Madonna as Postmodern Myth: How One Star's Self-Construction Rewrites Sex, Gender, Hollywood and the American Dream

by Georges-Claude Guilbert

Overview

Madonna has long been accepted as a pop culture icon, but this text postulates a greater cultural importance by analyzing her as a postmodern myth.

This work examines how Madonna methodically discovered and constructed herself (often rewriting her past), the nature and extent of her ambition and the means she used to reach her goals. It also details the way in which she organized her own cult (borrowing from the gay community), devised her artistic output, and cunningly targeted different audiences. It also studies the fundamental contradiction--virgin or vamp? saint or prostitute?--that fuels Madonna's career and describes how Madonna reflects today's society, its contradictions and its attitudes toward sexuality and religion.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780786414086
Publisher:	McFarland & Company, Incorporated Publishers
Publication date:	11/11/2002
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	264
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.53(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Georges-Claude Guilbert is an American studies and gender studies professor at the Université Le Havre Normandie, France. He supervises several doctoral students, in gender studies and LGBTQ+ studies. He lives in Notre Dame de Bondeville, France.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments    
Preface    

PART 1: Definitions    
Myth    
Postmodern: The Story So Far    

PART 2: Desperately Seeking Stardom   
Personal and Methodic Construction    
Ambitious Grammar    
An Organized Cult: The Wizard and Gays    
Recuperation    

PART 3: The Fundamental Contradiction    
The Virgin and the Vamp    
The Mother and the Whore    

PART 4: Drag    
The Expression Under the Mask    
Voguing Along    
Hollywood Palimpsests: Greta, Rita, Dita, and Others    

PART 5: America’s Mirror    
The American Dream    
Sex and Puritanism    
A Feminist Credo?    
Madonna, Backer of the Patriarchy?    

Conclusion     
Notes    
Madonna’s Works: References    
Bibliography    
Index    

Editorial Reviews

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From the Publisher

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