Madonna Attacks the American Life, Sort Of

By Dr. Theodore Mangrove

On April Fools Day, 2003, Madonna announced that she was blocking the release of her new music video American Life because of images that, as she said in a written statement, might “risk offending anyone who might misinterpret the meaning of this video.” However, the video had already debuted to rave reviews in Germany, and is now available on the internet.

The real risk for Madonna is not that people will misinterpret the meaning of the video, but that they will interpret it’s meaning correctly, as a scathing attack on American culture, politics, foreign

American Life
Madonna Goes Political - sorta

policy, and the “American dream” which Madonna herself has represented in so many ways over the span of her career. It would seem that living in England has given the pop diva some harsh perspective on the world.

The video opens with Madonna wearing a sort of hybrid military/dominatrix outfit, and various supermodels dressing up in similar outfits before hitting the catwalk of a fashion show. The stage of the fashion show is framed by video screens portraying images of American military aircraft dropping bombs and missiles on third world cities…perhaps Iraq? As the video progresses, we see Madonna singing with images of explosions behind her. Towards the end of the fashion show, the models leave the stage, and are replaced by children of Middle Eastern descent wearing traditional dress and looking very somber as photographers snap their pictures and images of explosions war appear on the screens behind them. Finally, Madonna drives a Mini Cooper through a wall and onto the stage of the fashion show, squirting the throng of paparazzi with a water cannon, and tossing a grenade to a man who looks like George W. Bush. The Bush impersonator flips open the top of the grenade, which turns out to be a lighter, and lights a large cigar while smirking smugly.

I remember quite well when Madonna was a material girl and “like” a virgin. While not a fan of her music, I have watched her career morph and evolve in my peripheral vision, and I’ve accidently seen her videos and heard her music over the last twenty years. American Life is, without a doubt, her best music video to date, and it’s a shame she didn’t have the courage to allow it’s release in the United States. I disagree with her that people might misinterpret it’s meaning. I think Americans would see it as a blatant and outright attack on the American way of life. How we wallow in our supreme comfort and luxury, gobbling up the world’s resources, while waging war on defenseless people who have the misfortunate of living in countries endowed with oil. And I don’t think people will misinterpret the blatant attack on George W. Bush, who is both the instrument as well as the icon of arrogance, greed, and American military hegemony.

What is perhaps even more scathing is Madonna’s attack on herself. At the end of the video, she raps the following lyrics:

I got a lawyer and a manager
An agent and a chef
Three nannies, an assistant
And a driver and a jet
A trainer and a butler
And a bodyguard or five
A gardener and a stylist
Do you think I’m satisfied?
I’d like to express my extreme point of view
I’m not Christian and I’m not a Jew
I’m just living out the American dream
And I just realised that nothing
Is what it seems

It’s rare for a star to point out their own greed and gluttony, not to mention their own complicity in the greater social and political problems facing America and the world. Madonna is not only pointing the finger at Bush and at the American people, but also at herself. It would have been easy for her as an ex-patriot living in London to remove herself from the issues, but clearly she was engaged in some self-examination, and she was not afraid of the ugly truth. While the images in the video expose the brutality and inhumanity of American foreign policy, the song itself is really about Madonna’s self-realization about the meaninglessness of her life, and her own collusion in American imperialism.

Madonna may lose some flag-waving “support our troops” fans who don’t want to be forced to think or reflect about what we’re doing, but she may also gain many others. Unlike the Dixie Chicks who made some anti-Bush comments which they quickly retracted, Madonna had the artistic courage to write this song and create this video. Now she should have the political courage to release it — or unleash it — in America.