How did we expect Madonna to age?

Madonna’s been in Paris for Fashion Week. As we saw yesterday she was seated front row between Charli XCX and Connor Storrie at Saint Laurent, the pop culture mother of all the cool kids. Who still considers herself one of the cool kids – both an icon to them but also a contemporary, considering she’s about to drop a new album, Confessions II, that’s meant to be played in the club, the gayer the club the better.

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Madonna is about to turn 68 later this summer. Madonna is two years from 70. But Madonna is defiantly refusing to behave the way it is expected for women to behave when they’re almost septuagenarians which, of course, pisses people off. She’s been pissing people off for over 40 years. But the age thing has always been something that has pissed her off for at least 25 years. This is an interesting question, at least to me: how did we expect Madonna to age?

Did anyone realistically expect that she would be “graceful” about it? And by “graceful” I mean that definition of “aging gracefully” assigned to women of a certain age by, arguably, a status quo that predetermines female value according to their year of birth. Madonna would argue that it’s hypocrisy – because historically women in their 60s and 70s have disappeared from pop culture, or been disappeared by an overall culture that prioritises and fetishises youth, and at the same time claims to revere maturity. But when a mature woman refuses to be invisible, she’s criticised for being visible on her terms. In Madonna’s case those terms are: sexual, opinionated, annoying, funny, cringe, conceited, earnest, sarcastic, and sincere. She is and has always been all of the above, a contradiction with multitudes. Like all women have the right to be.

So how did we expect her to age?

Probably I’ve been guilty too of brief moments of wanting her to graduate into linens and updos and quiet whispers. But as I too have aged alongside her, a generation behind, I’ve come to appreciate her refusal to subscribe. Because, quite simply, it would be asking her to be someone she isn’t. When did we ever know a version of Madonna who wanted to spend her golden years gardening and doing needlepoint? That person has never existed, she will never exist. If she would rather be on the dancefloor with the baby queers at 70 instead of hanging out with fusty and musty bankers at the country club, let a c-nt be a c-nt, forever and always for life. The only weeding and watering this c-nt will be doing is in the garden of her grudges. And when you’ve been around as long as she has, that garden is never not blooming.

One of the grudges that is making headlines today was revealed in her new Interview Magazine cover story with Mel Ottenberg. It’s related to her biopic, and why it’s been put on pause. In short – Madonna got into a fight with the studio because they wouldn’t give her the budget she deserved.

“I was supposed to make a movie about my life. I worked on my script for two years and spent two years at Universal Studios with the line producers doing budgeting and casting. We had a falling out, me and Universal, regarding budget because I needed—I’ve had an extraordinary life. I’ve had a huge life, so I needed a big budget. You know what I mean? It’s not going be an [indie film]. No. They couldn’t get their heads around it. I found a way to make it for less money in Serbia, but I don’t think they were into the idea of—I don’t know. Maybe they just didn’t believe in me. One of their first reactions was, “We don’t believe you’d stay in Serbia more than four days.” And I said, “Did you read the script?” My whole life has been survival. I’m not going there for a holiday. But anyway, I was in limbo when that fell apart, and then Netflix reached out to make a series. That was a whole other long process, because I couldn’t use the script I had with Universal unless I bought it from them for an extortionist’s price, even though I wrote it. Don’t ask.”

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I came of age in the 80s and 90s, you’re never going to hear from me that Madonna shouldn’t have all the f-cking money to make the movie about her life.

The Interview interview is wide-ranging, crass, meditative, self-indulgent, self-mythologising, obtuse, sanctimonious, hilarious, moody, and irreverent – all the things a Madonna interview should be. I almost fell over when she admitted to having a few grey hairs, LOL. In the article prior to this one about Tom Cruise, Sarah observes that Tom is trying to be 39-years-old until the end of time. Madonna has admitted to greying before he has. And yet the public is willing to accept the illusion of his interminable vitality but has some sh-t to say about hers? If he can keep jumping out of planes, she should be able to gyrate in the club to her own club beats for as long as she wants.