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The image of Madonna is an articulated theme both in press and academia. Since she burst on the scene in the 1980s, social scientists have concurred that her image has been more discussed than her music. Madonna is widely credited by critics to be the first female artist in music history in having completely control of both her music and image.

She has been considered a trailblazer for the way deployed her image and many others individuals followed suit. Since this process, she has used various elements, including re-inventing her image constantly, exploring the concept of identity playing with different roles, stage personae and gender. According to more than one observer, all of these were elements that Madonna explored and popularized more than any other female artist before her. Her image was attached with her health condition, as well her overall physical appearance. All of this influenced the way in which she is read, and derived semiotic studies on her.

Other authors have noticed the metric of age has defined Madonna's image as well. During her career, she has suffered of ageism, with a widespread spread during the 1990s and onwards. Despite there is other older woman celebrities than Madonna living in the contemporary time with her, the case of Madonna has been scrutinize by the mass media. Various have praised Madonna's advocacy against ageism and described her a pioneer.

To the extend, multiples observers noticed Madonna's cultural significance and contributions in these areas adding that she introduced a new physicality into female pop performances, contributed to change the idea of female physique and also they way women are represented in popular culture. In regards reinvention, authors praised the way she deployed this concept and give credited to her to normalizing it for artists to reinvent their image.

However, she also faced a lot of criticism in her contributions and usage. To her critics, she was more imagen than substance.

Concept of image and identity

As stage performances seemed essential to developing her ever-changing personas and allowed her to create "exotic places" that she could control, Madonna told Rolling Stone in 1987: "I've always liked to have different characters that I project".

• In many ways Madonna is a victim of her own image

Gender

• Even Madonna’s famed gender-bending is basically just another way of rejimmying her image.

Reinvention

A Madonna gif displaying numerous of her styles

Madonna has been known for her continual change of images and style. Called also "reinvention", biographer Michelle Morgan noticed this is a word constantly attributed in her career. Swedish author, Maria Wikse, described that "most critics recognise" her reinvention and "how it influences the way in which we read her texts". Authors of Psychoanalyses / Feminisms (2000), wrote this is "one of Madonna's cultural meanings", and for author K. Elan Jung, it's actually "her most distinctive characteristic". In addition, Ludovic Hunter-Tilney from Financial Times explained that "her image changes have launched countless fads and fuelled a boom in jargon-filled academic studies about her as a post-feminist chameleon".

Madonna is not the first artist to reinvent her image but authors have placed her high, and is credited as the first female artist to have success in reinventing her image. At first instance, Jung said "she displayed an almost unique capacity for reinvention". Chris Smith wrote in 101 Albums That Changed Popular Music that perhaps more than any other artist, Madonna "manipulated her image beyond the limits of music's traditional media, and in doing so extended her reach as a musical artist to that of near-legendary cultural phenomenon". David Bowie is one of the earliest artists to reinvent his image. Australian scholar McKenzie Wark assured that both "raised this to a fine art". Another support view arguing a Madonna's unique example of reinvention, was because she linked patterns that were previously seen as incompatible: Religion and sexuality, heterosexuality and homosexuality, subculture and mainstream. In regards the claim as the first female artist to succeed, New Zealand fashion academic Vicki Karaminas and Australian lecturer Adam Geczy agreed in Queer Style (2013) that she transmogrified from virgin to dominatrix to Über Fran, each time "achieving iconic status" and was "the first woman to do so-and with mainstream panache and approbation".

More benifits in Madonna's career was found by Roger Ebert, as he claimed that "she changes images so quickly that she is always ahead of her audience". This perception was popular in most part of her career, that Chris Rojek of Brunel University explained that Madonna's frequency of image changes, produced that "no-one could guess what she would do next or pin down her essential self". The New Zealand Herald commented on this point, that "she was the master of the unexpected".

