USA Today:Madonna's epiphany
這篇露露長的文章很吸引人~~Edna 果然是USA today的狠角色
Madonna's epiphany
By Edna Gundersen, USA TODAY
LOS ANGELES — She's publishing a series of kiddie storybooks.
She's working with scientists who have discovered how to neutralize
radiation.
She's plotting to make a documentary about Kabbalah, a religious
philosophy based on Jewish mysticism.
Who's that girl?
These days, Madonna strives to be neither material nor immaterial.
After straddling the heights of wealth and celebrity for two decades,
the pop diva is on a quest for meaning. And in American Life, due
Tuesday, that means questioning the impulses behind her own rise to
riches.
After straddling the heights of wealth and celebrity for two decades,
Madonna is on a quest for meaning
"Take it from me," says Madonna, 44. "I went down the road of 'be all
you can be, realize your dreams,' and I'm telling you that fame and
fortune are not what they're cracked up to be. We live in a society
that seems to value only physical things, only ephemeral things.
People will do anything to get on these reality shows and talent
contests on TV. We're obsessed." (Related item: Madonna on Madonna.)
Cynics might look askance at Madonna's latest metamorphosis,
especially considering her history of marketing ploys and mercenary
coups that accrued sales of 140 million albums. Unlike the slyly
crafted guises of Erotica's sex kitten or Vogue's fashion star, this
conversion took seven years of dissolving self-delusions. Life, her
10th studio album and first since 2000's Music, probes the importance
of being.
"I'm not poking at things and ripping things open and being
provocative just for the sake of riling people up," she says. "Every
person on the planet is living in a kind of bubble, trapped into
programmed thinking that we're all expected to have a certain amount
of material things to be perceived as worthwhile human beings. I've
found a way of life I'd like to share. Despite the illusions I've
been a slave to all my life, I feel a tremendous amount of hope for a
life of fulfillment and happiness."
Sincere revelations? Or a whiny star's New Age sermonizing? Madonna
expects the usual variety of misinterpretations and criticisms. The
anti-war message in her playfully ironic American Life video was seen
by many as an attack on President Bush, just as her decision to
withdraw it out of respect to troops in Iraq was regarded as a
cowardly retreat. She finds it's hard to be heard above the cacophony
of media sleuths and self-appointed experts chronicling her career.
"People still aren't getting it right," she says of recent
interviews. "I'm not complaining, 'Oh, it sucks being rich and
famous.' I wouldn't trade what I have. I always get the questions:
What more could she ask for? What's left for her to do? That's an
absurd concept, because I don't feel I've gotten past the tip of the
iceberg in terms of what I can learn and accomplish. I was super-
ambitious, super-hardworking and super-focused, and I've gotten a lot
of good things I wanted. But I now know the whole point of being here
isn't to be at the top of the list."
Ray of enlightenment
Waiting for her guitar teacher, Madonna is nibbling on red licorice
twists in her conservatively appointed Maverick Records office. She
sports flip-flop sandals, aqua drawstring pants and a snug tank top
that accentuates her sculpted arms and (important detail alert) flat
stomach. Her return to roots — brunette ones — sparked rumors that
the peroxide-shunning Madonna must be pregnant.
"This is dyed, too," she says of her dark ponytail. "Not only that,
when I was pregnant the last two times, I was bleaching my hair.
People don't do their homework."
Life, produced and co-written by Music collaborator Mirwais Ahmadzai,
employs spare instrumentation and uncluttered arrangements to carry
Madonna's deeply personal musings on love, death, faith, forgiveness
and redemption.
"These themes are universal, not inaccessible or abstract," she
says. "It's not just about me."
If the tough temptress of Like a Virgin is an artichoke, the ardent
soul-searcher of American Life is its delicate heart. Madonna has
never been more vulnerable, whether revisiting childhood pain in
Mother and Father or misguided ambition in the self-lacerating I'm So
Stupid. She exposes toxic goals in Hollywood and materialism in the
title track, a song also suited to the war-is-hell imagery of the
shelved video by Jonas Akerlund. She's not dismayed that Life
coincides with the Iraq invasion.
"In a way, it's perfect timing," she says. "My songs are about
letting go of illusions and thinking about how we can change the
world. These soldiers are flesh and blood. There are innocent
children there. We are playing with life, and we have to be aware of
that."
The video, described by Internet gossip Matt Drudge as "the most
shocking anti-war, anti-Bush statements yet to come from the show
business industry," drew fire from Madonna's usual detractors but
left the songbird unruffled. In Intervention, she condemns the human
tendency toward pessimism and malice as "Satan's game."
"That negativity is not real," she says. "Neither is getting your ass
kissed or people praising you and telling you everything you do is
flawless. Coming to that understanding makes me look back at all the
choices I made. What was I thinking? I was guided by selfish desire.
