Madonna: The Girlie Show

Introduction

Enter the clown. And so he does. The first thing the viewers see is a creepy clown, dressed in a blue silk outfit, white silk hugging him around the collar. His hair and his face are covered, his identity as much of a mystery to the audience as to anyone else. Perhaps even to himself.

But that's a whole other can of worms.

This wild tour that took place in the latter part of 1993 cemented Madonna's image as a sex-obsessed woman, right off the heels of her 1992 Erotica album and coffee table book with explicit photographs and sexual fantasies, simply titled Sex.

In this tour there is more sexual themes than you can shake a stick at: S&M, reversing traditional gender roles, crossdressing, a simulation of group sex, and an odd neck-humping taking place during Madge's rendition of Peggy Lee's classic "Fever." Nevertheless -- or perhaps because of -- it is a magnificent tour, one that I was not blessed to see live, but one that was recorded and taped. It's not the real thing, but it's an incredible simulation.

Madonna was joined in this tour by her two back-up singers, Donna De Lory and Niki Harris, who, admittedly, are in the giant shadow cast by the small figure of the Queen of Pop. This tour also sheds some light on Carrie Ann Inaba's talent as a dancer: 25 at the time that the tour spread its seven legs, she, at times, danced topless and splayed her umbrella under the showers of the Gene Kelly-choreographed Madonna ballad of "Rain." A beautiful moment in the concert.

Anyway, in organizing the tour, Madonna called on her brother, Christopher Ciccone (one of the masterminds behind the Blond Ambition Tour); he was assigned as Tour Director for this show, overseeing the choreographers and tying up the loose ends to make this a great show (and it certainly was).

As in most Madonna concert shows, her performances are divided into bite-sized segments to make it more easily digestible for the audience, for the performers, and for the behind-the-scenes crew. The Girlie Show is cut up into four pieces: "Dominatrix," "Studio 54," "Weimer Cabaret," and "Encore."

Out of the 17 song-and-dance numbers set up to the dazzle eye, I've selected what I feel are the six best performances in this string of songs: "Fever," "Express Yourself," "Deeper and Deeper," "Like a Virgin," "Bye Bye Baby," and "Justify My Love."

A sparkling production that is near perfection, I still enjoy it whenever I watch it, even after all this time. But enough of this blather. Let's get to the point and get down to it!

"Fever"

The third number in the show; the breaking of the cherry, the blossoming of the rose. Only this performance was not as beautiful as all that. It is not romantic, it is not coming-of-age, it's not any of that. It is merely sexual, somewhat detached, but nevertheless entertaining and fun to watch.

From upstage, Madonna struts down the stage with a stomp-stomp-stomp-stop pattern, holding the audience in the suspense at her next move. First, she removes her skimpy black jacket barely covering her shoulders for the previous performance. In her tame striptease, off comes her S&M blindfold -- and you see the real girl greeting her audience.

Bright-eyed with a pixie-cut of blonde hair, donning false eyelashes and a great big rosy-red smile, she appears nothing like the overly horny girl she tries to portray. In this moment she seems sweet but confident, if a bit intimidated by the crowds before her. But this does not sway her cocky image.

Launching into her cover of Peggy Lee's classic song, "Fever," Madonna is anything but classy and elegant: she is tough and gritty, like the bark off a tree.

Joining her onstage are two male dancers and she is sandwiched between the two of them. It's very clear she enjoys the presence of the African male more, who, at one point simulates anal sex with her. But she will have none of it as she cannot choose between the two men, dancing between one and then other, humping the other man's neck while holding hands with the reincarnation of Sodom.

Anyway, in the lyrics: "Captain Smith and Pocahantas/Had a very mad affair/When her daddy tried to kill him/She said, 'Daddy, oh don't you dare/He gives me fever'" addresses this unusual trio that is often too much a problem in reality: the girl, the boyfriend, her father; the most confused party, of course, being the latter.

The issue remains unresolved (as it probably does in real life), as Madonna holds hands with both men simultaneously, and the odd threesome walk up the catwalk to the mainstage, sinking down below the floor on a descending stage, singing, "What a lovely way to burn," engulfed in a belching fire and perhaps finding themselves in their favorite netherworld haunt.

