Culture Watch: Immaterial Girl.(Madonna, entertainer)(Brief Article)

Madonna, at age 42 older, but no wiser, embarked on her first tour in eight years. Tickets in Philadelphia and New York went for hundreds of dollars a pop, and that part of the world that pays attention to such things gaped at the spectacle.

It would be idle to pretend that Madonna has not had an impact on her time. What sort of an impact has it been? As she enters middle age, what are the lady's strengths and weaknesses?

The list of strengths is short. She can dance (she studied the techniques of Martha Graham). She has a knack for picking pop tunes with catchy hooks. Most important, she has a single-minded work ethic, amounting to a maniacal Nietzschean will to power. No copper baron ever cornered a market more zealously than she has pushed herself and her career.

Her weaknesses make a longer catalogue. She began with an annoying, tinny little voice, like the comic singing chipmunks of the Fifties; age has darkened it without making it interesting. She has no looks, which is no sin, but which should be a drawback in a pop star; the constant nudity and copulation have functioned as a compensation, rut substituting for allure. And then there is her blasphemous exploitation of her name: Madonna used the ...