ABSTRACT
Cultural and religious identity is the site of often painful individual and communal struggle or even strife. In recent years, it has also increasingly become subject to marketing and to media hype, raising the question what the relationship between the struggle for identity and the hype about certain cultural traits or ethnic features is. The VJs on television music channels such as MTV make diversity ‘cool’ with their host of cultural and ethnic backgrounds, just as the Benetton advertisements that adorn streets and magazines do. Certain cultural elements and ethnic traits even acquire cult status. In the rap and hip-hop scene, for example, black culture is emulated with regard to linguistic features, gestures and sports clothes because of the fascination it exerts on fans also of other ethnicities and cultures. Film stars like Richard Gere, who famously is a friend of the Dalai Lama, have helped to bring Buddhism into the headlines and to make it trendy and desirable. With her very name and the crosses she wore in her early career Madonna played with the symbols – and the taboos – of Roman Catholicism. Madonna, however, has recently undergone a name-change and now wishes to be called Esther. She now adheres, together with other celebrities such as actress Demi Moore or fellow singer Britney Spears, to Kabbalah. Madonna/Esther does not only attract attention by attending the Jewish New Year’s celebrations in Israel and by visiting the graves of Kabbalist sages for meditation and prayer, but by also using the iconography connected with the Kabbalah for the promotion of her CD and tour (cf. McGreal 2004; Doward 2004). Especially in the latter case, fans and commentators remain unsure whether Madonna/Esther’s recent penchant for Judaism is strategic ‘product’ placement – and, as the singer’s critics say, a harmful distortion of Jewish faith – or whether other explanations must be found.