"Express Yourself"

Fresh off the slightly blue and sentimental Gene Kelly-choreographed number of "Rain," "Express Yourself" presents itself as exactly as what it is: an introduction to the wild nights of the "Studio 54" theme with its flashing and pulsating rainbow lights, and Madonna descending from the air on top of a flashy disco ball, accompanied by her back-up singers, Donna De Lory and Niki Harris.

With Madonna's blonde afro safely in place, she pays tribute to Marlene Dietrich's style in the 1932 film Blonde Venus. Wearing fuchsia platform shoes, purple sequin hot pants, and a wildly decorated bra beneath a flimsy blouse loosely tied, that she, indeed, does not keep on for long.

Singing her 1989 hit, "Express Yourself," perhaps her most feminist and you-go-girl song to have graced any of her albums, she taunts with the words: "So if you want it right now/Better make him show you how/Express what you've got/Oh baby, ready or not."

Connecting with her audience members, grinning at her subtle suggestions and lyrics, she shows all her gay pride in all its glorious colors of pink, yellow, purple, and green beyond the rainbow.

Pretty swag, eh?

"Deeper and Deeper"

To get this bang beginning, Madonna wiggles on stage, walking away from the audience, a male audience member (a plant to add to the entertainment) jumps up on the stage and joins her, stripping his Madonna Tour t-shirt and pants off and revealing that he is, in fact, wearing sequin hot pants as she is, only his is pink. The Material Girl feigns surprise but is clearly intoxicated by the boldness by this staged but exciting presence of this young man.

As a whole formation of freakishly dressed dancers join the Madame onstage, it is clear how they perceive themselves: outsiders all of the same kind, a type of friendly and musical cult, who's got each other's backs in times of trouble and tribulation, and, what the heck, in times of orgiastic buffets as well. Why not?

The gang of 1970s ne'er-do-wells dance with another from one lip of the stage to the other, flaying their limbs as the electric guitar screams to this gay anthem. Madonna, not at all coy or subtle, but ever provocative and in the prime of her life, shaking her hips, while a dancer picks her up and they fake intercourse upon the stage.

And they're not alone.

The whole tribe is indulging in one big feast of orgasms as they simulate an orgy upon the stage. Somewhere along the way Madonna has lost her top and is just in her hot pants and colorful bra. In the collage of fucking dancers and hormonal freaks, Madonna's blonde afro slips off her head, and, with the beat of the drums, it melts to the next song.

"Like a Virgin"

After a short hiatus for Madonna to get into costume, she emerges from the depths of the stage on a steamer trunk, dressed once more as one of her idols, Marlene Dietrich, complete with the tuxedo, carnation in her buttonhole, a top hat, and a walking stick. And remember that spooky clown? This is his fourth trip upon the stage -- entertaining, terrifying, and humorous all in one.

While Madonna pretends to be more and more annoyed and vexed by this clown, she attracts the adoration of the audience, and urges them, in petite handclaps, to clap more, and the ever-obliging crowds do so. The clown is playing peek-a-boo with the singer, first spying on her performance, then finding himself on her level, and, quickly intimidated by her temper, runs for the hills and ducks back into the steamer trunk.

Though pursued by circus folk, Madge keeps herself focus on the thousands before her and not the freak she seemed to shed from her image from just a few moments before. Singing one of her earliest hits, she makes eye contact with an audience member, singing to him (or her): "Gonna give you all my love/Every drop/My fear is fading fast."

As the performance wraps to an end, the Michigan native, in her best German dialect that she can muster, fits the lyrics, "You made me feel/I've nothing to hide" as she strategically places her walking stick between her legs, and, with five beats of the music, she tilts it upward and upwards between her thighs as though she is sporting an erection.

Very cheeky, very androgynous, and a hard situation at hand, for sure.

"Bye Bye Baby"

Coming straight off the runway of her cabaret rendition of "Like a Virgin," her next song, "Bye Bye Baby" turns into a circus of crossdressing and traditional gender role reversal, all drawing from a song about dumping an inattentive and insensitive lover.

