Gender Graffiti: Fiona Mackie on the meanings of Madonna

While selected articles are available in full on this website, all Arena Quarterly, Arena Magazine and Arena Journal articles are available for to view in PDF format via Informit. You can purchase the article, or access Informit for free via a public library account, such as the State Library of Victoria. We get a small amount of money from Informit for you accessing the article in this way, so get a bit of material support too.

Abstract:

She mirrors, disrupts, contests, repeats the terrorism of the code, depending on your angles of focus. Or she’s dismissed as an irrelevant piece of graffiti from the pop culture, not something worth intelligent consideration. Meanwhile, millions are bestowing a kind of divinity on her. ‘Typical star obsession’, you might say. Yet it hasn’t been usual for the Dali-esque surrealism of the once avant-garde to be a mainstay of the method of a top-grossing pop star, who is also seen as the icon of the American lower-middle class. Bataille would have loved it: except, he couldn’t have handled it. So, what is interesting in the phenomenon going on here?

Details / PDF:

The full-text PDF of this article can be downloaded from Informit. You can purchase the article, or access Informit for free via a public library account, such as the State Library of Victoria.

Support Arena

Independent publications and critical thought are more important than ever. Arena has never relied on or received government funding. It has sustained its activities largely through the voluntary work and funding provided by editors and supporters. If Arena is to continue and to expand its readership, we need your support to do it.