CULTURE
The other sexy Madonna
When Madonna Louise Ciccone stormed the music scene in the 1980s, her use of sexual imagery seemed to mock the traditional image of Madonna, the Mother of Jesus. She was never Like A Virgin. Yet, this was not the first portrayal of a sexualized Madonna.
Madonna is the usual title given to several versions of a composition, by the Norwegian expressionist painter Edvard Munch, showing a bare-breasted half-length female figure, between 1892 and 1895, using oils on canvas.
Critics observed:
. . . strange devotional picture glorifying decadent love. The cult of the strong woman who reduces man to subjection gives the figure of woman monumental proportions, but it also makes a demon of her.
The usual golden halo of Mary has been replaced with a red halo symbolizing the love and pain duality. The viewer's viewpoint is that of the man who is making love with her. Even in this unusual pose, she embodies some of the key elements of canonical representations of the Virgin: she has a quietness and a calm confidence about her.
It just goes to show that there is nothing new under the sun or perhaps that the Scandinavians are always ahead of the curve in challenging sexual and cultural norms.
When Madonna Louise Ciccone stormed the music scene in the 1980s, her use of sexual imagery seemed to mock the traditional image of Madonna, the Mother of Jesus. She was never Like A Virgin. Yet, this was not the first portrayal of a sexualized Madonna.
Madonna is the usual title given to several versions of a composition, by the Norwegian expressionist painter Edvard Munch, showing a bare-breasted half-length female figure, between 1892 and 1895, using oils on canvas.
Critics observed:
. . . strange devotional picture glorifying decadent love. The cult of the strong woman who reduces man to subjection gives the figure of woman monumental proportions, but it also makes a demon of her.
The usual golden halo of Mary has been replaced with a red halo symbolizing the love and pain duality. The viewer's viewpoint is that of the man who is making love with her. Even in this unusual pose, she embodies some of the key elements of canonical representations of the Virgin: she has a quietness and a calm confidence about her.
It just goes to show that there is nothing new under the sun or perhaps that the Scandinavians are always ahead of the curve in challenging sexual and cultural norms.
Munch Madonna
Is Taylor Swift a man?
In a recent dream, I am sitting at a table next to Taylor Swift at a luncheon with other people. She has a five o’clock shadow. I ask her about it. She says it is just makeup. I moisten my thumb and try to rub the stubble off her cheek, but it won’t come off. I wake up. (Of course, if I had tried touching her face in real life, her security detail would be on me like a ton of bricks.)
The dream may suggest Taylor Swift feels like a man, perhaps as much as actress Ellen Page, who became Elliot Page. The adoration of Taylor's female fans reminds me of the giddy girls who greeted the Beatles when they came to America. Swift is the boyfriend all the girls want.
The Swift playlist provides a litany of female drama and failed relationships. But is it real or a facade to conceal the lack of emotions in her real affairs with men?
Several years ago, I had a coworker who read dozens of romance novels. One day she asked me if I had seen the latest Star Trek: The Next Generation episode in which a woman who lived in a compulsory non-binary world struggled with her attraction to men. She said she could relate to that outsider. Later, someone told me that coworker had come out as a lesbian. Perhaps she had believed the diet of romance novels would convert her into a straight woman. Swift may have a similar compulsion.
Her choice of Travis Kelce may be an act of desperation. The manliest of men will finally make her feel like a woman. The fans are already talking about the marriage of American royalty. Yeah, right. How did that other royal marriage turn out, the one between Charles and Diana?
Swift may be pushing the limits of her gender denial. Offering fans many choices of The Life of a Showgirl album cover, she seemed to be asking, “Which version of a drag queen do you like best?” In the cover that made the final cut, Taylor is being pulled under by the weight of her showgirl persona and can barely keep her head above water. It's more than Hamlet's Ophelia.
If she transitions, at least she won’t have to worry about being deadnamed. Taylor works for either sex.
The “What If” Beatles album
You may say I’m a dreamer but imagine a parallel universe where the Beatles didn’t break up in 1970 but created another album incorporating their individual works from 1969 to 1971. Titles and composers listed. Let’s call it Amazing.
Side One
Instant Karma – John Lennon
Imagine - John Lennon
My Sweet Lord – George Harrison
Give Peace A Chance – John Lennon, Paul McCartney
Gimme Some Truth – John Lennon
Power to the People – John Lennon
All Things Must Pass – George Harrison
Side Two
Maybe I’m Amazed – Paul McCartney
That Would Be Something – Paul McCartney
Jealous Guy – John Lennon
Every Night – Paul McCartney
Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey – Paul and Linda McCartney
It Don’t Come Easy – Ringo Starr, George Harrison
Wah Wah – George Harrison
Non-binary as minimalism
Asia Kate Dillon, as Taylor Mason on Billions, became the first non-binary character on American series television. She/they had a monkish persona: a vegetarian with a buzz cut, tiny car, thin body, and simple formless clothes.
Perhaps, for some, a non-binary identity is part of ego destruction: reducing your existence and your physical impact on the world to the bare minimum. Thus, your identity as a man or woman is excessive ornamentation. It must be stripped away to achieve the barest self, which is then capable of transcending this physical world.
Perhaps, for some, a non-binary identity is part of ego destruction: reducing your existence and your physical impact on the world to the bare minimum. Thus, your identity as a man or woman is excessive ornamentation. It must be stripped away to achieve the barest self, which is then capable of transcending this physical world.
