{"id":792,"date":"2023-02-23T18:40:38","date_gmt":"2023-02-23T18:40:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.justsheetmusic.com\/blog\/?p=792"},"modified":"2023-02-23T18:40:38","modified_gmt":"2023-02-23T18:40:38","slug":"madonna-and-the-super-bowl-halftime-show","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.justsheetmusic.com\/blog\/other\/madonna-and-the-super-bowl-halftime-show\/","title":{"rendered":"Madonna and the Super Bowl Halftime Show"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Madonna<\/a>

Madonna and the Super Bowl Halftime Show<\/p><\/div>\n

The above cartoon was circulating around Facebook on the morning of the Superbowl.<\/p>\n

As you can see, the cartoonist is playing on one of Madonna\u2019s several personae in advance of the Super Bowl, the championship of what the United States calls \u201cfootball\u201d and what the rest of the world calls \u201cAmerican football,\u201d (because it clearly isn\u2019t soccer!), a central event on the pop-cultural calendar.<\/p>\n

Before we, the viewers, got to the halftime show, we had already seen not only half of the athletic event, but several of the famously high-priced commercials. Creative talent is poured into these ads every year, to draw our eyes and delay our bathroom breaks yet again.<\/p>\n

\"\"One of the first-half commercials involved Elton John, Melanie, and Flavor Flav, combining their efforts to sell us Pepsi<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But we came in time to half time and to the usual musical extravaganza. Some of the greatest musical performers and celebrities of our day have performed at Super Bowl\u2019s half time, including Ella Fitzgerald<\/a> (Super Bowl VI), Chubby Checker<\/a> (XXII), The Rolling Stones<\/a> (XL), and \u2013 the last time the Super Bowl matched the Giants against the Patriots, Tom Petty<\/a> and the Heartbreakers (XLII). That game was certainly a heartbreaker for Patriots fans \u2013 and this one only compounded that fracture.<\/p>\n

The Jackson family has been represented twice. Michael in 1993<\/a> (XXVII), and Janet, whose wardrobe<\/a> notoriously suffered a malfunction, in 2004 (XXXVIII)<\/p>\n

This year, for Super Bowl XLVI, Madonna joined that august company, singing \u201cVogue,\u201d \u201cMusic,\u201d \u201cGive Me All Your Luvin\u2019,\u201d and \u201cLike a Prayer.\u201d Here it is for you: click.<\/a><\/p>\n

Three of those four songs were among her classics. The fourth, \u201cGive Me All Your Luvin<\/a>\u2019,\u201d was new; it had become available on iTunes just two days before.<\/p>\n

Marilyn Monroe<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The first airing of the video to the new song took place in the context of an interview on Anderson Cooper\u2019s<\/a> show, in which she confessed to some nerves. Though this video opens with rows of football jerseys thrown at Madonna\u2019s feet, like palm fronds, Madonna is seen soon thereafter briefly doing a Marilyn Monroe look-alike schtick. She had gone to that well before.<\/p>\n

One of her classic early videos, Material Girl<\/a>, includes about as explicit a bit of Monroe impersonation as one can find. Madonna does an almost step-by-step emulation of the number \u201cDiamond\u2019s Are a Girl\u2019s Best Friend\u201d from Monroe\u2019s 1953 movie \u201cGentlemen Prefer Blondes.\u201d But don\u2019t take my word for it. Here\u2019s the original. <\/a><\/p>\n

What is not hype, is perhaps synchronicity. The day after the Super Bowl, a new television series called \u201cSmash\u201d is set to air on NBC. \u201cSmash\u201d is an innovation in the TV series format \u2013 a use of the series format to look at the creation of a Broadway musical.<\/p>\n

\"\"The musical that the main characters are struggling to create will be about the life of (you guessed it) Marilyn Monroe, object of Madonna\u2019s, and everybody else\u2019s, retrospective obsession. Indeed, the obsessive nature of our interest in Marilyn was evidenced in 1997, by the otherwise unlikely success of the song \u201cCandle in the Wind,\u201d by the aforementioned Elton John.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

