Madonna: The Queen of Pop

Introduction

Madonna is an international artist, an actress, a writer and a successful business women. She was born in a Michigan, USA during 16 August 1958 and growing up in a Catholic family. Madonna moved to New York City in 1978 and began her career as a dancer.
She released her first debut single, "Everybody" in October 1982, and another album, “Madonna”was released in the following year. Her major career breakthrough happened when she released album “Like a Virgin” during 1984. Despite the controversy on her music video, the album made a huge success and the title track of the album retained the first position on ‘Billboard Chart’ for six weeks. Madonna is known for constantly reinventing both her music and image, her rebellious attitude toward religious and traditional moral value often raise controversies to her career. She constantly enhance on women power in her music video and being supportive toward LGBT community had also made her one of the greatest icon of Feminism and LGBT rights.

Theory discuss

I would like to discuss on the star theory proposed by Richard Dyer. He suggests that Stars when viewed as a form of consumption would consider the audience as part of the phenomenon. It suggests a relationship between stars and audience, with four categories which is: emotion affinity, self-identification, imitation and projection.
Emotion affinity is when audience feels attached to the star when watching them through media, from being involved in watching the star, as part of the narrative. It is also the most common reading by the audience.Self-identification is an intensified version of the emotions audience feel when watching a film and begins to place him/herself in the situation of the star.
It follows by imitation, suggests that audience take to imitating the stars beyond the cinema, making them as role models, for example imitate how the star dress like. It usually happens among the young audience. Projection happens when audience project any form of decision making in accordance to how the star would when place in the same situation. However this rarely happens and not widespread.

Analysis

In the case of Madonna, her fashion sense and rebellious attitude bring influence to generations of American. Madonna tends to convey a story through her music, the lyric, and her music video. She is building emotion affinity with her fans as they feel attached by watching her in the music video. It also influences their self-identification, for example in music video “Papa Don’t Preach” Madonna plays a teenage girl get pregnant and decides to keep her baby. It makes the audience to place themselves in the situation and raise the social awareness on the issue about teen pregnancy.
The rebellious attitude is also performed in Madonna’s fashions sense. Her style comprised of lace tops, skirts over capri pants, fishnet stockings, jewelry bearing the crucifix, bracelets, and bleached hair. Young women who look up to her will try to imitate her fashion, as they want to be as brave and tough like Madonna.

At last, fans will start to goes beyond imitating the star in terms of clothing or hairstyle, etc. Fans might project any form of decision making in accordance to “what would Madonna do?” when they are in the same situation. Madonna is also a well known LGBT icon for always show supportive toward the LGBT community, and even featured gay kiss in her music video “Justify My Love”. By using her influence, she changed how people think of the LGBT community and eventually contributed to the development of LGBT rights.

Conclusion

In conclusion, use star as phenomena of consumption to study on Madonna's stardom had propose the source of consumption by audience. Madonna builds her emotion attachment with the audience through her music, films, and any other media. Her moral value was accepted and spread widely in the society. It brings influence to not only the American and but also the international market who consumed her music. 

Reference

1. Madonna Biography. (n.d.). Retrieved July 10, 2016, from http://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/madonna-2212.php
2. Dyer, R., & McDonald, P. (1998). Stars. London: BFI Pub.