Appearing in a “feminist” t-shirt, mogul and music icon Madonna appeared last night (January 20) at the Brooklyn Museum as part of a discussion with painter Marilyn Minter. Naturally, the discussion turned to thoughts about the election.
Like many Americans, Minter was fearful of an existence under Donald Trump’s leadership. “This is the most frightened I’ve ever been. I’ve never been frightened by my government before. I’ve been really angry at them, and I’ve watched Nixon, the AIDS crisis and two Bushes, and this is like the first time everything is really upside down. What I thought was happening was not what was happening. The most qualified candidate that ever ran was beaten by the most unqualified candidate that ever ran because of misogyny, baked in misogyny,” said Minter (at 52:49).
Madonna said she was put off by Tump’s election, but also viewed his election as a wake up call. “I’m just as horrified as you are, but I do believe that Trump was elected for a reason: to show us how lazy and un-unified and lackadaisical and taking-for-granted we’ve become of our freedom and the rights that we have as Americans.And I feel like people forgot what was written in the constitution. They say it’s always darkest before the dawn. This had to happen to bring people together. So let’s get this party started,” said Madonna (at 54:28).
Later she added (at 56:38), “I feel like history is just repeating itself over and over and over again. Because our nature is to be several things, one is fearful of the unknown, scared of what we don’t know, what we don’t understand, and to react to that in fear in some pretty disgusting ways. But also, once we have something handed to us on a platter, which is freedom of expression, freedom of speech, freedom to have ownership of our reproduction, you know, all of those things, we take it for granted And when we start taking things for granted, we lose appreciation and we, it’s just something, it’s….. Everybody knows this, if you don’t appreciate something, you’re going to lose it. That’s it, that’s a universal law.
“This is the time. This is the moment. He’s actually doing us a great service. We’ve gone as low as we can go. We just have. The thing is, we can only go up from here. So what are we going to do to go up? What are we going to do? We have two choices, destruction or creation. That’s it. I’m going down the road of creation and you’re all welcome to join me,” she concluded (at 1:39:34).
In video below, panel discussion begins at 33:50.
