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( The January through May 2010 entries have been moved to the archives.)

JULY 2010

Looking Unattractive

Series of photos of Madonna looking awful

Air Brushed / Photoshopped

Madonna, Demi and other women I'd like to show their age

by Sarah Churchwell, July 24, 2020

It seems that older women are being celebrated by our society at last – or so we're being told. A raft of recent stories have assured women that it is no longer the case that they become invisible once they reach middle age.

Take Madonna (we always take Madonna in these matters), who at the age of 51 has just signed to a high-profile campaign with Dolce & Gabbana. Or Sharon Stone, at 52 the face of Dior cosmetics.

....It does seem to be the case that the fashion industry is finally recognising how many of its consumers are wealthy older women and that it might be wise to consider representing them. It is also true that the fashion industry enjoys shocking itself, and few things could be more shocking than admitting that older women – or even undeniably old women, as in the case of 81-year-old model Daphne Selfe, recently featured by Sykes London – might be beautiful, and marketable.

But before we pop open the champagne, let's consider the obvious. The fact is that all of these women look at least 20 to 30 years younger than they are – especially in photographs. In Dior's Sharon Stone campaign, she looks gorgeous, to be sure – but she also looks rather like a Japanese anime drawing of herself 30 years ago. The "photographs" are so airbrushed they're more like paintings: there's not a wrinkle to be seen, not a whisper of a laughter line or a crow's foot, and certainly not a grey hair.

....But I'd settle for a wrinkle, a crease, a single sign of a life well-lived, as evidence that we now find older women attractive. The vast majority of the time we don't: we just demand that they look like younger women.

Like Madonna. The new Dolce & Gabbana campaign features pictures as egregiously airbrushed as the Stone Dior ads: Madonna, looking preposterously beautiful, is walking with a young man in his 20s, and she looks not a day older. How, if our images of older women look exactly like our images of younger women, does this represent progress?

Moreover, I'm going to go out on a limb and guess – this is sheer speculation, obviously – that it's just possible that Madonna, Sharon, Elle, et al might possibly, maybe, have had the teensiest bit of cosmetic surgery. Not to mention their extreme diet and exercise regimens. This is all symptomatic of our more general cultural obsession with youth: male movie stars are, by and large, subject to similar pressures regarding their bodies, but it remains the case that women are far more so.

....The most famous cougar is Demi Moore, who's cheerfully admitted to having had a complete surgical overhaul so that she looks half her age, and can marry someone who is. The point is that the "older" ages of Madonna and Moore are little more than a technicality as long as they look 30, and are rich enough to maintain the illusion for a while longer.

Far from these older women heralding a step forward, they are setting the bar impossibly high for the rest of us, who will seem all the more aged when our real wrinkles show.

None of this represents an evolution in attitude, in which the signs of age on women have become more attractive: on the contrary, it's selling women an entire industry geared at erasing those signs.

The logical next step is to blame real women for failing to live up to the unreasonable standards being set: if Sharon Stone looks that good at 52, why don't you? Ideally, we should try reconciling ourselves to ageing in general; but failing that, if we're going to be obsessed with youth we need at least to abolish the double-standard.

Desperate / Bad Fashion

Madonna goes clubbing in hip hop tracksuit in latest desperate attempt to wind back the clock

Madonna is known for her continual attempts to reinvent herself  - but the superstar's latest effort to keep in touch with the younger generation may have gone too far.

The singer made the unusual choice of an oversized navy 80s-style Adidas tracksuit, blue trilby hat and polka dot navy and white shirt as she held a surprise party for her singers and dancers in London.

In keeping with her sporty theme she matched the outfit with white trainers.

Despite her misguided attempt at youthful dressing, the 52-year-old had no trouble when it came to keeping up with her younger friends.

She partied at Aura club in the capital until 3am, when she looked slightly worse for wear as she was driven home.

Terrible to Work For

Has Madonna's Wallis Simpson obsession gone too far?

A few weeks ago, actress Margo Stilley and Madonna had a heated argument. The row started with a discussion over how Stilley – best known for her sexually explicit performance in Michael Winterbottom's controversial 2004 film 9 Songs – should play the role of Lady Thelma Furness, Edward VIII's mistress and the woman who introduced him to Wallis Simpson, in

Madonna's new film about the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, W.E. According to reports, Stilley found Madonna, who is directing the movie, overbearing and controlling and finally, just as filming was about to start, she could take no more. 'I had the role, but we had artistic differences,'she said. 'She is really something.'

