ABSTRACT
Madonna has minor talent and major marketing skill. In her works the line between person and image has become hopelessly blurred, as has the line between responsibility and manipulation. Nonetheless, Camille Paglia says Madonna “has taught young women to be fully female and sexual while still exercising total control over their lives.” Whatever Madonna the producer may have chosen, Madonna the performer comes across as a dementedly cheerful masochist. As long as Madonna wears masks—and confuses the person with the image—there is no real person there. Madonna, her fan Paglia says, “embodies the eternal values of beauty and pleasure.” Whereas traditional, no-fun-at-all feminists want to put an end to masks. Barbara Grizzuti Harrison, a highly regarded author and one of the first contributors to Ms. Magazine, addresses Paglia’s claims from the perspective of someone who had been heavily involved with the formative years of the women’s movement in the 1960s and 1970s.
