5317-8ksje7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1151&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176353/original/file-20170630-5317-8ksje7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1151&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Madame Rachel.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia images</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The treatment for which Madame Rachel was most famous was known as “enamelling”. This involved the removal of facial hair, cleansing of the skin with alkaline washes, then filling of any wrinkles or uneven facial features with a thick white paste, which sometimes contained lead. This was followed by the application of powder and rouge.</p>
<p>The gullibility of older women in chasing the fountain of youth through cosmetics was amply illustrated in Madame Rachel’s trial for fraud in 1868. Her victim, 50-year-old Mary Tucker Borradaile, was described as an object of pity in the trial.</p>
<p>One of the prosecutors, Montagu Williams, found it hard to believe that Borradaile could have believed she could be made beautiful forever. He later recalled her to be a pathetic figure in her attempts to look attractive despite her years: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>She was a spare, thin, scraggy-looking woman, wholly devoid of figure; her hair was dyed a bright yellow; her face was ruddled with paint; and the darkness of her eyebrows was strongly suggestive of meretricious art.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It was recorded that Borradaile had been beautiful in her youth and was particularly noted for her long, golden hair. But, in court, her hair was observed to be unnaturally dyed or artificial. Fellow prosecutor William Ballantine described Borradaile as: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>a skeleton encased apparently in plaster of Paris, painted pink and white, and surmounted with a juvenile wig. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>According to <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Beautiful_For_Ever.html?id=9XNvgasBwgUC">Helen Rappaport</a>, when Borradaile entered the courtroom to give evidence, there were audible gasps at her made-up face.</p>
<h2>‘The absolute loss of empire’</h2>
<p>Horror at the cosmetically enhanced older woman continued to be expressed into the early 20th century. In <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Art_of_Being_Beautiful.html?id=JncBPAAACAAJ">The Art of Being Beautiful</a> from 1902, the supposedly 50-year-old interviewee, the Baroness, advises:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>For a woman to try and knock more than ten years off her age is an arrogance for which she is punished by every glance of the passers-by. When she tries as a brunette to make herself into a blonde by the use of unlimited white chalk, she also makes herself grotesque – as unpleasing as a fly that had dropped into a honey-pot. When, as a blonde, she adorns herself with black eyebrows like croquet hoops, frankly she becomes alarming, if not detestable.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The Baroness also remarks that dyed hair does not complement “wrinkled cheeks”, especially when the dye chosen is of an “infantine yellow tint”. Apparently, there were certain signs of youth that older women should not attempt to recapture.</p>
<p>While the Baroness critiqued the older woman who attempted to turn back the hands of time through excessive use of cosmetics, she did advocate for beauty regimens to slow the process of ageing. She described the loss of beauty as “the absolute loss of empire”. “Active preparations” for ageing were encouraged – in the same manner as the fire brigade, army and medical profession might ready for fires, war and disease.</p>
<p>So as women aged, they were confronted with the choice of either accepting the gradual fading of their looks, or being criticised for trying to visibly ameliorate signs of age, attempting the impossible task of trying to stave off wrinkles and grey hair. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176385/original/file-20170630-8203-1tp4n84.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176385/original/file-20170630-8203-1tp4n84.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176385/original/file-20170630-8203-1tp4n84.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176385/original/file-20170630-8203-1tp4n84.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176385/original/file-20170630-8203-1tp4n84.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176385/original/file-20170630-8203-1tp4n84.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176385/original/file-20170630-8203-1tp4n84.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176385/original/file-20170630-8203-1tp4n84.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Meg Ryan pictured in Los Angeles in June.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mario Anzuoni/Reuters</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These double standards are exceedingly familiar. Older women in the public eye are caught in a bind between being seen as excessive users of cosmetic surgery who have made themselves look unnatural, or of having aged or “let themselves go” to the point of no longer being seen as desirable and bankable. </p>
<p>Actresses in their 50s, such as Meg Ryan and Daryl Hannah, regularly appear in photo galleries taking delight in “botched” plastic surgery or marvelling at “trout pouts”. Conversely, magazines and gossip sites pounced on unflattering photographs of Kirstie Ally, now 66, when she gained a significant amount of weight in 2008, and proclaimed her “washed up”. </p>
<p>While a small number of women in the public eye, like Brigitte Macron, are seen to deftly negotiate these expectations of beauty and ageing, most are set up to fail.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>This article was amended July 7 to correct that Kirstie Alley was being referred to, not Ally Sheedy.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/79575/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Smith has previously received funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>Why is Cher, 71, celebrated when she wears a near-nude costume while Madonna, 58, receives revulsion? 19th century women’s magazines reveal how the double standards of beauty for older women came about.Michelle Smith, Research fellow in English Literature, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/567462016-03-24T04:00:42Z2016-03-24T04:00:42ZBitch, I’m (still) Madonna …<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/116303/original/image-20160324-28178-1jornnn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">She has been through some trying times of late, but the Madonna machine has not been derailed.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Walter Bieri/EPA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>When I first started <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3176867-girl-heroes">writing about Madonna</a>, over a decade ago, she was the undisputed queen of popular postfeminism. Thanks to cultural studies classics like <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1789132.The_Madonna_Connection?from_search=true&search_version=service">The Madonna Connection</a> (1992), she was the subject of extensive academic analysis and feminist debate. </p>