Stilley is the latest in a long line to quit the production – those no longer associated with the film include the actors Ewan McGregor and Vera Farmiga (due to play Edward and Wallis), producer David Parfitt (who won an Oscar for Shakespeare in Love) and the distinguished casting director Nina Gold. By her own admission, Madonna is not easy to work with: 'To me, the whole process of being a brushstroke in someone else's painting is a little difficult,'she has said. 'I'm used to being in charge of everything.'

Beaten in or on Polls, Charts, Sales #s, etc

U2 Is World's Top Earning Band: Survey

U2 top Forbes.com music high earners list

U2, AC/DC and Beyonce top 'Forbes' money-maker list

U2 Tops Rock's Richest List

Surprise, Surprise: U2 Named World's Top-Earning Musicians

U2 tops Forbes music earnings list

The full list:

1. U2, $130 million.
2. AC/DC, $114 million.
3. Beyoncé Knowles, $87 million.
4. Bruce Springsteen, $70 million.
5. Britney Spears, $64 million.
6. Jay-Z , $63 million.
7. Lady Gaga, $62 million.
8. Madonna, $58 million.
9. Kenny Chesney, $50 million.
10. Black Eyed Peas and Coldplay, tied at $48 million.

Ha Ha.

Madonna Banned From Building On New York Farm

Madonn has been forced to halt the construction of a fence on her horse farm in New York after receiving a cease-and-desist notice from county officials who own the development rights to her land.

...The pop star began building a fence around the property, but the work has since been put on hold after she failed to apply for permission from Southampton and Suffolk County officials, who own its development rights.

According to the New York Post, Madonna received a cease-and-desist letter from the county on 7 July (10)

Air Brushing | Photoshopping

What is Wrong With Madonna's Face? Madonna looks old

July 06, 2010 by Jarett Wieselman

[View Madonna Photo]

Madonna -- who has never met an airbrushing tool she didn't seduce and buy a NYC penthouse apartment -- is back at it in a series of new Dolce & Gabbana ads, which supposedly reveal a "playful, cinematic take on Italian family."

I don't know about Roman relationships, but I can recognize serious photoshopping when I see it and these ads have the most jarringly distorted heads I've laid eyes on since "Beetlejuice." It's like they've taken images of Madge from the late 80's and tried to affix the face to her modern day body.

The queen barely even has a chin in that pic on the right. Take a gander at all six ads (via [a fan site]) and decide for yourself. On the plus side, the clothes look fabulous!

Madonna Photoshop Claims Surface Again

Grandpa Hands | Looking Unattractive

The following page features photos, including one very scary close-up of Grandma-donna's gnarled, veiny hand:

Madonna has solution injected into her aging 'granny' hands

Excerpts:

by Dean Piper

And I hear the 51-year-old Queen of Pop has started work on the toughest part of her body – those dreaded Granny hands.

Yes, the Material Girl is seeking help from her ­dermatologist Dr Fredric Brandt to combat her pop-out veiny mitts – and until then she’s doing her utmost to make sure they stay hidden from prying lenses.

....[Says a source:] “Madonna hates the appearance of her hands and says they are too “old lady”.

....My mole adds: “She can’t channel Michael ­Jackson and wear gloves ­everywhere.

“That’s ridiculous, so she’s taking matters into her own, erm, hands. I’ve been told the hands are off limits to be shown in public. You wait and see. She won’t be photographed for ages with her hands on show.”

Madonna Hopes Plastic Surgeon Can Fix Her "Granny Hands," By Robert Paul Reyes

Madonna having work done on her hands, according to report

Is Madonna Trying Too Hard To Look Young?

Madonna's getting her 'granny hands' fixed

MITTdonna

Madonna: wil she ever take those gloves out?

Madonna may have been the resplendent queen of Pop of the 80s but bygone is bygone. Now, into her 50s, the diva is ageing and is developing wrinkles. Her hands have got wrinkly to the extent of looking ugly and that’s the chief reason why she wears those long hand gloves.

Feminism | Bad Fashion

REDDY BLASTS MADONNA FOR SEXUALISING YOUNG GIRLS

Helen Reddy: Madonna Made Us All Whores

Helen Reddy went shopping for a bra while in London. Here's what happened:

Helen Reddy attacks Madonna over bras

"So I finally said to the salesgirl, 'Do you have any underwear that isn't slutty?' -- and she pointed me to the sports department!"

