{"id":329,"date":"2006-05-23T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2006-05-23T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/2006\/05\/madonna-nails-opening-night.html"},"modified":"2006-05-23T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2006-05-23T12:00:00","slug":"madonna-nails-opening-night","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2006\/05\/madonna-nails-opening-night.html","title":{"rendered":"Madonna Nails Opening Night"},"content":{"rendered":"
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It’s generally a sign of a rock star’s age–and fading relevance–when her fans are called “the faithful,” even when the artist in question is the renegade Roman Catholic-turned-Kabbalist Madonna. At 47, the singer kicked off her latest world tour<\/a> this week with an act patently designed to appeal to her die-hards, who like their irreverence adminstered with a little glitz. Halfway through her accustomed set of costume changes and simulated sex acts, Mrs. Ritchie performed her ’80s hit “Live to Tell” while affixed to a mirrored cross and wearing a crown of thorns. “Just another day at the office for Madonna,” yawned her hometown paper, London’s Daily Mail<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Madonna once earned herself great notoriety, of course, by hashing out her none-too-original but flashily expressed feelings about Catholicism in her videos and stage shows. Once upon a time, before “The DaVinci Code,” the Vatican condemned her “Like a Prayer” video, in which singer frolicked amid burning crosses and danced with a black Jesus. But in a time when the church is fending off claims that Jesus was married with children, and Christ is spurting blood like a geyser from the cross in Mel’s “Passion,” neither Jesus’ sexuality nor his death retains much power to shock.<\/p>\n

Her mock crucifixion’s impact is doubtless diluted, too, by Madonna’s own abandonment of Catholicism for Jewish mysticism. (Last night’s show also included a shofar, the ritual ram’s horn blown at the Jewish New Year.) Surely, one benefit of adopting Kabbalah is being rid one’s lapsed-Catholic hangups–unless, as we begin to suspect, Madonna’s martyrdom complex never had much to do with the church or Jesus. In an odd complement to her “Like a Virgin” number, slides of Madonna’s broken bones, suffered in a fall from a horse, flashed behind her on a mammoth screen, like the relics of St. Madge. When you attain the rarified stratosphere Madonna operates in, who but Jesus can really feel your pain?<\/p>\n

So while the Catholic League and Madonna’s hometown state religion, the Church of England, have made their usual protests <\/a>to her new show, their defense of the traditional cross feels off point. Asked an Anglican spokesman, “Is Madonna prepared to take on everything else that goes with wearing a crown of thorns?” Duh, dude, she totally already has!<\/p>\n

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It’s generally a sign of a rock star’s age–and fading relevance–when her fans are called “the faithful,” even when the artist in question is the renegade Roman Catholic-turned-Kabbalist Madonna. 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