Interview with Madonna's biographer: Celebrating a lifetime of rebellion and resilience

The Vatican openly called for a boycott of her concert, resulting in increasingly dangerous and critical articles about her in the Catholic press. Tragedy was near. Today, 30 years later, Madonna is stronger than ever.

Madonna is celebrating her 66th birthday this weekend, and in the meantime, she is working tirelessly on the script for a film about her life. Before the production hits cinemas, the singer's fans can delve into her new biography "Madonna. A Rebel Life". The author of the book is Mary Gabriel, an acclaimed writer nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in 2012 for her book about Karl Marx, "Love and Capital."

In an interview, the author shares her hopes for the film about the Queen of Pop, discusses numerous controversies surrounding the star, and the background of her conflict with… the Polish pope.

Where did the idea come from to write about a major pop star this time? It stands in stark contrast to your previous books.

Mary Gabriel: Indeed, until now, I have written about Karl Marx or the first woman to run for president (Victoria Woodhull – editor's note), but in my opinion - and I know I'm risking criticism here - writing about Marx and Madonna is not so far apart, because both played extraordinarily important roles in their time and were very controversial. Just saying their names evokes extreme reactions. It might seem like a completely different subject for me, but in reality, it wasn't.

I see Madonna as a very important historical and cultural figure and that’s the kind of Madonna I wanted to write about. Most publications portray her as a pop star and focus on her colourful private life, but there is a much more interesting and important story to tell here. Madonna is one of the few artists who had and still has a global impact on culture and society.

So far, unauthorised biographies of Madonna have attracted audiences with the promise of spicy stories, but you consciously avoided that. And yet, that’s what sells books!

It's true; I didn’t want to catch readers with the promise of scandalous anecdotes because I care about people who want to get to know Madonna. In the case of anyone else, it might be boring, but not with her. Her longest and most enduring relationship is with controversy, so whatever you write about her will be interesting. There’s a quote in the book from one of the Hollywood producers who, when asked why Madonna is so fascinating, says: "Everything she does, whether it’s a film, song, or video, you can’t take your eyes off it, and it's always good. She has this amazing ability not only to grab your attention but to keep it." Very few people can do that. She is fascinating enough that you don’t need to dig dirt from her life. Just watching her is enough, and commentary is unnecessary.

You mentioned that before writing "Madonna. A Rebel Life" you knew very little about her and you weren’t her fan. Has that changed?

Absolutely! During the writing and research process, I became a huge fan of hers. I was struck by her work and how great she was, ahead of her time, full of risk and experimentation. All this despite being assigned to the pop category causes many people to consider her not very important or minimize her artistic contribution. It made a huge impression on me - that she was the core of her work, its inspiration, and creator simultaneously, incredibly brave through all these years. Madonna created Madonna. She didn’t have a team of people and marketers behind her who would invent her persona. She was a young girl from Detroit, and she still is on stage today - tough, strong, beautiful, powerful, always looking for new ways to express herself.

The impetus to take on the story of Madonna’s life was her feminist speech at the 2016 Billboard Women of the Year gala, in which she spoke about the difficulties of being a woman in the entertainment industry. But Madonna wasn’t always a favourite among feminists, was she?

Madonna was the first female pop star to so openly and strongly present her sexuality, and it was her decision. There wasn’t a man behind her saying, "unbutton your blouse and show your belly". She did it to tell young girls: "You can be yourself, look and express your sexuality however you want, and still be strong and free because only you can decide for yourself; no one else should have that power over you!".

Honestly, that message from the beginning of her career was so liberating that I’m really surprised feminists didn’t catch onto it. Probably because they looked at her in terms of virgin and [frivolous woman], and in their eyes, she was definitely a [second one]. The controversy and duality of her persona made it hard to figure her out and put her in any category. She couldn’t be a feminist because she was this sexually charged creature. In Madonna’s view, of course, you don’t have to be just one or the other. Her message was simple: you don’t have to be a woman or a man. Neither straight nor gay. Neither white nor black. You can be everything and go through life that way. It’s a wonderful approach!

You said that Madonna's longest and most enduring relationship is with controversy. In your book, you devote a lot of space to it but enrich it with historical and social context. Where did that idea come from?

We’ve been reading about Madonna for over 40 years and we think we know everything about her, but it's worth asking: what do we REALLY know? Something beyond the headlines and gossip columns, and how much of it isn’t just a journalist's fantasy? I took Madonna out of the tabloid frames and wanted to show the path she took as an artist.

All artists create in response to what's happening around them. If you don’t know that background, you won’t understand why Madonna decided to make such a music video as "Like A Prayer" in 1989 with all that religious imagery and a black saint. In America at that time, racial tensions were incredibly high, so of course, Madonna engaged in that discussion with a song and video where she danced in front of burning crosses, the symbol of the racist Ku Klux Klan association. That's an example to show that if you don’t know and understand the history of those specific periods, you won’t fully know and understand Madonna herself.

For Polish readers, this topic of confrontation with the Catholic Church, and even with John Paul II himself, may be extremely interesting. The Polish pope called her 1990 "Blond Ambition" tour concert “the most satanic show in human history.”

The Church was terrified of her activity because she challenged them as one of their own, a Catholic from home. As a young girl, she quickly heard that on the list of sinners, Eve is at the top, and automatically, all women after her, and the Church is much more restrictive towards women and what is socially allowed for them. In my opinion, what really motivated Madonna to go to battle with the Church was its callous response to the AIDS crisis.

Joseph Ratzinger, supported by John Paul II, wrote an open letter in 1986 stating that AIDS victims should be left to themselves and that gay men dying of this terrible disease were to blame for their plight and would not enter heaven. To say something like that to people who are dying… Instead of giving them hope that in this final moment of their lives, the Church and God would open their arms to them, the Church cruelly slammed the door and said, “No, you are a sinner, and you will burn in hell.” That was terrible!

In my opinion, this was what tipped the scales and pushed Madonna to confront this institution. When, in 1990, she was to give concerts in Rome during the "Blond Ambition" tour, and the Vatican and the Pope openly called for their boycott, she received death threats. In the Italian press, especially the Catholic one, many critical and dangerous articles about her could really lead to tragedy, and Madonna was forced to cancel one show, which at that time was unthinkable. Such a strong reaction from the Church could only be provoked by the fact that the gauntlet was thrown by a Catholic who knew what she was talking about.

Do you think this will be one of the threads in the film about her life that she is currently working on? Your book could serve as a guide for her...

I’m dying of curiosity to see this film and what she has in mind for it. Star-studded biographical movies already have a rather worn-out formula: noble beginnings, struggles against adversity, crises and falls, from which they rise and emerge victorious. I can’t wait to see how she approaches it because whatever branch of art she takes up, she does it her way and differently from everyone else. Something tells me that in this case, it will be similar, and among other biographies, it will be distinguished not only by the story but also by the way it is told and filmed.

The media often crown popular singers as the "new Madonna". Do you think she sees it as an affront or a compliment because "there's only one queen"?

I feel that she might take it as a compliment. If you design cars and someone tells you that you've created a new Ferrari, you’ll think, “Wow, I’ve really accomplished something!”. I don’t think Madonna ever felt threatened, it was more of a media narrative hoping for controversy. When a journalist writes about someone as the "new Madonna," they’re saying "you’ve achieved everything, there’s nothing higher" except… Madonna herself.