Madonna and New Morality
Copyright Rabbi Eli Hecht
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The on-going debate about whether pornography is art came home with the arrival of the long awaited over-sized book, "Sex by Madonna" priced at $49.95 and packed in a mylar bag marked, "Adults Only." One hundred fifty thousand copies were sold. The first day's sales made Warner Books happy but left eager customers disappointed. There simply were not enough books available. The Sunday, November 22nd, "New York Times Book Review" lists the book as the number one best seller for the past three weeks.
Bookstores aren't sure where to display the Madonna book. Should it be placed under autobiography, art, fiction, best seller or newly arrived? This book is stranger than fiction and needs a new listing : smuts. The problem was resolved as the book was hastily bought.
Okay, so it's not the days of Attorney General Edwin Meese's commission on pornography. But that doesn't mean we have the license to legitimize pornography and make Madonna's book acceptable. Just reading about the sensational pictures is enough for anyone to realize that this stuff is not Boy Scout material.
Public's outrageous eagerness in trying to acquire this book caused a shop owner to announce that his stores would have guards to ensure the books would be sold in an orderly fashion. Time and Warner executives are happy as ever. Earlier this year, the police protests led to the removable of IceT's recording of the infamous "Cop Killer." But who protested the printing of the controversial publication of Madonna's Sex? What possessed the public to buy this book is beyond my wildest imagination.
Musing on the size of the book, I wondered where people are going to display this provocative piece of work. Perhaps they'll leave it on the coffee-table. After all, the Random House Webster's College Dictionary which claims to have the newest, the biggest and the best understanding and definitions states the definition of a coffee table book as, "n. an oversize, expensive, and usu. illustrated book suitable for displaying, as on a coffee table." But, if we further look into the dictionary for the word pornography it lists, "n. 1. writings, photographs, movies, etc., intended to arouse sexual excitement, esp. such materials considered as having little or no artistic merit. 2. the production of such materials. writing about harlots (porno-, comb. form of porne harlot + -graphos -GRAPH, hence, pornographic. Well, that, too, wouldn't sit well on the coffee table.
Maybe we'll need a new kind of table to legitimize the book by Madonna, called "the Madonna table." The Madonna table for the Madonna book for the Madonna people.That leads me to worry about what Madonna means after all. So, back to my dictionary to look up the word, Madonna.
Well, well, Madonna means, n. 1. Mary the mother of Jesus; the Virgin Mary. 2. a picture or statue representing the Virgin Mary. 3. Archaic, an Italian title of formal address to a woman. This Madonnas has no semblance to any of these definitions. Unequivocally, this Madonna is no Madonna.
It was somewhat enlightening to read that Japan, with all its anomalies and sex scandals, decided to speak up for what they claim is right. The book depicting pictures that displayed Madonna is not fit for her citizens. The books were confiscated as soon as they arrived at the airport to be studied by some prominent statesmen who presumably will give an eye-opening scholarly ruling on this volatile issue: art versus pornography and so on.
"Gee whiz, what's happening?" I ask myself. Somehow I just don't get it. Madonna was recently quoted as saying, "I'm out to open their minds and get them to see sexuality in another way. Their own and others."
We all know there is a time and place for everything. In our religion we are taught early in life how to recognize right from wrong. There are no allowances for indecency. Madonna and her friends are trying to change all that. By blurring the issues of what' right and wrong she legitimizes the wrong feeling people may have. She tells our young teens, our sons and daughters, who idolize her, that its okay to follow the base instincts; It' okay to act out fantasy and rebellion. Yes, her iconoclastic message can really ruin the morality of the growing and impressionable age people if not stopped and the time is now.
The holy Torah correctly states, "t is forbidden to even look at things that are even questionable." How much more so when we talk of a photo book which carries the title, Sex. Three times each day we read in the S'hma, "Lo Tasooroo Achrcy Anachem," and you will not follow after your heart and after your eyes by which you go astray (Numbers 15:3741).
Funny how when we were children we knew naturally that there were certain parts of the body that Adam and Eve had covered up because these things are not displayed publicly. How is it that we've moved so far from the fundamentals of ethics and honesty that we have lost any sense of distinction between what is acceptable and not acceptable on our coffee tables. I believe that is something to think about.
Tomorrow morning when I get up bright and early to greet my little children going to school they won't find me drinking coffee by the old coffee table with Madonna. Instead they will see some old time values. In a home that knows right from wrong. Indeed my coffee table has a Bible, some Jewish picture books by Roman Vishnial and the likes, The Jewish World of Yesterday 1860-1938, a healthy family picture album, Norman Rockwell's depiction of what American life used to be, plus some happy healthy reading material not bought in a mylar package.
It's high time to wake up and smell the coffee. And put our homes in order.