Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site oddjob.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!whuxlm!whuxl!houxm!ihnp4!oddjob!cs1
From: cs1@oddjob.UUCP (Cheryl Stewart)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Re: Re: Madonna, role model
Message-ID: <817@oddjob.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 21-Jun-85 14:01:54 EDT
Article-I.D.: oddjob.817
Posted: Fri Jun 21 14:01:54 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 23-Jun-85 03:49:53 EDT
References: <273@cmu-cs-g.ARPA> <841@ccice5.UUCP> <2222@topaz.ARPA> <1625@reed.UUCP> <492@rtech.UUCP>
Reply-To: cs1@oddjob.UUCP (Cheryl Stewart)
Organization: U. Chicago, Astronomy & Astrophysics
Lines: 66
Summary: 


>I agree completely.  But have you listened to her song "Material Girl"?
>The message in that song is even worse than that implied by her one-dimensional
>sexual image.  (I won't even give her two dimensions, as Ellen did.) I've tried
>listening to it as a satire, but it doesn't wash.  She's really saying that she
>doesn't give a shit for boys without money, and that she's justified in using
>her sexuality to get material wealth.

This is a toughie, but I'll try.  Doing something for its own sake rather than
for monetary gain, if that something is generally admirable in the first place,
is fine and good.  So going off to contemplate your navel in Kathmandu is just
as valid a pursuit as hacking on robots in your basement.  Many people rebel
against a materialist culture by finding ways of not participating in it --
even if the only thing they actually DO is politely excuse themselves from a
conversation when it becomes one of those "my [dog, salary, *thing*, house,
whatever] is bigger than yours" conversations.  Other people openly mock this
attitude by participating in it with just enough facetiousness to make the
rest squirm, but not enough to make them offended.  I still think that Madonna
is making fun of gold-digging by portraying it as the stupid, shallow pursuit
it is.  

And now for another anecdote.  When I was one and twenty, I dated this guy
who was immensely witty, incredibly well-read, highly articulate and very
creative--he had written for many publications, had originated a series of 
hysterically funny cartoons, and translated both Sanskrit and Hebrew texts in
his scholarly research.  He had a good job with an insurance firm, and I 
was happy as a clam with my status as a graduate student.  He just assumed
from his experience in graduate school in the Humanities, that being in
graduate school meant that your parents were well-off, as his and all his
friends' were.  I wasn't aware of his assumption or of his background until
(a few weeks into the relationship) we started talking about our parents--
the subject had never come up before, yet when it became clear that my
parents were *horrors* working-class people, he acted as though he had
"found me out" and that I had been keeping this from him in order to somehow
take advantage of him.   But then he decided that he could offer me more 
advantages than I could ever hope to gain on my own, and expected me to 
just *jump* at his offer to take me back to England with him.  It didn't
occur to him that I had a career in progress (apparently in the humanities,
graduate school is something you do for fun, and to prove that your parents
can afford it or something--I don't know.)  I think our last conversation
ended something like this  (on the phone):

him:  (in a genteel but slightly snide Cambridge accent)  ...there will 
      always be something working-class about you.."

me:   (like a true New Yorker)  Oh, yeah? Well you're the upper-class twit
      of the year! (click)

In this case, the materialism and class-consciousness was *his* problem, and
he could not believe that someone would willingly suffer poverty for the 
sake of science or independence--or in my case just for the sake of contrary
cussedness.  

I think next time, though, taking a cue from Madonna, I WILL take advantage
of a guy like this.  Thanks, Madonna!  Now I know that it's OK to exploit twits.  

                                     Cheryl

-- 

"...a lot of people don't have much food on the table,

    but they got a lot of forks
                                  and knives,

                    and they gotta cut something."  --Bob Dylan