By the way, there was<\/strong> a real-life Broadway musical about Marilyn\u2019s life. Marilyn: An American Fable<\/em> (1983). It included the number, \u201cCan\u2019t Keep My Heart From Racin\u2019,\u201dby Beth Lawrence. You can listen to it here.<\/a><\/p>\n

Alas, \u201cAn American Fable\u201d was a flop, closing after only seventeen performances. Let\u2019s hope the TV series fares better.<\/p>\n

Back to Madonna<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Ah, but enough with my train-of-association. Back to Madonna and the halftime show. In a pre-game interview with ABC News, Madonna said, \u201cI actually wanted to have 100 drummers come from the ceiling, a drumline from the ceiling.\u201d<\/p>\n

That would be the ceiling of Lucas Oil Stadium, in Indianapolis. Apparently, though, somebody nixed the drumline-from-roof idea. Instead, she was carried about by Roman legions.<\/p>\n

The contrast between an oak tree and a willow comes to mind here. The gist of it is that the oak tree is impressive and strong looking, but vulnerable to a storm. The wispy looking willow, due to its flexible, is more apt to survive a storm. In show business terms, Marilyn Monroe was an oak tree, destroyed by her own success and the machinery of celebrity. Madonna is a willow, whose flexibility in re-creating herself every few years has allowed her career to thrive decade after decade.<\/p>\n

\"\"Madonna first came to the attention of much of the public in the film Desperately Seeking Susan<\/em>, a 1985 movie in which she plays Susan Thomas, the free spirit of the title who, by example, liberates bored suburban housewife Roberta Glass, played by Rosanna Arquette. The two are dressed up as twins on the movie poster:<\/p>\n

Through the remainder of 1985, young girls called \u201cwannabes\u201d did their best to imitate the \u201cSusan\u201d look. But of course Madonna herself soon moved on, to the bullet bras that seem to have stuck in the mind of the cartoonist with whom we began, for example.<\/p>\n

The bullet bra was the creation of designer Jean-Paul Gaultier for Madonna\u2019s 1990 tour, \u201cBlonde Ambition.\u201d<\/p>\n

The year 1990 saw another development we have to mention here. It was the year Madonna came out with \u201cVogue,\u201d a song and video named after a dance style associated with the gay men\u2019s ballroom scene, and one that was simultaneously popularized by the documentary \u201cParis is Burning.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lyrics to Vogue<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The lyrics to Madonna\u2019s \u201cVogue\u201d combine gay sensibility with the suggestion that heteros should join in the fun, and some good-ole-days nostalgia for classic Hollywood.<\/p>\n

\"\"Greta Garbo, and Monroe
\nDeitrich and DiMaggio
\nMarlon Brando, Jimmy Dean
\nOn the cover of a magazine<\/p>\n

Grace Kelly; Harlow, Jean
\nPicture of a beauty queen
\nGene Kelly, Fred Astaire
\nGinger Rodgers, dance on air<\/p>\n

They had style, they had grace
\nRita Hayworth gave good face
\nLauren, Katherine, Lana too
\nBette Davis, we love you<\/p>\n

Ladies with an attitude
\nFellows that were in the mood
\nDon’t just stand there, let’s get to it
\nStrike a pose, there’s nothing to it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Allow us to conclude with our best wishes to all, our hope that all of those who read and enjoy this blog and website have decades upon decades of vigorous life ahead not as candles in the wind, but as defiant fluorescent light bulbs!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The above cartoon was circulating around Facebook on the morning of the Superbowl. As you can see, the cartoonist is playing on one of Madonna\u2019s several personae in advance of the Super Bowl, the championship of what the United States calls \u201cfootball\u201d and what the rest of the world calls \u201cAmerican football,\u201d (because it clearly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[31],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n