ABSTRACT
In the summer of 2006 Madonna, America’s greatest female pop star ever, once again managed to upset many people all over the world with a provocative performance. This time it involved her staging a crucifixion scene for the Confessions on a Dance Floor tour, a show she performed in the United States as well as in a number of European countries. In this show Madonna, suspended on a huge shining silver cross and wearing
a thorn crown, sang one of her already famous songs called ‘Live to Tell’, orchestrated for the occasion with an organ-laden, ‘churchly’ sound. At the end of this song, when Madonna stepped down from the cross and kneeled on stage in a gesture of prayer, pictures of African AIDS orphans and texts from the New Testament were projected onto a big screen behind her:
These are Jesus’ words from the Gospel of Matthew (25, 35-36); and these sayings refer to the Christian summons to love God as well as one’s neighbour, in particular the one who is helpless or in pain. ‘Whatever you did for one of these least ones, you did for me’ (Matt., 25, 40), was the message that shone in large letters over Madonna’s head.
