Madonna, shown here at the United Center in Chicago on Sept. 19, offered to strip to win votes for Obama during a concert at Washington's Verizon center. (Invision/AP)
Michelle Obama must be so proud. After all, it’s not every woman who wakes up to learn that Madonna has written her husband’s name across her hind parts and offered to strip to win votes. What a team player.
According to TheHill.com, “Madonna offered a profanity-laced endorsement of President Obama at her concert Monday night, which involved the singer stripping down to her underwear to reveal the president's name written on her body. “You all better vote for f---ing Obama okay,” she told the crowd at Washington's Verizon center.” But wait, there’s more:
“When Obama is in the White House for a second term I'll take it all off,” she said to cheers and whistles from the audience. She then began singing a slow, seductive version of “Like a Virgin” while rolling around on a piano top.”
But perhaps, our first lady (who is a lady), might find feel, like a lot of us who heard about Madonna’s profanity laced pitch for the her husband, that America just isn’t looking for that kind of incentive right now. And that another flash of the Madonna’s kibbles and bits just isn’t that appetizing.
Wouldn’t it be ironic if polling revealed that her offer to strip if Obama wins re-election was actually a disincentive to voters, who may be hoping that she acts like a Virgin by keeping her shirt on. At this point in her career, staying dressed might be a showstopper. It’s certainly something worth considering.
Madonna seems to suffer from an adolescent confusion in our modern culture between famous and infamous, between noteworthy and notoriety.
Many people, certainly many celebrities, in a media saturated culture confuse the absolute value of fame for a life well lived with the fleeting lights of flickering attention coming from the fact that people will rubber-neck past your public relations disaster. Or as a friend of mine put it, you can get a lot of attention if you light yourself on fire, but you can only do that once.
There are only so many times can you grab headlines with a drunken strip tease or a profane diatribe. Is this really going to help get Obama elected? What was the woman once known as the “Material Girl” thinking? At some point, frequent wardrobe malfunctions are just a sight gag. At some point, such behavior makes people the butt of tired joke, and a cautionary tale of the desperate lengths some will go to when trying to keep a career alive. It’s not pretty, but perhaps it pays the rent.
It seems a waste of the toil and sweat that opened the door to Madonna’s success to squander it with cheap theatrics at a concert. But it’s a free country (something that also came with a great price) and she is certainly allowed to roll around on a stage and pretend it is a political statement.
But what a tragic use of Madonna’s own bully pulpit.
I only hope that generations of young women will use their opportunities, political, theatrical and otherwise, for something more worthwhile … and that Michelle Obama and her daughters don’t lose any sleep over such a … supporter.
Kristi Stone Hamrick is president of KSH Media, Inc. Follow her @KristiSHamrick