Not at All Like a Virgin

As the most widely discussed, analyzed, and debated pop star to emerge since the 1960s, Madonna is a hard person to say much new about. Unfortunately, this is something far too many of the contributors to the new anthology Madonna & Me: Women Writers On The Queen Of Pop prove, over and over, on its pages. Many of the writers in Madonna & Me come from the feminist-blog salt mines, and it’s clear that many of them simply haven’t been pushed all that hard, or that frequently, to clarify ideas, get rid of clichés, fine-tune sentences, and exercise the first person judiciously. Sure, the details are specific to their authors. But there’s little sense of pace here, and many of the essays are so similar in outline—young women who overtly worship/secretly like Madonna as kids, wrestle with her persona as they get older and discover feminism, and finally see her fondly to some degree or other—that it’s hard not to think of Mad Libs.