by Jasmine Bridges
Daily Lobo
Poor Madonna. She's writhed around in a wedding dress like a naughty bride, got down and dirty with Vanilla Ice in a spicy coffee table book, offended Catholics with sacrilegious images of Christ and set her spiritual reawakening to techno music.
Still, recent record sales have shown a waning interest in what she has to say - that is, if she has anything left to say at all. As Madonna shoved her tongue down the throats of America's favorite pop princesses, you could almost hear the death rattle of a career in desperate need of resuscitation. For once, Madonna was a step behind.
It can only be called a sad scramble for media hype - Madonna performing her latest single from a poorly received release in a black tuxedo groom get-up to show she's just as relevant as her pop star brides Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears. Spears too, proved once and for all, she's not that innocent.
Instead of a brazen trendsetter who pushes the limits of conventional society, all viewers got was a staged make-out session that was little more than a chance for three working girls to cash in like everyone else. There was absolutely no risk involved.
A woman in a top hat is not exactly a groundbreaking idea and as the Kinks say, "girls will be boys and boys will be girls." This is especially true in music. Bending gender and attraction is, to some, little more than the logical extension to the old adage "sex sells."
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No one knows this better than the boys who rode the glitter spandex wave of the glam rock movement. Let's not forget the countless number of '80s bands that made fey, girlishness and caked-on layers of the blackest black eyeliner a lucrative statement.
The right boys in the right dresses sell albums.
Now that boys have had their fun playing dress up, publicists are getting smart and pushing girls into the same sexually ambiguous limelight.
Tatu, the barely legal Russian electro-pop duo, is dropping a few jaws with tame lesbian love songs and very public displays of affection. They also happen to sell a pretty decent amount of albums.
They are not two girls who happen to be gay playing music they care about. Rather they are two industry newcomers, brought together through an audition and a product, controlled by a shady producer who knew he could make a few bucks appealing to one of the most clichÇd male fantasies.
It probably doesn't hurt that they dress like wayward schoolgirls.
All cynicism aside, one of the greatest things about a good record is it does for sex what no other medium can. It toys with taboos and pushes buttons that need to be pushed, but ideally doesn't take any longer than four minutes for all the right reasons.
Watching Madonna jockey for position in the spotlight shames this idea. Seeing her try on the flavor of the month sexuality like a new cone bra was like witnessing Marilyn Manson prance around with fake breasts, begging for a once captive audience to do a double take.
The thing about relying on shock to sell records - as opposed to sincerely hoping to change stale conventions - is it quickly loses its novelty.
As Madonna left the stage after her desperate and ultimately tiresome stunt, she forgot one thing - sexuality is not a disposable fashion statement. Let's hope she's got a bag of more interesting tricks.
