Good old Madge, stepping up for fellow artists Pussy Riot against the Russian authorities.
"I think art should be political," she said this week, when asked by reporters to comment on the band's arrest for "hooliganism", and prior to her tour date in Moscow tonight. "Historically speaking, art always reflects what's going on socially".
It's been a busy few weeks for Madonna on that front, as she counters legal action by France's Marine Le Pen for featuring her in an unflattering video montage. At least, that is how Le Pen has chosen to see it. Before the president of the Front National flashes up on screen with a swastika across her forehead, we see various iterations of Madonna – her little face peering out of a hijab; the top half of her head combined with the Ayatollah's beardy chin; wearing what I think is General Pinochet's hat; definitely a shot of Sarah Palin's eyes in there and, possibly, former president Mobutu's leopard print fedora; finally, Madonna again wearing a Hitler moustache, while, in the background, she sings, "It's no good when you're misunderstood."
I think this is called irony, but who knows. As commentary, it has the same political content as a game of Guess Who? (Deluxe Dictators Edition).
The singer did have a chance to be political last year with the release of WE, her biopic of lovable old Nazi sympathizers Wallace Simpson and Edward VIII. Madge vigorously countered claims she was glamorising their dubious politics by insisting she had looked into it thoroughly and determined that they did nothing improper – an assertion she underlines in the movie by having a character point out that although the pair were wined and dined by Hitler, it was in 1937, before he had done anything too naughty. (The Nuremberg laws, prohibiting Jews from enjoying German citizenship, were introduced in 1935, and concentration camps for political prisoners had been opening since 1933, but why be a bore about it?)
The sad thing is, Madge doesn't need to do anything particular to be political. She is at her most political when she does nothing at all. Like Gaga, the very fact of her – her continued success in a marketplace where most female pop stars look like the Pussycat Dolls – is all the argument she needs. If only she'd leave it at that.