Reddy, who's now retired from show business after making history as the first Aussie to have a No. 1 single in the US and win a Grammy -- seemed to blame Madonna for her bra ordeal.

"When I was a girl, we used to complain we were divided into two groups: We were either virgins or we were whores," she says. "And then along came Madonna -- and now we're all whores.

"It is horrifying to me to see these little girls, you know, dressed as sexpots, trying to imitate the latest video they've seen." ...

JUNE 2010

Tracy Anderson

According to various news sources, Tracy Anderson is relieved not to have to work with or for Madonna anymore.

Celebrity Trainer Tracy Anderson Does Not Miss Working with Madonna

Tracy Anderson's Madonna Admission

Beaten on Polls/ Charts etc

Britney Beats Madonna on Forbes Power List

Lady GaGa Beats Madonna In Rich List...

30 June 2010

American artists Britney Spears and Lady GaGa has beaten the Queen of Pop, Madonna, in the Forbes Celebrity 100 Power list.

In the past year, Madonna has 'only' earnt £38 million, falling behind the likes of Beyoncé, Britney and GaGa in the poll.

Lady G's heavy touring schedule has contributed greatly to her recent riches, reports claim.

Beyonce Knowles - £57 million
Britney Spears - £42 million
Lady GaGa - £41 million
Madonna - £38 million

None of these singers could beat the money machine Oprah Winfrey however, who earned a staggering £208 million!

Oprah tops Forbes annual list of 100 most powerful celebs

Oprah is Forbes' most powerful celeb

Oprah tops list of most powerful celebrities

The Newcomers: A World Gone Gaga

Ego / Lady Gaga

Madonna Is Insufferable

Excerpt:

Lady Gaga has a long way to go before she becomes the next Madonna. And by "long way," I mean she'll have to sleep with half of Hollywood, age horribly, and remove her penis. No, when you're Madonna, you're the first of your kind. And as it turns out, there's actually a name for people who are true originals like Madonna: they're called Patient Zero.

Other CelebSlam entries about Madonna

Tacky Fashion

Wow, Madonna Looked - How Can We Say This - Crap Last Night…

[snip recent Madonna photos]

It’s at times like these that we always find it best not to mince our words – so bearing that in mind, let’s all have a little chat about the outfit Madonna wore to Diane von Furstenberg party last night shall we?

Let’s be honest – she [Madonna] looked like a totally f-ing arse didn’t she? The gangster pimp hat and jacket were bad enough on their own, but paired with ridiculously baggy trousers! Madge - what were you thinking?

Still at least Madonna wasn’t the only person to dress like a total arse at the party last night....

Failure to Make it To Polls/Charts

Madonna is not mentioned in this article as being one of the women who is "ruling summer's music."

Women Rule Summer's Music

by Elysa Gardner , June 20, 2010

Female singers are more popular than ever. They dominated:

Record sales. Three of last year's four best-selling albums were by women. Young country-pop star Taylor Swift's Fearless ranked No. 1, followed by middle-aged sensation Susan Boyle and post-Madonna phenom Lady Gaga at No. 4. (Michael Jackson was No. 3.)

Radio. Swift and Beyonce ranked No. 1 and No. 2, respectively, as the most-played artists on radio and online.

Online. Seven of the 10 artists streamed most frequently on the Internet were female: Swift and Beyonce, at No. 1 and No. 2, respectively, followed by Mariah Carey (No. 5), Britney Spears (No. 6), Pink (No. 7), Lady Gaga (No. 8) and Kelly Clarkson (No. 9).

Globally. Boyle's I Dreamed a Dream album topped the charts worldwide with 8.3 million copies sold.

Sacrilege / Blasphemy

Madonna is No Saint Teresa

via Gene Veith

At the Washington Post’s On Faith section, Mark Judge argues in “Lady Gaga is no Madonna” that his fellow conservatives don’t understand pop music. He starts out making a defensible case before attemping a bizarre contrarian interpretation of pop-star Madonna’s infamous “Like a Prayer” video:

[snip Judge's remarks]

Judge claims that comparing Madonna to Lady Gaga is ” yet another sign of the pop culture (and even religious) illiteracy of the right.” But it’s Judge who appears to be confused about religion. I’m not a Catholic so I may be missing some essential nuance, but I don’t think that in the history of the Church saintly intercession entailed sexual intercourse. There is a profound differnce between using sexual passion as a metaphor and a saint actually having sex with a petitioner. I’m not sure if it’s blasphemous to depict Madonna fornicating with Martin de Porres on a church pew—but it is certainly disrespectful to the memory of a man who was not only a devout Christian but a life-long practitioner of celibacy.

