Madonna showed up at the basement-rated Grammys Sunday looking nothing like Madonna, so now she’s accusing her critics of “ageism and misogyny.”
She’s also claiming to be the victim of bad photography, as opposed to bad plastic surgery…
“Many people chose to only talk about Close-up photos of me Taken with a long lens camera By a press photographer that Would distort anyone’s face!!” the 64-year-old pop diva wrote on Instagram. “Once again I am caught in the glare of ageism and misogyny That permeates the world we live in.”
She also said that this is a world that “refuses to celebrate women pass [sic] the age of 45.”
Come on, y’all… How do we not talk about this…?
First off, I want to say I have zero problems with cosmetic surgery. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to improve the way you look. My own vanity is my weight. I haven’t used plastic surgery to look trim and probably never will, but I do watch my weight, That’s all vanity. And I’m a guy. Aging is much, much tougher on women than men. We should be sympathetic to that.
But what’s happened to Madonna has nothing to do with wanting to look better. Instead, she’s a cautionary tale, a truly tragic one.
I came of age with Madonna. She hit it big during my last two years of high school. While I was never a fan, it was impossible not to notice and admire her. She was sexy and fun. As she aged into a mature woman, it was obvious she worked hard to stay beautiful. In my opinion, she reached her peak beauty in her 30s and 40s. Maturity looked good on her. Even middle age looked good on her.
What’s happened since is tragic, is a worthy topic of discussion, and worth talking about…
What is she doing…? Why would she or Michael Jackson or Mickey Rourke take things to such an extreme? Whatever it is, in the case of Madonna, it obviously has to do with aging. This transformation of hers happened late in life, whereas Jackson and Rourke transformed themselves when they were still fairly young men.
Sasha Stone explained it this way:
If you wall yourself off, as the Left has done, and enclosed yourself in an insulated, isolated bubble it’s easy to imagine that you’ve “won.” Madonna walled herself off from reality too. She surrounded herself with “yes” people, and found filters to display herself on social media how she’d like to be seen.
She can convince herself after a while that she too has won. She has defied biology that demands we snuff out the pilot light on female sexuality after a certain age. Look at me, she says, I’m in my 60s and I still look like this.
Just as Madonna had to face the music – as the crowd shrank back in horror – so too do those on the Left who haven’t quite realized that their religion only resonates strongly with the true believers, but there is a whole world outside of it that probably remains traditional in their beliefs and wants no part of it.
Beliefs probably have something to do with it. Next month I turn 57, I enter my late 50s. Death and old age are no longer things that happen to other people. I’ve gone from not worrying about death and old age to knowing I will face both. Not tomorrow, but eventually. Death and old age are realities now. Ten, even five years ago, they weren’t. I’m a God-fearing Christian and death still terrifies me, so I can’t imagine how the reality of death must terrify those who do not believe, or who have sold their souls for fame and fortune.
That’s what I see when I look at Madonna: a wrecked soul, a pitiful woman who went from bold, fearless, and worldly to terrified, sheltered, and lost.
And now she’s a freak, a joke, a punchline… What a terrible way for someone who was so alive and vibrant and consequential to end up.
But she’s also a cautionary tale, a consequence of what happens when you seek the impossible, which in her case is perfection and eternal youth. She will not allow one wrinkle on her 64-year-old face, and now one of the most beautiful and desirable women of the last 40 years looks like a freak.
She’s also betrayed her image as someone who embraced life without fear. Look at her now. All her fears, insecurities, and neuroses are on full display for the world to either laugh at or pity.
The luckiest among us are going to get very old. That means our bodies will betray us, we will lose our looks, we will lose our independence, and then we will die. There are enough indignities ahead of us without accepting that reality gracefully.
Narcissism is a poison you take yourself. Poor Madonna gulped that poison.
I truly pity her.