It seems, simultaneously, that her back-up singers, Donna De Lory and Niki Harris are added once more to the stage at the end of the catwalk as three young female dancers are a welcome addition to the main stage. The dancers wear feminine attire with fishnet tights and heels while the two back-up singers are donned in similar tuxedo garb to their Pop Messiah, Madonna.

Three men, three women. A perfect fit.

The trio of young female terpsichores strut down to the end of the catwalk to Madonna and her two back-ups, one of them being Carrie Ann Inaba (The Material Girl has her eye on this one). They act very much the part of the lady while the Queen of Pop, Donna, and Niki simulate acts of penetration as the girls sit in their chairs, legs spread to their annihilation and chauvinism. (Funnily, Carrie Ann, as she flounced her right leg out, bumped it into the dancer on the chair next to her. There ain't room enough room on this stage for the two of us, bitch!)

The girls attempt to dominate their "men" by wearing their suitor's top hats, but to no avail: the three fellows, dancing with their femme ladies, always hold the lead, and the dancing girls put the hats back on their man, conceding to the power of the male.

Only Madge gets the last laugh. As usual.

As the threesome of female dancers strut back towards centerstage, fed-up with their "male" counterparts' nonsense, Madonna quickly pokes fun at the male species by grabbing her crotch and speaking in her most calculated masculine voice: "Fuckin' sluts! They don't know what they're talkin' about! We know what we're talkin' about! Fuck women! Yeah, we fuck women!" And then, cluelessly, she looks from side-to-side at her back-up sisters and says, "We do?"

"Justify My Love"

Perhaps one of her spookiest and most thrilling performances, this number creeps upon the spectators and the lights dim to darkness, coaxing louder cheers from the spectators and spies. And that's what they really are at this point (delightedly so).

The light sheds itself over the dark stage and Madonna is revealed in a dark, Victorian Style dress, with a Mr. Peanut-style hat, a pair of glasses hooked on a necklace, and a black eyepatch on her left eye.

One by one, her gang of merry 19^th century thugs (also in Victorian Style garb), add themselves and lend themselves to the performance. It's a slow, methodical dance of one of the most sexual songs ever to grace the sounds of pop music. But there's no time for sexuality in this number: it's all about Halloween, madness, and hitting the highs of the spooktacular scales.

The Material Girl's dancers follow their leader, all approaching the thousands of spectators like an intimidating group of roaches. A slo-mo boogie-woogie down the catwalk and then back to the mainstage, her terpsichores are then shielded by a see-through white sheet, and, while they are struggling to be free, Madge can only study them with her pair of glasses to her one available eye. It resembles a painting by Salvador Dali titled "The Old Age of William Tell." O, what fierce lions they tried to be, fighting to free themselves of their confinement!

As the song wraps, the freed dancers retire to their wings of the stage beyond the eye of the spectators. Madonna, now alone, is standing on a slowly circling stage, fit appropriately for her small size and stature. It transports its passenger so that her back is facing the curious crowds. She spreads her arms in a most suspenseful way and steps away almost like a ghost, her long black dress hiding her feet. She proceeds to the checkered backwall of the stage, takes one last look at her faithful spectators, and, in madness, looks as though she is willing to walk into a dead end.

Conclusion

In my own personal opinion, The Girlie Show is beyond even what Blond Ambition is supposed to be. It got just about everything to perfection: choreography, organization, and theatricality. In the year of its birth, it grossed over $70,000,000.

The success of it can be disputed by a select few. As it was televised on HBO in late 1993, Madonna received a Grammy Award Nomination for "Best Long Form Music Video." Madonna once said around this time period: "By the way, if you ever hear me say, 'I'm never going on tour again,' don't believe me."

But not all the ropes of this little tale have been woven together. What ever happened to that creepy clown? Well, after all the song-and-dance numbers are through and after the red curtains are lowered in what seems like finality, it is not. They're raised once more to, who else, but the infamous and mischievous clown himself.

Removing the hair covering and mask, the clown reveals himself: it is Madonna. At this point in her career and personal life, she is her own clown, the world's clown. She grins with an impish smile, poking fun at her own image, and singing: "Everybody is a star."

With a twinkle in her eye and a quick wiggle of her boney fingers, the curtain comes down in a gradual sweep of Hollywood grandeur.