Impact on others

A variety of observers have praised her reinvention and how this influenced music industry and beyond. For writer Matt Cain, Madonna "popularized reinvention", arguing that she led to it becoming part of the strategic repertoire of virtually "every star since". Similar to Cain's claims, John Intini from Canadian magazine Maclean's pointed out: "The art of reinvention—of which Madonna is queen—has saved many musical careers". Erica Russell from the MTV staff, also noticed Madonna's legacy concept of reinvention in other musicians. She states that "have left a lasting mark on the culture of pop music, normalizing it for artists to reinvent their image, sound, and creative themes upon each new 'era' or album release".

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Through her constant reinventions , Madonna provides audiences a window into the way celebrity is created , marketed , and sold as a product ( see sidebar ) . As the public watches Madonna change before ... — Icons of Beauty: Art, Culture, and the Image of Women; Debra N. Mancoff · 2010 pag 644

• Madonna introduced popular culture to the art of "reinvention" through clothing, attitude, and physical form — Hollywood Goes Shopping (pag 194)

Health and physical condition

Since her childhood, Madonna was trained as a dancer. She was also a cheerleader at the Rochester Adams High School

Madonna moved to New York City in 1978 to pursue a career in modern dance.

Ageism

See also: Radio 1 Madonna controversy

Matt Cain commented that from the very start of her career, the singer has been mocked for her age. He puts in context "Madonna didn't have her first hit until 1983, by which time she was 25". Very first notations of widespread ageism against Madonna came from the late-1980s. In regards this, T. Cole Rachel, a Pitchfork contributor added that "people have been asking her about 'aging gracefully' since she entered her thirties" (on 1988, accomplished her 30s).

At age of 34, in 1992, Madonna asked in an interview with Jonathan Ross: "Is there a rule? Are people just supposed to die when they're 40?". Ageism on Madonna was so extended before ending the 20th century, that Gail Walker of Belfast Telegraph opined at the age of 40, "was supposed to be the end of her creativity and influence".

Impact on Madonna's career

Matthew Jacobs, from HuffPost staff, concurred that "age is an arbitrary clout metric, but it defines Madonna's image". Albums reviews, press coverage, her comments and style changes are usually age-oriented by her detractors and media commentators.

This was so scrutinized that when she entered in her 50s, The Age commented that her 50th birthday was a "big news". "So big", that a virtual clock counted down to the moment she reached her half century. And about the press coverage they said: "From trashy gossip magazines to esteemed cultural institutions, the queen of pop's entrance into middle age is being chewed over, processed and then dissected again".

Responses

Industry sources, politicians, academics or artists have commented Madonna's age either as a positive, negative or mixed responses.

Some commentators are aware that there already exists older singers than Madonna active at the same time with her. Such as Cher, Tina Turner or Barbra Streisand. However, Madonna's case has been more visible and commented that most of them.

In 2014, Katy Perry praised Madonna's relevance despite her age.

Influence

Manu Palmer from Vanity Fair commented that Madonna put the issue of ageism on the table, and that given for the first time relevance that had hardly had. Writing for Belfast Telegraph, Gail Walker remarked that "we're living in a society now that's less about Madonna's age and more about the Age of Madonna".

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• Madonna Is Many Things & Her Age Isn't One Of Them
• 40th birthday VH1 celebration
• How Madonna’s Face Became the Battleground of Aging in the Public Eye
• Madonna broke the mold and challenged expectations of older women
• In real life, Madonna personifies the fate of the Girl who commits the error of ageing. She did so much to challenge the double-standard for young women, showing girls that they could be sexy and assertive, in work and in love — Age, Gender and Sexuality through the Life Course: The Girl in Time by Susan Pickard
• 60s: a major pop culture event
• 40s ( The Canberra Time, 1995) pop standars... Female singers peak much earlier and by all previous standards Madonna is well over the hill now commercially

Impact and influence

She has also broke various records regarded age.

Lifestyle

Madonna's lifestyle have attracted extensively attention from scholarly and press accounts. Such was the coverage, that according to the Ohio State University, her lifestyle has been discussed more than her music.

