The internet: There’s a Madonna biopic on the horizon.
Me: Ok [**shrug**]… Whatever.
The internet: She’s writing and directing it…
Me:
Wow. A Madonna-written, Madonna-directed Madonna biopic, huh? What a terrible idea. How do I know? Statistics.
Most movies these days—like 90 percent—are unwatchable. Roughly 97.2 percent of biopics are boring. (Characters aren’t storylines and the best stories have an element of surprise. If they’re making a movie about your life, we already know the twists and turns.) A full 100 percent of films directed by Madonna are cringe-fests. One reviewer described W.E. as ‘embalmed.’ This is how Guardian film critic Peter Bradshaw described her first film Filth and Wisdom:
“Madonna has made a film so incredibly bad that Berlin Festival goers were staggering around in a state of celestial shock, deathly pale and mewing like maltreated kittens.”
Like alcohol and antibiotics, combining ‘Madonna’ and ‘movies’ is contra-indicated. Apart from Desperately Seeking Susan and Madonna: Truth or Dare, films featuring Madonna range from ‘sorta OK’ to ‘abysmal.’
She put the ‘bomb’ in the Guy Ritchie abomination Swept Away. (Remakes, like biopics, also tend to be mediocre). I’m not sure his career ever fully recovered. The only thing it swept were the Razzies, taking home five awards, including Worst Picture of 2002. Critics had a field day: ‘a cinematic shipwreck,’ ‘waterlogged’ and ‘please do not rescue.’ A Rotten Tomatoes super reviewer called it the biggest man-made disaster since the Exxon Valdez.
Getting any movie made is a minor miracle. Though not yet in production, Madonna’s vanity project is already showing signs of tension. Co-writer Diablo Cody has moved on already, hinting Madonna’s too difficult to work with. Auditions for the leading role apparently call for grueling, 11-hour song and dance sessions. My advice to any of the ingenues under consideration: be careful what you wish for.
Will nobody inside Madonna’s inner circle tell her? Is she too surrounded by supplicants and lacking that one essential straight-shooter to play superego to her id? According to reports, once upon a time, that person was her publicist Liz Rosenberg. Alas, Liz retired in 2015. Were she still around, perhaps she’d sit her client down for some real talk…
Liz: wait [**pained expression**] you’re directing?
Madonna: who better to make a movie about my life than me? (Actual quote).
Liz: literally anyone.
Madonna: it will be a spectacular tribute to all my remarkable accomplishments.
Liz: it will be a spectacular shit sandwich.
I wonder if there’s anything else Liz would like to get off her chest? How about…
—Before you leave the house, look at yourself in the mirror and remove at least one accessory. Alternately, if you’re wearing this, don’t leave the house…
—Don’t go moaning on Twitter about patriarchal oppression when you’re among the richest, most celebrated women on the planet…
—Don’t post pictures of yourself playing tonsil hockey with your boytoy on Instagram…
—Also…
Madonna: what?
Liz: it’s weird.
Madonna: why?
Liz: because you qualify for a discount at Walgreens. While we’re getting things out in the open… that milky bathtub Instagram share during covid lockdown made you look bonkers. Your tribute to Aretha Franklin at the 2018 VMA’s was an elliptical journey back to your favourite subject: you. Oh and for for the love of God would you lose that gimmicky eyepatch?
Don’t get me wrong. I admire the hell out of Madonna. Her moxie, determination and raw talent are all ingredients of a life worthy of a biopic. But now, like Icarus, she’s adding ‘hubris’ to the mix. And we know what happened to Icarus.
I’m surprised nobody at Universal Pictures has put a stop to this madness. Sounds like Universal Pictures is badly in need of its own Liz Rosenberg. In the corporate world, they call that person the Black Hat.
When the boardroom gets swept up in a wave of enthusiasm, the Black Hat steps in and bursts the bubble. Essential to any organization, the Black Hat distrusts consensus, values intellect over emotion, thinks strategically and asks difficult questions. If only there’d been a Black Hat in the room at Google when this dorky contraption was first proposed…
The in-house marketing department at Pepsi sure could have used a Black Hat when its creative team cooked up the idea for this Pepsi ad…
In possibly the most unintentionally hilarious ad in history, Kendall Jenner stars as a taciturn super model drawn away from her photo shoot by the exuberance of a passing protest, joins the fray and somewhere in between trades her modeling clothes for a stylish ensemble of denim separates.
The intended message of unity hit its mark: the entire twitterverse—left and right—was united in mockery, scorn and outright loathing. Progressives bristled at the tone-deaf trivialization of progressive causes. Conservatives were giddy with schadenfreude that this corporate lecture disguised as sappy woke messaging embarrassed the crap out of Pepsi.
Luckily there was a Black Hat in the room when the US Air Force proposed nuking the moon to show the Soviets who was boss at the peak of the Cold War. Sadly, there was no Black Hat in the room when G. Gordon Liddy proposed wiretapping the Watergate building.
Black Hats are rare because… who wants to be a wet blanket? Also, what if they’re wrong, like the investors who turned down Spanx billionaire founder Sara Blakely? The world is full of such regrets, like when Yahoo declined to buy Google for a million dollars. We never hear about the ones who said ‘that’s a terrible idea’ about an idea that ultimately went down in flames. There’s no third act to that story.
So maybe I’m wrong. Maybe Madge will pull a cinematic triumph out of her hat. Either way, does it matter? Another key ingredient to becoming biopic material—along with the aforementioned moxie, determination and raw talent— is boundless narcissism. One key component to narcissism is an allergy to self-blame. When the world revolves around you, failure is the world’s fault. Recall the trenchant exchange between luckless screenwriter Joe Gillis and long-forgotten silent film star Norma Desmond in the early moments of Sunset Boulevard:
Joe: “You used to be big.”
Norma: ‘I am big. It’s the pictures that got small.”
If the Madonna biopic is a flop or worse—merely forgettable—she can always just pin it on the patriarchy.
I think I would actually go see this movie. I would get 20 friends. We would get drunk and stay drunk. We would yell at the screen and throw popcorn. It would be fun. Another great one, Liz!