Madonna Slams Cancel Culture, Connects All the Vital Dots in the Process
The Material Girl knows better than most why woke restrictions hurt creativity
Madonna said something so offensive in 2017 she could have been canceled on the spot.
Except she chose the “right” target for her verbal assault.
The erstwhile Material Girl said she dreamed of blowing up the White House, presumably with a certain Commander in Chief inside.
She later backpedaled, saying she was speaking metaphorically to smite President Donald Trump. That wasn’t necessary. The woke mob wasn’t banging on her mansion’s door, nor did the press so much as suggest her words deserved further scrutiny.
Celebrities aren’t punished for calling President Donald Trump “Hitler,” let alone musing about ways to snuff him out.
The 63-year-old icon has been watching the culture closely ever since then, apparently. It’s one way to explain her new interview with V magazine. She described how Big Tech suppresses the “wrong” voices and why Cancel Culture is anathema to creative expression.
Artists, she told V Magazine, should “disturb the peace,” adding that anyone who questions the narratives regarding the pandemic are punished.
“There’s no debate, there’s no discussion … I want to disturb the fact that we’re not encouraged to discuss it. I believe that our job is to disturb the status quo.”
Even joking about key figures tied to the pandemic, like Dr. Anthony Fauci, can get someone silenced. Madonna dubbed the current censorship wave “pretty frightening.”
She should know.
Madonna has spent decades pushing every cultural button she could find. Sex. Nudity. On-stage bawdiness. You name a group, and chances are Madonna offended it or tried her best to do just that.
It’s partly why she’s an industry legend.
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So why speak out now, especially since the woke revolution has been in full swing for several years now? Perhaps she sees the growing impact it has on her fellow artists. Look no further than Dave Chappelle, under serious Cancel Culture attack for daring to poke fun at the trans community, in between praising trans people for their humanity.
Or, she understands that creating art often takes risks, and fearful artists are the ones who produce inferior content.
Part of this is likely personal.
RELATED: DiCaprio, Madonna Collared by the Woke Police
Madonna previously shared dubious information about COVID-19 and got caught in Instagram’s censorial web. Of course, yesterday’s “dubious information” can be today’s likely truth. Remember how Big Tech responded to the “lab leak theory” last year?
She also is under a current woke attack for her Marilyn Monroe-inspired photo shoot. That article cherry picks a few Twitter users to gin up the outrage. That suggests the outrage is microscopic in size, but sometimes a single Tweet or op-ed can spark a cancellation.
Madonna doing a ‘Marilyn Death Bed’ photo shoot was just cruel. Madonna should apologize to Marilyn’s living 101 year old sister and 74 year old niece. #Madonna #MarilynMonroe pic.twitter.com/UTxs64QgLw
— Jenn Carson (@8675309Carson) October 30, 2021
Neither size nor intent matters to the woke mob, or reporters eager to feed the Cancel Culture beast.
Disagree with Madonna’s political stances all you want. She’s often ill-informed or downright muddy in her thinking. That doesn’t mean she’s dumb. Anyone sly enough to poke the cultural bear for so long understands how the media operates.
She’s certainly more honest about Cancel Culture than Jon Stewart, who said it’s a myth before rushing to defend Chappelle from the woke mob.
There’s another reason Madonna is sounding the alarm about Cancel Culture. She still craves the ability to shock us, even if some are now embarrassed by her antics.
It’s in her creative DNA, and likely her business mindset for as long as she’s eager to perform. That helps explain her current stand and, more likely, fear that she still could be canceled next.