By just about any measure, Chile is a modern and prosperous country. Heck, two years ago it elected its first woman president, which makes it far more progressive than the U.S., politically speaking.
So it was a little jarring to learn that some Chileans, at least, seem stuck in the 1980s.
Roman Catholic Cardinal Jorge Medina took time out of a mass honoring the late dictator Augusto Pinochet to denounce the British-speaking, American-born pop singer Madonna.
“This woman comes here and in an incredibly shameless manner, she provokes a crazy enthusiasm, an enthusiasm of lust, lustful thoughts, impure thoughts,” the Associated Press reports Medina as saying.
Seriously?
By my reckoning, the last time Madonna provoked anything approaching "crazy enthusiasm," much less an enthusiasm of "lustful thoughts," was, oh, 1985, around the time of "Crazy for You" and "Material Girl."
In fact, "Material Girl" marked something of a turning point both in Madonna's career and my enjoyment of same: : the moment she graduated from fishnet-adorned pop singer and started morphing into an international pop star whose ego and self-image were (and remain) out of all proportion to her talent and her place in the world (see "Truth or Dare").
More to the point, from "True Blue" onward, Madonna changed from a moderately attractive and talented singer who knew how to sell herself for mass consumption into a "star" (as different from a performer) who had bought too much into her own hype. The Madonna of the last 22 years is famous for being famous, and each occasional "comeback" album and tour is designed to resolidify, if not revive, her status in the marketplace. The music and the performances are just the platforms for maintaining her celebrity, rather than the kind of self-expression that approaches art. When I see Madonna today, I see a woman working hard to hold on to a time that has long since passed. And that doesn't inspire enthusiasm of any sort, much less "an enthusiasm of lust."