<p>Was Madonna a transgressive, feminist, anti-establishment rebel, critics asked, or a symbol of the post-industrial capitalist system?</p>
<p>For her part, Madonna seemed to prefer to present herself as an ambitious rebel. As she famously declared, way back in the 80s: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I’m tough, ambitious and I know exactly what I want. If that makes me a bitch, okay! </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The young and sexy, defiant but desirable Madonna of the 1980s was always going to attract attention and adoration. Today, however, in her late 50s and on her most recent (and perhaps final) world tour, Madonna has been going through some trying times.</p>
<h2>Is Madonna having her “old Elvis” moment?</h2>
<p>Madonna is now 57. Elton John, himself 68, has famously called her a <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/music/madonna-a-fairground-stripper-elton-20120807-23rpb.html">fairground stripper whose career is “over”</a>. And YouTube is awash with amateur parodies of the video for her latest hit <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hPMmzKs62w">Bitch, I’m Madonna</a>, featuring guest vocals from Nicki Minaj and a host of celebrity cameos. Most poke fun at her for having the audacity to surround herself with much younger pop stars to appear hip.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/b2Zcym44dBQ?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Madonna’s Rebel Heart tour, which ended this week, sparked a flurry of stories about her <a href="http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/rendezview/the-real-story-behind-madonnas-meltdown/news-story/e6ae91b3046a42aa6be54608a156e337">so-called meltdown</a>. Both local and international press suggested that Madonna was making a <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/madonna/index.html">sad spectacle of herself</a> by running late and rambling between songs.</p>
<p>Part of what her fans love about Madonna is the image she has presented over the decades as the ultimate pop power-woman: always in control, always professional. </p>
<p>Yet on this tour, for a titillating moment, it seemed Madonna was finally about to have an “old Elvis” moment. The media hype led us to believe we would see Madonna transform into her very antithesis, as a drunk or drugged, burnt out icon – a sad parody of the former self – like Elvis Presley near his end. </p>
<p>I didn’t see a “train wreck” on Madonna’s latest tour, only the same professional performer who never puts a foot wrong. The Madonna machine was not about to be derailed by the tragic but mundane matters that everyday women face (divorce, relationship breakdowns, custody battles); she had a show to put on (albeit a little late).</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/116305/original/image-20160324-20789-1d2ir7n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/116305/original/image-20160324-20789-1d2ir7n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=894&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116305/original/image-20160324-20789-1d2ir7n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=894&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116305/original/image-20160324-20789-1d2ir7n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=894&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116305/original/image-20160324-20789-1d2ir7n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1124&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116305/original/image-20160324-20789-1d2ir7n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1124&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116305/original/image-20160324-20789-1d2ir7n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1124&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Courtney Love performing with Hole at the Glastonbury Festival.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Madonna may have been going through hard times but she was never going to stage a truly shocking, novel and transgressive performance in the manner of say, punk goddess Courtney Love. Love was also often dismissed as a train wreck, but in her Brisbane performances back in the 1990s, she gleefully threw it all back in the face of audiences and the media. </p>
<p>You never knew when Love was going to give her guitar away to a girl in the audience, tear off her own top or hurl herself spontaneously into a dangerous writhing, mosh pit. But unlike Madonna, Love was not a middle class girl from the mid-west raised on a furious work ethic.</p>
<h2>Is Madonna really a Rebel at Heart?</h2>
<p>While some have rushed to <a href="http://dailyreview.com.au/madonnas-first-australian-tour-in-23-years-trainwreck-or-triumph/39095">Madonna’s defence</a>, it was more surprising to see the singer herself weigh in on this tour – accusing her critics of <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/madonna-drunk-meltdown-rebel-heart-tour_uk_56e7dfd6e4b03fb88ede162c">sexist reporting and misogyny</a>. </p>
<p>She was right, of course, about the old sexist double standard on gender and ageing. Perhaps we’ll only have a genuine postfeminist popular culture when aging female pop stars are allowed to look like Keith Richards.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/116308/original/image-20160324-20795-wr08gh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/116308/original/image-20160324-20795-wr08gh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=753&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116308/original/image-20160324-20795-wr08gh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=753&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116308/original/image-20160324-20795-wr08gh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=753&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116308/original/image-20160324-20795-wr08gh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=946&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116308/original/image-20160324-20795-wr08gh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=946&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116308/original/image-20160324-20795-wr08gh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=946&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Keith Richards performing in Latin America in February.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sergio Moraes</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The trouble with Madonna calling out “sexist reporting” and misogyny though, is that she has always had a troubled relationship with feminism. </p>
