Word: postmodernism
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...think of Pierre Trudeau as the first big-time postmodern politician. He loved to repudiate conventional partisan ideologies, and if in the end that served his partisan goals, well, there would be just the little Gallic upturn at the corners of his mouth. He had a near-perfect understanding of the possible uses of celebrity. With a little jacknife off the low board here if a photographer was positioned right, a lively judo tussle there (again, photographers were present), a rose in his buttonhole, a pretty woman on his arm, he knifed through dowdy Canadian politics like the classy skier...
...accusing Madonna of hypocrisy is not only futile, but nave. She is evolution. She exists on the momentum of contradictions, on the trajectory of postmodern appropriation. Always on the lookout for new material, Madonna is an artistic migrant--she moves from subject to subject, from body to body, to claim (or reclaim) a plot of the cultural landscape. Whether it's S&M, Indian yoga, geisha fashion, or now ruby slippers and cowboy gear, Madonna inhabits each new specter so effortlessly and completely that we have to believe her. Sure, she can't act onscreen but the reason...
Somewhere in all of this postmodern muddle lies the reason that Madonna is, in fact, still relevant. The music. Now pay attention to this next sentence, because it's a bold statement, but it's absolutely indisputable. No other artist in music history has taken as many risks as Madonna, as many unnecessary risks simply for the sake of art. Sure, you can point to someone like Bjork or musicians on the fringe, but Madonna's case is singular. She never needed to change, she never needed to evolve. Every Mariah Carey record is the same. Every Whitney Houston record...
...Angels won't be the only ones employing their feminine mystique in theaters. Renee Zellweger gives insanity a girlish charm in Neil LaBute's comedy Nurse Betty (Sept. 8), and in December Nicole Kidman stars as Paris' most seductive courtesan in the postmodern musical Moulin Rouge. Kate Hudson is the heart and soul of Cameron Crowe's coming-of-age movie Almost Famous (Sept. 15), an ode to '70s rock that's already gathering momentum in this year's Oscar race. Helen Hunt is unstoppable this season, romancing Richard Gere in Dr. T & the Women (Oct. 13), starring opposite Kevin...
Margaret Atwood's 10th novel should equal or surpass the popular appeal she achieved in The Handmaid's Tale (1985) while maintaining her consistently high literary achievements. English professors will relish the postmodern trick--a novel with a novel within a novel--that gives The Blind Assassin (Doubleday; 521 pages; $26) its title. The less theoretically inclined can simply kick back and marvel at Atwood's gripping tale, which stretches from World War I almost to the present moment. At the center are two sisters, Iris and Laura Chase, daughters of a wealthy Canadian manufacturer who is ruined during...