Asia Kate Dillon
Patrick Nagel and Michael Jackson
On August 11, 2009, I sent a letter to the Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee nominating the art of Patrick Nagel to be commemorated on a set of stamps, which included these comments:
“Patrick Nagel, 1945-1984, was an American artist whose simple, bold renderings of the female form were reminiscent of both Art Deco style and Japanese woodblock prints. He is well known for his contributions to Playboy magazine and the cover design of the Duran Duran Rio album . . . Nagel posters have been collected by the Library of Congress, the Oakland Museum, and the Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts at U.C.L.A. Permanent collections of his work are also housed at the Bibliotheque des Arts Decoratifs, Paris, and the Smithsonian Institution.”
A few days later I received a letter, dated August 20, from Terrence W. McCaffrey, Manager, Stamp Development, which informed me that my “proposal will be submitted for review and consideration before the Committee.” The committee receives about 50,000 letters a year. I had beaten the odds and jumped the first hurdle in the stamp approval process. Alas, nothing more came of my proposal.
At the time, there also was some clamor for a stamp to honor the recently deceased performer Michael Jackson. Both Jackson and Nagel reached their creative peaks in the 1980s.
Undoubtedly, Jackson saw some of Nagel’s work. Nagel’s signature style — pure white skin and a barely defined nose — suddenly had a new significance. Michael Jackson may have reshaped his face and changed its color in a desire to resemble a Patrick Nagel poster girl.
My suspicions were confirmed more than a decade later when I ran across a February 15, 2019 article in The Hollywood Reporter that stated, "His [Nagel’s] dealer remembered one of Michael Jackson’s plastic surgeons quizzing the artist — who was informed by Deco as well as Japanese woodblock prints — about how he achieved his idealized physical forms."
Patrick Nagel and Michael Jackson
On August 11, 2009, I sent a letter to the Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee nominating the art of Patrick Nagel to be commemorated on a set of stamps, which included these comments:
“Patrick Nagel, 1945-1984, was an American artist whose simple, bold renderings of the female form were reminiscent of both Art Deco style and Japanese woodblock prints. He is well known for his contributions to Playboy magazine and the cover design of the Duran Duran Rio album . . . Nagel posters have been collected by the Library of Congress, the Oakland Museum, and the Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts at U.C.L.A. Permanent collections of his work are also housed at the Bibliotheque des Arts Decoratifs, Paris, and the Smithsonian Institution.”
A few days later I received a letter, dated August 20, from Terrence W. McCaffrey, Manager, Stamp Development, which informed me that my “proposal will be submitted for review and consideration before the Committee.” The committee receives about 50,000 letters a year. I had beaten the odds and jumped the first hurdle in the stamp approval process. Alas, nothing more came of my proposal.
At the time, there also was some clamor for a stamp to honor the recently deceased performer Michael Jackson. Both Jackson and Nagel reached their creative peaks in the 1980s.
Undoubtedly, Jackson saw some of Nagel’s work. Nagel’s signature style — pure white skin and a barely defined nose — suddenly had a new significance. Michael Jackson may have reshaped his face and changed its color in a desire to resemble a Patrick Nagel poster girl.
My suspicions were confirmed more than a decade later when I ran across a February 15, 2019 article in The Hollywood Reporter that stated, "His [Nagel’s] dealer remembered one of Michael Jackson’s plastic surgeons quizzing the artist — who was informed by Deco as well as Japanese woodblock prints — about how he achieved his idealized physical forms."
Drug addiction as an adventure
“Though I had always wanted to be an opium addict, I can’t claim that is the reason I went to China.” Thus begins “The Big Smoke,” Emily Hahn’s account of her 1930’s globetrotting in a 1969 issue of The New Yorker. And thus also begins Ariel Levy’s December 1, 2025 review looking back at that article.
You would think such a depraved boast would be best buried in the past. But Levy admires her. “Who is this lady? What else will this droll, naughty adventurer get up to?”
Hahn did become an opium addict, recovered with the help of friends, and went her merry way. But hundreds of thousands who take a drug “adventure” wind up dead or living in a tent on a sidewalk. But hey, it’s all just a lark to the editors and writers at The New Yorker.
Drug addiction as an adventure
“Though I had always wanted to be an opium addict, I can’t claim that is the reason I went to China.” Thus begins “The Big Smoke,” Emily Hahn’s account of her 1930’s globetrotting in a 1969 issue of The New Yorker. And thus also begins Ariel Levy’s December 1, 2025 review looking back at that article.
You would think such a depraved boast would be best buried in the past. But Levy admires her. “Who is this lady? What else will this droll, naughty adventurer get up to?”
Hahn did become an opium addict, recovered with the help of friends, and went her merry way. But hundreds of thousands who take a drug “adventure” wind up dead or living in a tent on a sidewalk. But hey, it’s all just a lark to the editors and writers at The New Yorker.
Next: Dreams
Images: Banner, Weebly/Square stock photo; Munch Madonna, public domain; The Life of a Showgirl, Taylor Swift, fair use; Amazing, Robert S Urbanek; Munch Madonna; Asia Kate Dillion, Billions, CC BY 3.0; Michael Jackson and Patrick Nagel poster, fair use