Flaawsome Talk with Kjersti Flaa - What No One is Saying !!

00:00:00.000 We have to admit it, Madonna is still provocative, and we are having a really difficult time watching it unfold.

00:00:13.760 Hi and welcome to Flossom Talk, I'm Sjæstie Flår, journalist, Hollywood truth teller, and your voice of reason in a town built on delusion.

00:00:22.840 I'm sure you've seen some of the commentary surrounding Madonna's performance at the VMA on Sunday.

00:00:30.580 This was her first performance in 30 years at the VMA, by the way.

00:00:35.000 The last time she was on that stage, she was kissing Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera.

00:00:41.520 But this time, people reacted very differently to her behavior.

00:00:46.820 It was all about stop pretending you're 20, you're embarrassing yourself,

00:00:51.380 you can't move anymore. Stop wearing outfits like that. Just accept that you are old. Yeah,

00:00:59.000 stop what you're doing right now, Madonna. I mean, we've been watching her for 40 years,

00:01:04.120 so why is Madonna wanting attention suddenly something really shameful? Why do we call

00:01:09.920 ambition admirable when women are in their 30s, but embarrassing when they're 68? I mean, 1.00

00:01:17.180 what did we really expect madonna to become did we expect her to stop being provocative as she

00:01:23.680 aged i'm always reinventing myself so that i can keep being myself we have to admit it madonna is

00:01:32.860 still provocative and we are having a really difficult time watching it unfold but does that

00:01:40.300 say more about us than it does about madonna i mean i grew up with madonna she was provocative

00:01:46.400 she broke every rule, she was controversial, every performance was smart, it was political,

00:01:53.980 it was creative, artistic, and she was not afraid to express herself. Side note here, I remember

00:02:00.300 when Like a Virgin dropped in 1984. I was 11 years old and I loved it. I had no idea what a virgin

00:02:08.520 was, but I remember I just loved it. And back then, every time Madonna received criticism,

00:02:14.660 she just responded with being more provocative.

00:02:18.060 So when and why did we expect Madonna to change? 1.00

00:02:21.820 And do we expect her to change because she's a woman?

00:02:24.600 I mean, let's be honest.

00:02:25.720 The Rolling Stones, for example, have heard this for a few decades already,

00:02:30.480 that they're way too old to be rock stars.

00:02:33.440 But the criticism towards them is more like,

00:02:36.480 can you still move like a rock star?

00:02:38.860 With Madonna, it's more like, should she be sexual still? 0.69

00:02:42.520 Should she be wearing that?

00:02:44.260 should she really want that type of attention? I mean, we should all be allowed to criticize her 1.00

00:02:49.840 performances on stage, but should she surrender her personality and who she really is because 0.98

00:02:57.080 she got older? I think it's something really sad about watching our old idols, pop stars, rock stars

00:03:06.700 grow older. And one of the reasons for that is because it reminds us of our own mortality.

00:03:13.980 Madonna has done more or less everything in her power, I believe, to make herself appear younger.

00:03:19.680 And I have to admit, I do find some of the changes that she's done to her face a bit unsettling. But

00:03:25.180 she's also an artist, so I think we have to look at it a bit differently. Her appearance is a part

00:03:31.620 of her performance. And in the music industry, we always kind of welcome the extremes and things

00:03:38.060 that look artificial. Artists often turn themselves into characters. They use their bodies, they use

00:03:45.240 makeup, they use clothing, and they use images to provoke some kind of reaction. And here's the

00:03:51.640 interesting thing. We do allow these experimentations with your looks, with your appearance, when it's

00:03:58.880 not about trying to look younger. So I believe that we judge Madonna differently for her appearance

00:04:05.460 because we believe that she's doing it to appear younger. I have no age. I'm all ages but my light

00:04:14.260 will never fade. Not everyone is coming to the future but I am. I'll keep going. Remember when

00:04:22.560 she was wearing or introducing the cone bra. It was on the Blonde Ambition tour in 1990, and Madonna

00:04:30.200 was in her early 30s, and she had just released her fourth album, Like a Prayer, which was

00:04:36.700 intentionally very controversial, and she had just pissed off Pope John Paul II, who was calling for

00:04:45.160 a boycott of the album. Also, Pepsi wasn't very happy. They were supposed to do a collaboration

00:04:50.980 with her but they dropped the plans they had to use her song in their commercial. At the time

00:04:57.800 Madonna told the New York Times that art should be controversial and that's all there is to it.

00:05:03.440 The Cone bra at the time was the perfect follow-up for the conservative backlash for wearing this bra 0.65

00:05:10.240 that oozed old-fashioned femininity while Madonna was using it to show off her muscular body 1.00

00:05:17.560 representing authority and power. 1.00

00:05:20.420 So when we look at that and we compare it to the butt lift

00:05:24.200 or the implants that Madonna was wearing on stage

00:05:28.060 for the VMA on Sunday, 0.64

00:05:30.560 she was wearing either it's real butt implants 0.81

00:05:34.060 or it was prosthetics for her performance. 0.98

00:05:37.220 I don't know, but her butt had a very unnatural shape. 0.88

00:05:41.700 But that is provocative in a very different way. 1.00

00:05:44.560 An older woman insisting to remain looking sexy. 1.00

00:05:49.200 Today we remember that bra as an iconic statement about female sexuality and power. 0.97

00:05:54.880 So why should we look differently on the silhouette she served us on Sunday? 1.00

00:05:58.900 Yet now people are saying she looked ridiculous. 0.93

00:06:01.960 Why don't she accept her age? 1.00

00:06:04.220 Back then we challenged Madonna for showing her sexuality on her terms. 0.99

00:06:09.440 And today we're challenging the fact that an older woman is refusing to surrender that.

