Like most celebs, when she offers up her opinion on world affairs Madonna can usually be guaranteed to get it completely wrong. She usually proposes the wrong solution to a problem to be fixed with other folks cash. But just occasionally she gets it right. I am not sure about her motives but following my new resolution to be more positive about life, well done to Madonna, the scrawny old bag has excelled herself in Russia.
Her outburst in Putin’s paradise is a twinned pronged attack. Performing in St Petersburg, a City where until 1999 homosexuality was classed as a mental disease, and where homophobia is a very real issue, she has spoken up in favour of gay rights. I suspect that there are more repressed minorities in Russia but they are perhaps less fashionable minorities to support but so what everyone deserves equal rights under the law and basic respect. It is still unlawful to “promote” homosexuality in Russia. But as we found in the UK with the infamous Clause 28 of the Local Government Act, such legislation achieves nothing other than encouraging prejudice and making life harder for teenagers wresting with their sexuality.
Legislation like this does not stop anyone being gay, it just makes those who are gay less likely to be, er, happy. The fact that leading members of both the State and the Church in Russia regularly equate homosexuality with paedophilia just shows that this is not a terribly advanced and tolerant society.
Secondly Madonna has spoken out on behalf of and worn a (lack of) outfit showing support for an all girl punk group called “Pussy Riot” who currently languish in prison for coming up with an anti Putin song. To save you doing a google search and coming up with unintended results I bring you the offending video below.
I do not know what to say. For Putin to lock up these young ladies for criticising him is clearly intolerable. Having listened to their music I could think of other reasons for keeping them away from a recording studio. If you managed to listen only to a short burst, fear not, you missed nothing. In fact it got worse. Maybe it lost something in translation? But who am I (or Putin) to act as an arbiter of taste? As long as they do not expect the State to subsidize them, if there is a market for this appalling noise then Pussy Riot can carry on recording and, like all of us, they should be allowed to criticise their leaders. Especially murderous, corrupt bastards like Vladimir Putin.
The Soviet establishment is not happy. The deputy PM has branded Madonna a Moralising Slut. By that he explains that she used to be a slut but now moralises. His advice to the crucifix wearing chanteuse: “Either take off your cross or put your knickers back on.” Deputy PM Rogozin was, as I am sure you have guessed, in a former life a senior diplomat.
These days I try not to think about Madonna’s rather muscular and unattractive body but it is hers to dress, undress and do what she wants with. And if Madonna wishes to preach, Rogozin can always preach back if he thinks he has a case. But of course he does not. So Mr Deputy PM, papa don’t preach. Meanwhile a Church leader has urged good Christians to phone in bomb hoaxes ahead of her concert. I am racking my brains to remember which part of the New Testament could possibly be interpreted as encouraging such action but for the moment it escapes me.
Just to show that the St Petersburg Legislature take all thus unreasonable behaviour seriously I have good news, they are going to act. The Church leader and preaching papa Rogozin have done nothing wrong. Madonna is being investigated and may be fined. And the trial of Pussy Riot continues. Right, that is all fine and dandy then.
Incidentally, re-watching the video for Like a Prayer, a most excellent song (as William S Preston would have put it), you get a reminder of how Madonna is a great one for creating controversy in order to generate ticket/record sales. And so I am vaguely suspicious of her motives. But the rarity of a celeb being so 100% correct on an issue (and not demanding that we hand over cash to support it) means that, whatever her motives, I applaud her completely. As for the Russian church and state, someone needs to remind them that at the end of the twentieth century we moved into the 21st century not the nineteenth.
PS. Like a Prayer is so totally most excellent and also as a reminder of Madonna trying to be controversial for the sake of it, I also bring you that video.
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