A Suitable Dress

Among the headlines that crop up on my favourite trash sites, one in particular caught my eye this week. As per usual, the honour of distinction goes to the Daily Mail. ‘Is that really a suitable dress for someone trying to win an adoption case, Madonna?’

The article kicks off… In the midst of her custody battle with the Malawian High Court, Madonna stepped out in a questionable outfit at the star-studded Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute Ball.

I never thought I’d defend Madonna. I’m not her biggest fan. I despise her music (bar Like a Prayer) I find her face disconcerting, in fact I find her overall demeanour disconcerting. And despite the obvious argument for adopting the Malawian baby – better health care, a better education, an all round better quality of life by our western standards – I don’t particularly believe handpicking babies from third world orphanages and ferrying them back to your big castle in the sky is ideal.

But all that aside, from my position over here of bias against the Material Girl, her face, fashion, music and scary controlling ways, I can still see an extreme need to pop a few things into context.

Madonna was at a costume gala. More specifically she was at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute Ball. And the theme for this year’s ball was Model as Muse. I won’t go into the finer details of the fashion the evening brought about – Go Fug Yourself has more than adequately taken care of that – but I will say Madonna’s Louis Vuitton mini dress and boot combo isn’t my cup of tea, even in the realm of outrageous costumes. The sort of deconstructed Statue of Liberty crown headpiece, whilst wild and unexpected as far as headpieces go, didn’t do much for me either. However, the point is, she was at a costume gala ball, celebrating the weird and wonderful world of fashion, and she was wearing a suitably weird and albeit debatably wonderful costume.

Once I’d finished popping things into context in my head, and then putting fingers to keyboard to do it for this column, I found, as I so often do, my blood had started to boil a little. And that this was because there were so many other issues implicit in that one ill-thought through and badly titled article. What I want to know is this – is the DM, a stalwart of morals, implying there is a dress code one must adhere to when adopting a baby?

One would have thought, the DM writes furiously, that Madonna would invest her time and energies into getting her house in order to ensure she has every chance of success in her bid to bring Mercy James to the US to live with her. Instead, she wore an outfit that breached the limits of vulgarity, and displayed her typically arrogant thinking.

I wouldn’t say Madonna’s costume ‘breached the limits of vulgarity.’ I mean it was Louis Vuitton for Christ’s sake. I think Blake Lively managed to show more skin in a backless, one sleeved, slit-up-to-the-crotch gown. Is that really a suitable dress for a young girl who stars in a show aimed at … wait a minute. Wait a minute. What am I doing? Why must everything come back to Gossip Girl and Blake Lively with me. This has to end.

Where was I. Oh yes. Madonna’s outfit, whilst wholly unattractive, was not vulgar. Whilst it deserves, and was clearly worn for this reason, dissection on a suitable (there’s that word again) platform, dragging it into the adoption debate is another thing altogether.

Now, I know it could be argued that Madonna has made the choice to wade in, in a rather public manner, sepia tinted press photographs, and papped family strolls down beaten tracks in the heart of Malawi included, and adopt a baby from a country and culture extremely difficult to her own. She should thus not only be prepared for the criticism that comes with that, and there was plenty of it, but she should also wear it. Sure. I agree with that, to a certain extent. And I think there are other elements of the process that can be discussed in this light, beyond the costume she chose for a costume gala ball. Far more interesting elements that probe the clashing of culture and the inherent superiority complex of us Westerners.

But really, questioning the suitability of a costume? Come now. Questioning the suitability of anything that springs from the marriage of fashion and celebrity – why, we could go on in that vein for hours.

‘Is it really appropriate to pluck children from the slums of India, take them to the Oscars in designer frocks and then pop them back when you’re done?’ Well, no.

‘Is it suitable to spend some outrageous amount of money on a costume ball when people are starving, and not just in the oft-mentioned-in-this-context Africa? In your own country.’ Probably not.

‘Is anything Aubrey O’Day has ever worn ever been suitable for any stage of any life anywhere in the world?’ Not at all.

Mercy’s father, apparently speaking exclusively to the DM, has voiced his concerns over whether Madonna is possessed of good morals, after seeing her movies and television shows. He also, apparently, has a problem with her dancing nearly naked on stage and dating a boy who is young enough to be her son. In Malawi, ‘cultured women’ do not gad about half naked, they respect themselves. Fair enough. It’s a hot topic for our culture too, half naked women and whether or not they respect themselves. Maybe our cultures aren’t that different after all. Or, maybe they are, and maybe the DM should look a little deeper before slicing and dicing a woman who is a product of a shared culture, from the lofty position of their extremely high horse.

See, we would say, in response to Mercy’s father’s barbed comments about the dos and don’ts of cultured women, well, in our culture, obsessed as it is with all things popular, Madonna’s pretty big. She broke down a lot of barriers. She smashed a few socio-cultural ceilings. She paved a few new paths for western women. She forced an exploration of female sexuality, twenty years on from the onset of the sexual revolution. For us, she has been hugely influential beyond titillating and provocative video clips and coffee table books. Is what she did in an unparalleled career that consistently forced people to rethink popular norms and notions, reflective of her morals now? Need I list all the actresses and entertainers over the years whose job it has been to inhabit another character in the name of artistic expression, boundary pushing and social exploration, and ask whether or not they have morals that befit a mother? Because I will list them if you need me to. With relish.

I also started thinking if whether the vitriol in the article, aimed at Madonna and her sartorial choice, had something to do with the fact that we love nothing more than judging a woman by what she wears. It’s a rule – if you are female and in the public eye, you can’t win with your wardrobe, particularly if you are a) going through a divorce b) pregnant c) a politician d) married to a politician e) mourning/recovering from tragedy and now f) trying to win an adoption case. If Guy Ritchie wanted a baby from, I don’t know, El Salvador, and in the midst of the adoption paper turmoil he turned up to a costume party dressed as Dracula or Lord Voldemort, do you think the next day an article would run with the title ‘Is this really a suitable outfit for someone trying to win an adoption battle?’ I daresay the article would probably run with this title, ‘Guy shows his fun loving side as he dresses in a costume that has delighted kids the world over.’ And do you think that if Guy were dating a twenty year old woman, it would be dragged into the arena as a mark of his immorality? Ah, no.

So let me ask you this. At a time when people are braying that Madonna should be mindful of the culture from which she is wanting to adopt a child, surely it is fair, when passing comment on something to do with Madonna unrelated to the entire adoption process, they stay mindful of the culture from which she comes and her position within the recent history of that culture.

I’d also rather like to know what the DM deems a suitable dress for someone trying to win an adoption case. Just for future reference.

And finally, in more Madonna news, three British girls have changed their names to include lyrics and album titles from Madonna.

Lianne Madonna Vogue On The Cover Of A Magazine McHale Dawson
Emma Madonna Confessions On A Dance Floor McHale Dawson
Gemma Madonna True Blue Strike A Pose Carroll McHale Dawson Me Me Mitchel

Gemma clearly went the extra mile.

As an aside that has nothing to do with the rest of the column …

Brooke Hogan:  “She’s 48. I said, ‘Mom, if you want to have a relationship with me you have to dump Charlie.’ It’s not because of his age. If he were 5 years old and a good influence on her then that would better. But I’m just not happy with the situation because of their poor judgment – with what they do.”

I’m not even going to go there.