I agree with Judge that conservatives need to be more well-informed about pop culture in order to provide more relevant criticism. In turn, Judge would do well to become more well-informed about the Christian faith.

Greedy / Not a Savvy Business Woman / Not In Control

New book tells how Madonna was beaten by Warners

Madonna outplayed by Edgar Bronfman Jr. in Maverick

by Frank Digiacomo, June 14, 2010

The theme of Madonna's life story is that she gets her way - in love, life and business. But that was until she came up against Seagram's liquor fortune heir Edgar Bronfman Jr.

In "Fortune's Fool: Edgar Bronfman Jr., Warner Music, and An Industry of Crisis," which Simon & Schuster will begin shipping to bookstores at the end of this month, investigative journalist Fred Goodman writes that Bronfman outplayed Her Madgesty after the pop star attempted to pressure him into paying a king's ransom for her stake in Maverick Records.

....But, in the end, the author reports, she [Madonna] "sold her 30% interest in Maverick to Bronfman for $17 million - only $2 million more than he had offered in the first place and a figure that almost certainly could have been reached without any public posturing."

Three months later, Bronfman and Warner Music Group Chairman Lyor Cohen sought to mend fences with the artist by inviting her to meet with them. Bronfman greeted Madonna with a gift-wrapped box. "You've been incredibly important to this company for 20 years," Bronfman told her. Inside the box was a diamond bracelet.

"The gift," Goodman writes, "seemed to hit the right note. ‘She was like a little girl,'" Bronfman recalled. "'It broke the ice.'"

Answering the Madonna Apologists / Re: Lady Gaga

I don't care to spend too much space on this topic on the home page, so I'll try to keep this short.

This past week, Lady Gaga released a video called "Alejandro." (You can view Alejandro on You Tube).

Shortly afterwards, many bloggers began trashing Lady Gaga over this video, (which doesn't bother me too much because I'm not a Gaga fan), but in doing so, most of them are repeating falsehoods about Madonna, ones that I and other people have debunked many times over at the Anti Madonna Discussion board in years past.

Some of the more common pieces of misinformation I see repeated in the anti-Gaga editorials are that "Madonna writes her own songs," and that "Madonna is original."

No, Madonna does not write most of her own songs, she doesn't have musical talent, and goodness no, she's not original.

Unattractive / Mannish Physique

Madonna Dumps Jesus For Maksim Chmerkovskiy

June 11, 2010 by Roberta

Just when you thought that things were getting hot and heavy between the “Dancing With The Stars” pro and partner, Erin Andrews, Madge steps in and wants to put her old lady hands all over him. Ugh.

.... (View Close-Up Photo of Madonna's Scary Wrinkled Hands)

He’s hot and he and Erin make a cute couple, I don’t know what he’d see in Madonna. She’s old and her hands are scary looking.

How Sick Is This? Belinda Carlisle Starved Herself to Look Like Madonna

Excerpts:

By R. P. Reyes

Muscular men  look macho and  healthy, muscular women look like circus freaks. With her wrinkled hands, and muscular arms Madonna looks like she escaped from the circus.

....Ladies please admire Madge`s iron will to succeed, but don`t emulate her gross physique.

Responding to Faulty Reporting

Madonna didn't free the gay Malawians – she just signed a petition!

Celebrities don't make the difference they think they do

June 1, 2010
by Hadley Freeman

...."Malawi Releases Gay Couple After Material One Protests", squealed E!, the entertainment news behomoth named after the substance one must be on in order to watch it. "Madonna Saves Malawian Couple!" trilled another, apparently not having heard of the UN's Ban Ki-moon, who met Malawi's president before the men's release. But then, has anyone ever seen Ban masturbate on stage? Case. Closed.

.... Except that the briefest of glances at Madonna's blog shows this was not what she had claimed at all.

Despite at least one celebrity magazine insisting the contrary, all Madonna did this weekend was announce that the Malawian couple has been freed from prison.

Yes, she said she signed a petition; no, she has not said it was the petition that liberated them.

This means that we have now reached a rather interesting pocket in time, where the celebrity press puts more store in the power of Madonna than Madonna does herself.