Madonna - Vogue.
I never attended ballet lessons as a kid. I was the only girl in my class who’d never worn a tutu. I had never been instructed in the art of gracefully pointing your feet in opposite directions. I could do all that perfectly well without wearing anything pink, thank you very much, and so I stuck to twirling round on the smooth lino surface in the kitchen while watching the telly, pointing my leg out straight to touch the back of the chair. It never felt girly or feminine. I just liked how it felt when I balanced my weight in different ways, knowing and testing my own strength, my young muscles easily dealing with the problems a weaker power-to-weight ratio would incur later in life. If you’d asked me then if I wanted to be a ballerina, I would have made a vomiting noise at you.
Watching the smooth, clean flourishes that Madonna and her backing dancers execute in “Vogue”, it’s easy to pinpoint the flexibility and discipline Madonna gained through years of ballet training. There’s an element of OCD about the neat lines and super-slick quiffs on display, total control over both their bodies and their environment, making sure that nothing detracts from the glamour of the subjects. Before the stars arrive, a maid tidies up a jacket from a chair, one butler adjusts a pedestal to be parallel to the window and another flicks away a speck of dust from a bannister. Everything has to be perfectly arranged so that Madonna and her immaculate dancers can project the illusion of effortlessness: lounging around, draping themselves on the furniture, looking cool.
A large amount of screen time is spent close up on Madonna’s face, usually surrounded by fluttering hands miming a luxury massage — or fanning her as if mimicking the big Cleopatra fronds that open and close the video. She gazes into the distance wondering where Cary Grant’s got to, inhabiting the same positions and expressions that Hepburn or Harlow did 50 years previously, looking up to the heavens in case Marilyn’s up there ready to give out some tips, knowing she’ll up there in the pantheon herself soon. There’s a little bit of snobbiness there too, the Hollywood arrogance that demands its own trailer and the best lines in the script. Everyone in this video holds their heads up high with minimal eye contact (with the viewer or each other), aspiring to greater things than mere mortals can achieve.
When I use the word ‘vogueing’, I am usually thinking of the bit during the second chorus between 2.30 and 2.47, where the three male dancers go it alone. At first it seems strange to me that Madonna herself doesn’t feature in the most memorable part of her most memorable video, but of course these guys are where she got the idea in the first place and they deserve their turn in the spotlight. They’re clearly not making up the moves off the top of their heads but this section seems more organic than Madonna’s own formal attempt in the first chorus. No, ‘organic’ is not quite the right word - perhaps a better description might be that each dancer has been given their own ‘motivation’, and they’ve been left to improvise the dialogue between themselves. Compare it to a mass-participation dance routine like Britney’s “Baby One More Time”, where the entire braindead classroom does exactly what it’s told (with perhaps an extra credit backflip for Britney at the end). This seventeen second stretch is just as rigorous as Britney’s exercise yard workout, but here the three guys are doing their own thing, coming from all directions. Yet instead of trying to outdo each other like peacocks impressing potential mates, they work as a team, magically combining their different complex elements to make a sum more impressive than its parts (NB: the first episode of Captain Planet was screened a few months after “Vogue“‘s release - coincidence? I think not).
All this starched snooty posing may be iconic and memorable, but its real rewards come from its contrast to the massive release at the climax of “so get up on the DANCE FLOOR!”, all the aloofness dissolving into pure hedonism. Madge and her mate start jacking away like the Reynolds Girls, her hair falling into her face, fancy evening dress ditched for a sharp suit. Brimming with passion and energy, Madge can relax and enjoy herself, knowing that the hours of hard work and dedication she’s put in will produce something awe-inspiring yet still inch-perfect. Even when she’s not dancing she radiates out self-confidence: her eyes half-closed, letting the head-rush wash over her, absolutely comfortable in her own skin, smiling and smooching at the camera. Her drive has finally made her a superstar, ready to be tacked onto the end of the list of her idols. The beautiful people who were standing around posing at the beginning of the night have finally been caught up in the magic, too. They’ve let their hair down and are making Marcel waves on the dancefloor, letting instinct take over.
If Fred and Ginger had popped a few pills in 1990 I’m sure they’d have been the most graceful and stylish ravers in history. But I was eight years old, so I just twirled around in my socks on the slippery kitchen floor and struck a pose. So much better than bloody ballet.
I came to my (slightly similar) own conclusions a while back, but this is excellent. Well worth reading!
Notes
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richaod reblogged this from thevidsarealright and added:
(slightly similar)...excellent. Well worth reading!
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jonathanbogart reblogged this from thevidsarealright and added:
idiot; follow Kat Stevens.
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