The album cover for Madonna’s 2012 “MDNA” LP
Madonna has had quite a start to her 2012 year. It kicked off with a multi-million dollar performance at the Suberbowl Halftime Show (Singer, M.I.A was a tabloid hit following the performance in which she flipped the camera off). A few days after the performance Madonna announced her new album, titled, “MDNA” would be released in the spring, followed by a full world tour in the summer and fall of 2012. Criticism hit the singer in the face after the announcement due to the album title possibly being a reference of the drug MDMA (ecstacy). When discussing the album on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Madonna explained that the album’s title has a triple meaning, representing both her name and “Madonna DNA.” She also implied that it’s also a reference to the drug MDMA, or ecstasy, which provides “euphoric feelings of love.”
Shortly after it was announced that Madonna’s album title “MDNA” may be a drug reference, Madonna made a surprise appreance at Miami’s Ultra Dance Festival in March 2012 to premiere the new remix of “Girl Gone Wild” with headlining DJ, Avici.
Madonna Performing w/ Avici At Ultra Dance Festival in Miami, 2012
The singer came out onto the stage and made a quick speech before Avicis set began. A speech that would include Madonna asking the enthusiastic crowd, “Has anyone seen Molly tonight?” Assumably a reference to the drug Ecstasy, Madonna was instantly ridiculed by fellow musician Deadmau5, who stated on his facebook; “Very classy there madonna. such a great message for the young music lovers at ultra.” Madonna quickly responded via twitter a simple message; ‘From one mouse to another I dont support drug use and i never have. I was referring to the song called Have You Seen Molly written by my friend Cedric Gervais who I almost worked with on my album.’ The feud between the two artists ended there. The controversy surrounding the song, however, did not. (2)
Madonna smoking in her new video.
Madonna is no stranger to her videos being banned (“Justify My Love” and “Erotica” were both banned for sexually explicit content in the early 90’s). Madonna’s new video for her single, “Girl Gone Wild” (the second to be released from MDNA) was released in March 2012. The videos content was considered too racy for the youtube audience and a tamed down version of the video replaced the now, “Unrated” version. The graphic video contains scenes of a Male dancer, fully nude sitting in front of a mirror as well as eight male dancers worshiping Madonna while she sings, “I’m a bad girl anyway, forgive me.”
Madonna’s daughter, Lourdes, caught smoking.
After the videos release, Madonna’s 15 year-old daughter Lourdes was caught by a paparazzi smoking a cigarette. “She didn’t get that from me.” Madonna said in an interview with Brian Williams. “I wasn’t very happy.” (3) When asked if her video for “Girl Gone Wild” (which features scenes of the singers puffing away at a cigarette) might be to blame for her daughter smoking, Madonna said, “She smoked that cigarette before I did that video, so she didn’t’ get that from me, OK?” The single would also cause conflict with Joe Francis (the man who created the franchise of the same name) who claimed that Madonna had taken his franchise and used the name to get media attention, though it was clearly trademarked. The original title “Girls Gone Wild” was then changed to “Girl Gone Wild” to avoid a lawsuit.
Madonna’s “MDNA World Tour” kicks off this summer and will run into 2013. Madonna is expected to perform the single in the show. Many wonder what she will do with the song and how she will present it.
For our second group project, Amanda, Jacob, Sinade and I had a great time planning and putting together our skit. The first step was writing. Initially we wanted to combine several fairy tales together and make them one. After spending some time in the library we decided that wasn’t going to work out. We decided to write a sketch about a man stealing handbags. From there the ideas just came flowing out. We all added our own little ideas and plots to the story which was awesome. It was a fair amount of work shared between all of us, and most of our ideas were actually used in the final sketch. We all had open minds on what each other thought should happen and it came together so smoothly. This project was much easier then the last one because we had experience working with one another and knew how each others schedules worked out. I don’t think we ran into any issues on planning get together over the weekends. We met several times. The best was when we did a “table reading” type thing at my house on a Sunday afternoon. We were all on time to everything and didn’t have any issues without each other on meeting times. We got together three Sundays, and placed our skit together. The only problem that we ran into was on our dress rehearsal day when a member of our groups belongings were stolen while we were practicing. Fortunately the items were found!Memorizing lines was the only issue as a group that I think we had. On performance day we all pulled through, and did a fantastic job. One thing we could have done differently was maybe adding more comical moments to our skit. While there were some included, we all felt that it was a bit dry so the day before out performance we got together and added a few extra funny moments for the audience. I do think we could have spent more time and maybe had one additional practice before the show so that we could have added more. I also feel like our choreography was a bit rushed and a little confusing, but again we pulled together in time for the performance and were all very proud of the outcome. I enjoyed this project more than the first because we got to actually act and add our own personalities to the skit. I had so much fun working with my group and I think we all became a solid working unit together. I’m going to miss working with them because I think we all learned a lot not only about acting and performing but about ourselfs and what we were capable of. I thought the names in our skit were awesome and very satirical as well. A group effort gone very well! All and all i’d say this class has helped me a lot with confidence and performance and I would love to continue with acting classes in the fall!
MADONNA 