Thursday, August 14th, 2008...2:23 pm
#103: Don’t Act All Shocked That Madonna’s Turning 50
All around me, old people (sorry, sweetie) are marvelling that Madonna is turning 50. Can you believe it?, they say. Madonna, 50. It doesn’t seem possible.
Oh yes it does. (Cue old-people-style reminiscence): When I first heard of Madonna, I was a fashion editor at Glamour. This was in the eighties. Yes, youngsters, that long-ago time that you seem now to think was so cute, with your shoulder pads and your big hair and ironically-worn neon-striped leg warmers. MTV was new and hot back then — in fact, my fellow Glamourite Judy McGrath, who now runs the place, had recently defected there as a junior copywriter — just like Madonna. Just like me.
Anyway, somebody sent over a video of Madonna. I had a television and a VCR, both as large as steamer trunks, wheeled into the cubicle I shared with Kim Bonnell. I cued up the video. And there was this….popsy….dressed in tattered lingerie with mascara smeared around her eyes writhing on the floor and feeling herself up.
I was shocked, shocked I tell you, nearly as shocked as I am now thinking back to how innocent, how different everything was in that pre-Britney, pre-Paris era of straight-laced feministinity.
What I’m really saying: It was a long time ago. Madonna’s been famous for a quarter century now. Like many women, I love her and hate her, I admire her and I’m horrified by her. Check out Madonna’s website and groove, sistah, to that tune: “Why wait for someone else to do what you can do right now?”
If you couldn’t believe she was turning 50 on August 16th before now, if the picture here didn’t convince you, you have to admit that’s a lyric that could only have been written by a 50-year-old woman.
4 Comments
August 14th, 2008 at 8:10 pm
Madonna and I are almost exactly the same age. I turned 50, feeling like a 27-year-old and I am sure she will, too. It’s just the way it is these days.
August 19th, 2008 at 12:13 am
Since Madonna has looked about the same as far back as I can remember, and since people estimate ages higher rather than lower when somebody appears not to change, I assume she is about 100… and probably carved out of wax.
August 21st, 2008 at 5:09 am
Even my husband commented he couldn’t believe Madonna turned 50. I guess it’s because we were already all grown up in the 80’s and felt as if she was younger…in reality, she is younger, but only by 5 years. So yes, 50 she is.
It bothers me a lot more that William Shatner is in his 70’s! (I was a real Trekkie).
September 10th, 2008 at 8:18 pm
There’s a reason why women over 50 wear long sleeves.
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