Sometimes success is a curse that keeps you from paying attention to
what's important. OK, I was living in a dream, but I've woken up."
The wake-up call came seven years ago, when Madonna began studying
Kabbalah. The Jewish mystical tradition predates organized religions
and offers a path to fulfillment based on spiritual laws of the
universe. Some aspects parallel Judaism. Rather than studying the
Talmud, an academic interpretation of Jewish law, Kabbalists embrace
the Zohar, a mystical interpretation devised by decoding ancient
texts rather than accepting literal accounts. Conversant in
Kabbalistic teachings and origins, Madonna considers herself a
student, not a guru.
"Kabbalah helped me understand that there is a bigger picture and
that being well-intentioned is great, but if you don't live your life
according to the laws of the universe, you bring chaos into your
life," she says. "I was raised to believe that the privilege of being
American means you can be whatever you want. But the question is, to
what end? What's the point of reaching the top? I started that search
when I was pregnant with my daughter, because I suddenly realized I
was going to be responsible for shaping another person's life.
Studying has given me clarity and affected my life in every way."
American Life's frequent references to Jesus, prayer and religion
reflect Madonna's reassessment of spirituality. Growing up Catholic,
she accepted Christian tenets without exploring history or other
faiths, she says. Kabbalah, steeped in quantum physics and scientific
theory, altered her outlook on religion, as did meeting filmmaker Guy
Ritchie.
"My husband doesn't take anything at face value," she says. "When I
met him, he was totally into Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. He
made me question my values as a Christian."
So did a survey of history. Around 320, she recounts, Constantine
gained control of the entire Roman Empire, populated by Jews, pagans
and early Christian sects, and appropriated Christianity as the only
permitted religion.
"It was considered a capital offense if you did not convert. That is
the beginning of the religion I was raised in. There's something
wrong with that picture. I don't think there's anything wrong with
the teachings of Jesus, but I am suspicious of organized religion.
Kabbalah has nothing to do with organized religion. It's not
judgmental. It's a manual for living."
Her education in Kabbalah is as humbling as it is empowering.
"I'm a speck, an atom," she says. "Everything physical is an
illusion, but it's there to guide us or test us or deter us. Our job
is to navigate through this world while understanding the only thing
that matters is the state of our soul, and that's very hard because
I'm in the entertainment business, which is completely based on
illusion and physical things. Any success I have is a manifestation
of God. It's my ego that wants to claim ownership. It's hubris,
arrogance and greed."
Into the home groove
Family has been the other catalyst for Madonna's shape-shifting. She
and her husband live in London with Lourdes, her daughter with Carlos
Leon, and son Rocco, 2. She wants more children but didn't always
feel the maternal itch.
"I was too selfish to think about kids until I was in my mid-30s,"
she says. "For the first time in my life, I'm in a real family rather
than pining for one. My children are amazing, thank God. My husband
is amazing. To a certain extent, they have grounded me, but if I
wasn't studying Kabbalah I most likely might have screwed those up."
When rocker Sting and wife Trudi Styler introduced her to Ritchie in
1998, Madonna instantly knew the match was perfect. Yet she
approached with caution, first idealizing him, then finding defects.
"I started to pick him apart and look for all the faults," she
says. "I had a daughter and had just ended a relationship. I thought,
he lives in London, I live in America; it's not going to work. I had
to dig my way through all the roadblocks I built."
Though both are strong-willed, the couple is a study in contrasts.
"He's as disorganized as I am organized," she says. "He loves to live
in a very spontaneous way, and I'm careful and scheduled. He gets me
to go off on a holiday, and he taught me to appreciate nature."
The notion of Lady Madonna, with children at her feet, clashes with
carnal poses struck in early videos and her scandalous Sex book, yet
the button-pushing icon segued into motherhood with relative ease,
relying on the asset that guided her career: instinct.
After a career spent challenging gender stereotypes, Madonna was
struck by the hard-wired differences between her son and daughter.
Preoccupied with cars and trucks, Rocco loves dismantling toys and
demonstrating his physical strength. Lourdes, 6, fancies girly
fashions and displays a sweet and caring nature. She's also Madonna's
mini-me.
"I see a lot of me in her," Madonna says. "She's very dramatic,
expressive. She loves music. She's an incredible dancer and a real
actress. She's very self-possessed, and she can be very demanding.
Sometimes, I get so frustrated with her, and I realize she's a
reflection of me. Oh, now I see what I put everybody else through."
http://www.usatoday.com/life/2003-04-17-madonna-main_x.htm
--
※ Origin: 交大機械工廠 ◆ From: 64.c210-85-83.ethome.net.tw
Madonna 近期熱門文章
PTT偶像團體區 即時熱門文章