Reviews

A columnist explained that "she was a full package of a way of living". British author George Pendle, describes she defined a way of living in the 1980s and 1990s, and this led to having considered her as a cultural icon.

Lucy O'Brien: She avoided drugs and alcohol, because anything that tranquilized the spirit was a mini- death, a threat to her being

Madonna's persona impact

[Madonna...] had a considerable impact in shaping attitudes

—Publishers Weekly (2012)

American author, Rene Denfeld summed up that Madonna is one of the first female public figures ever to present ambition, power, and strength into one empowering package.

English author Dylan Jones, asserts that Madonna was something else completely, being the first female pop star to not only project an image of control, drive and independence, but the first female pop star to truly own them too. She invented the blueprint for how successful women in the entertainment industry could conduct themselves.

Book sources

• Gordon, Andrew M.; Rudnytsky, Peter L. (2000). Psychoanalyses / Feminisms. SUNY Press. ISBN 0-7914-4378-7.
• Jones, Dylan (2021). Shiny and New: Ten Moments of Pop Genius that Defined the '80s. Hachette. ISBN 1474620086.
• Jung, E. Elan (2010). Sexual Trauma: A Challenge Not Insanity. The Hudson Press. ISBN 978-0-9831448-0-9.
• Karaminas, Vicki; Geczy, Adam (2013). Queer Style. A&C Black. ISBN 978-1-4725-3534-4.
• Rojek, Chris (2011). Pop Music, Pop Culture. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-7456-4263-5.
• Smith, Chris (2007). 101 Albums That Changed Popular Music. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-537371-4.
• Wark, McKenzie (1999). Celebrities, Culture and Cyberspace: The Light on the Hill in a Postmodern World. Australia: Pluto Press. ISBN 1-86403-045-3.
• Wikse, Maria (2006). Materialisations of a Woman Writer: Investigating Janet Frame's Biographical Legend. Peter Lang. ISBN 3-03910-705-4.

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• Madonna herself is always changing so fast it's hard to get a fix on her, which is part of her appeal, just as it is Sherman's — Nothing Is Lost: Selected Essays by Ingrid Sischy (2018)
• John Fiske: Most critics have nothing good to say about her music, but they have a lot to say about her image (cited by Susan McClary)
• But whatever she may have been , she always had one asking " Who's That Girl ? " ( 1987 ) . Madonna was not only the most — Facts Behind the Songs, pag 253, Marvin E. Paymer · 1993
• It is especially relevant to note in this context that perhaps the most pronounced examples of a celebrity whose active body has been marketed and consumed in diverse and ambiguous ways is singer/actress Madonna, not an "athlete" per se. There are instances in the sociology of sport literature where bodies like Madonna's that transcended various popular culture genres (i.e., music and sport) are referred to (e.g., MacNeill, 1998) — Sport, Rhetoric, and Gender: Historical Perspectives and Media Representations; L. Fuller pag 200
• If Madonna can be seen by some as transcending debates about authenticity, she also connects to new ideas about a form of politics based in ideas of play, the "freeing" and reconstitution of identity, again in ways connected to the advocated of postmodernism — Popular Music and Society; pag 115, Brian Longhurst
• I like to provoke; it's in my DNA," Madonna wrote in a 2013 Bazaar op-ed. "But nine times out of 10, there's a reason for it." — Rolling Stone
• Barbara Ellen on Madonna - The Guardian
• Gender bending. Robertson, the "most present in public as a performer of 'gender bending'. However, in 1993, a contribution was published in the magazine New Yorker on the subject of 'camp is dead, thanks to Madonna', which stated that 'gender tripping can't be subversive anymore', because Madonna 'has opened all the closets, turning deviance into a theme park'. Queer Tracks: Subversive Strategies in Rock and Pop Music, pag 67
• about image — The Straits Times, 28 May 1990, Page 4
• covers