Fearlessness At The Grammys?
Fearlessness At The Grammys?
Madonna champions so-called gender identity while capitulating to age discrimination.
Madonna introduced two supposedly gender activist singers at the Grammy Awards, Kim Petras, the first trans woman to win a Grammy and Sam Smith, who was clad as the devil in a massive red cape.
At 64, Madonna is uncomfortably unrecognizable when compared to the rebellious young woman who once was dubbed the “Queen of Pop.” And its not because of her age. It’s because of the fortune she has spent on facelists, fillers and Botox.
She was talking about “fearlessness.”
"I'm here to give thanks to all the rebels out there forging a new path and taking the heat for all of it… all you troublemakers out there — you need to know that your fearlessness doesn't go unnoticed," she said.
Fearlessness?
She was dressed androgynously, holding a symbol of bondage (a riding crop). Her attire evoked her history of challenging female sexual boundaries, which is why she was chosen to introduce Petras and Smith. Where is her defiant spirit today? She has capitulated to commercial market forces that seek to make aging a sin.
It would have been fearless had Madonna looked her age, with gray hair and wrinkles.
Truly fearless women today, the ones who are forging a new path, are pushing back against ageism.
I am thinking about people like poet Patti Smith, actress Jamie Lee Curtis and news anchor Lisa LaFlamme.
LaFlamme, a Canadian news anchor, 58, was fired in 2022 after 35 years with Bell Media’s CTV News because she stopped dying her hair and let it go gray. She was replaced with a young male anchor, despite having two years remaining on her contract.
The Canadian media outlet, The Globe and Mail, reported LaFlamme’s trouble began soon after Michael Melling became head of CTV News. He asked a senior CTV official who at network approved the decision to “let Lisa’s hair go gray.” LaFlamme has since joined Canadian cable news outlet, CityNews, as lead correspondent.
What U.S. female news personality has displayed LaFlamme’s fearlessness?
Going Along
Most women start going gray in their 30s and 40s, which is when they begin to experience age discrimination in the workplace. They face a sudden threat of losing status, a job and/or a partner. They start dying their hair.
This crushing ageism has spawned a $23.3 billion hair color industry.
As Patti Smith observed: “I’m here right now and I want now to be the Golden Age… if only each generation would realize that the time for greatness is right now when they’re alive… the time to flower is now.”
True fearlessness involves understanding the risk and standing up anyway.
Actress Jamie Lee Curtis, 64, who sports short cropped gray hair. Curtis says she’s an advocate of “natural beauty” because she once had plastic surgery and it made her feel worse, contributing to a former opioid addiction. “Once you mess with your face, you can’t get it back… Why do you want to look 17 when you’re 70?” says Curtis.
In the final analysis, Madonna is doing what people who are not fearless do, which is conforming to societal expectations.
Going along to get along.