<p>Some critics, academics and second wave feminists suggest she is not really much of a rebel at all, but rather a <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08145857.1993.10415230#previewhttp://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1789132.The_Madonna_Connection">corporate sell-out</a> who made her millions by sexually objectifying women, mostly herself.</p>
<p>Madonna may have imagined her hypersexual objectification in her soft-porn <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/302236.Sex">Sex</a> years as a kind of political rebellion against the father figure of conservative patriarchy. She has also depicted herself as a rebel against the male dominated Catholic Church.</p>
<p>In the 1990s, third wave or postmodern feminism even celebrated Madonna as a kind of rebel against gender itself, blurring the boundaries of masculinity and femininity in her Girlie Tour years.</p>
<p>The trouble is, corporate capitalism was only too happy to absorb Madonna’s performance of hypersexuality, bisexuality and notoriety.</p>
<p>Today, thanks in part to Madonna, female popstars are almost always expected to present themselves as sex objects and <a href="https://theconversation.com/bow-down-bitches-when-celebrity-feminism-goes-wrong-55033">liberal feminist icons</a> at the same time.</p>
<p>Capitalism was also happy to profit from the reality TV-style self-disclosure and exposure that Madonna pioneered in her <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102370/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">In Bed with Madonna</a> film made back in 1991. In today’s all access selfie culture, narcissistic image-making is big business.</p>
<p>Madonna pioneered a lot of cultural trends that didn’t do average working women a lot of favours. Turns out, there is nothing neoliberal, post-industrial capitalism loves more than a perfectionist workaholic, especially one that takes such meticulous care of her body and business.</p>
<p>She has spawned a whole new generation of Madonnaesque corporate feminists in all areas of postmodern life. She has always been the ultimate mobile metaphor, picking up and reflecting back multiple cultural meanings in her music videos, lyrics and media representations.</p>
<p>Uniting all her various reinventions however, is the self-concept she seems to hold most dear, Madonna as a “Rebel Heart”. Ironically however, there is not much that is truly anti-establishment about Madonna today, indeed if there ever was.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/116307/original/image-20160324-20792-3sn5t0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/116307/original/image-20160324-20792-3sn5t0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=845&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116307/original/image-20160324-20792-3sn5t0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=845&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116307/original/image-20160324-20792-3sn5t0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=845&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116307/original/image-20160324-20792-3sn5t0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1062&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116307/original/image-20160324-20792-3sn5t0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1062&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116307/original/image-20160324-20792-3sn5t0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1062&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Madonna at a promotional event in Japan in February.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Franck Robichon</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Madonna: Vampire or Zombie</h2>
<p>Many of the Indie or independent alternative rock music stars that supplanted Madonna briefly in the 1990s defined themselves in opposition to her. Courtney Love, for example, <a href="http://www.livenirvana.com/interviews/9210et/index.html">once dubbed Madonna a vampire</a> who wanted to appropriate, or suck the ideas out of, younger more innovative performers to keep herself young and relevant. </p>
<p>Even today those who love to hate Madonna, seem to imagine her as some kind of supernatural “freak” – a corporate zombie, who never ages and refuses to die.</p>
<p>Mainstream culture generally wants ageing sex symbols to either die or disappear, and so Madonna faces her most difficult challenge yet. </p>
<p>The new and ultimate test of her legendary power, determination and “transgressive” potential will be to prove to a sexist culture that women can still be sexy, relevant, controversial and cool into their sixties and beyond. </p>
<p>There’s not much about Madonna that’s still radical or rebellious today. But if she does manage to push back the boundaries of gender and age, that will be a real victory over patriarchy.</p>
<h2>Bitch, I’m (still) Madonna</h2>
<p>Will Madonna once again rise triumphant, relentlessly marching on, absorbing criticism like fuel, as she has in decades past? </p>
<p>She is still the best-selling and most influential female artist of all time, imitated by millions. No journalist, academic or cultural commentator pecking away at their keyboard or smartphone can take that away from her. </p>
<p>Naturally, she has plenty to say about all this on the <a href="http://www.madonna.com/">Rebel Heart</a> album. “Who do you think you are?” she challenges us. “Bitch, I’m Madonna!”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/56746/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Susan Hopkins does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Madonna, who attacked “sexist” criticism of her Rebel Heart tour, has always had a troubled relationship with feminism. And there is little about pop’s perfectionist workaholic that is rebellious today.Susan Hopkins, Lecturer in Communication, University of Southern QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.