What Madonna Knows

What’s most striking to me about the videos is how Madonna retains the power to scandalize each generation anew—even teenagers nourished on a cultural diet of Euphoria and hard-core pornography—with her adamantly sexual self-presentation. “Lost her mind,” one TikTok commenter wrote as Madonna, wearing a black lace fetish mask, simply stared confrontationally at the camera. About a clip of her waving her arms in a diamanté cowboy hat, her chest festooned with chains, a cheerful-looking boy posted, “Someone come get Nana she’s wandering again.”