00:06:15.700 In the reactions coming from that performance on Sunday, a lot of people said, 1.00

00:06:19.580 Oh, look at her. She thinks she's 25. She has to realize she's 68. 0.97

00:06:25.240 I have to admit, I'm guilty of it too. 0.66

00:06:27.340 When I watch Madonna stumbling around on those high heels, 0.95

00:06:31.240 all I can think of is please get safely off that stage and don't break any bones.

00:06:36.880 I think Madonna has become a very convenient target for feelings people struggle to confront

00:06:43.180 in themselves. The fear we have of losing attractiveness, being relevant, freedom,

00:06:49.840 and the sense that life still holds possibilities for us, even when we age. And instead of dealing

00:06:56.240 with those feelings in ourselves, we direct it outwards. We say to Madonna, she looks desperate, 0.94

00:07:01.860 she needs to accept her age. Yeah, I wonder how much this rage against Madonna is based in fear.

00:07:09.180 Our own fear of getting older and our own fear of being invisible and the fear of wanting things

00:07:14.980 that we wonder if we're no longer allowed to want. Yeah, Madonna is the perfect example to what

00:07:21.480 happens when you get older, but you still want the attention and you still want the excitement.

00:07:27.000 you still want to be sexy, you still have ambition.

00:07:30.500 I think it's so much easier to call her desperate

00:07:32.980 than to ask herself, why is it so uncomfortable

00:07:36.720 that a woman her age wants those things?

00:07:40.580 And maybe there's some resentment too.

00:07:42.700 If you spend years telling yourself,

00:07:45.060 I'm too old for that, I'm too old to wear those clothes,

00:07:48.240 I've stopped dreaming because I'm getting older,

00:07:50.900 I don't want attention anymore,

00:07:52.440 I don't think I'm attractive anymore. 1.00

00:07:54.360 And I think watching another woman break all those rules can kind of become a little offensive. 1.00

00:08:00.340 Because we all follow those rules, so why do you get to break them?

00:08:04.020 I remember having a conversation with a friend of mine the other day.

00:08:06.820 We played tennis together and both of us just agreed that we're too old to wear tennis skirts. 0.99

00:08:12.500 And I don't think this goes for all women.

00:08:14.700 I think some women want to be sexy their entire life and some women just don't.

00:08:20.420 I never strive to be sexy myself.

00:08:22.760 I was always more interested in the fashion part of clothing and not necessarily showing off

00:08:30.020 whatever I had to offer and maybe it's because I've always been like five foot ten and I felt

00:08:36.260 like especially growing up I was so tall I was taller than all the boys in my class and I didn't 1.00

00:08:41.240 like the attention that that brought but that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with women

00:08:45.980 who wants to express themselves that way their entire life but anyways there's another very

00:08:51.580 interesting aspect to this. I think that the stars that we grew up admiring or watching or being fans

00:09:00.440 of, we want to preserve them exactly the way that we remember them. I think especially stars that we

00:09:08.340 grew up with, we have some kind of emotional attachment to them. They represent the feelings

00:09:15.180 and emotions that we had back then and maybe we just expect madonna to make peace with aging

00:09:22.440 because we haven't made peace with it ourselves and we want to protect her legacy but who does

00:09:28.080 her legacy belong to does it belong to madonna herself or should it be the audience memories of

00:09:34.880 her so what do we actually want and expect from madonna do we just want her to be old like the

00:09:40.400 rest of us and just act her age like the rest of us? Are we just allowing people to be free and do 0.99

00:09:47.300 whatever they want as long as it makes us feel comfortable with it? Does the image of Madonna

00:09:52.500 make us feel freer to grow older or more frightened of looking older? I've never met

00:09:59.040 Madonna personally, but I was watching this interview, this special that she did with

00:10:04.760 graham norton recently because of her new album she did like a special an hour special with him

00:10:10.920 and i was watching it i think it's on bbc the other day and to witness someone like graham

00:10:17.160 norton become so visibly nervous interviewing someone was really interesting to me the whole

00:10:24.280 conversation was kind of awkward and it was so clear to me how protective madonna is she does

00:10:31.540 not want to show us any of her insecurities. She doesn't want us to know who she really is. 0.80

00:10:38.640 She just wants us to see her as a performer, as a character. And I think watching that interview

00:10:44.600 made that so clear to me. And I found this quote from her. This is from about 10 years ago at the

00:10:51.120 Billboard Women in Music Award, where Madonna said, I stand before you as a doormat. Oh, I mean,

00:10:57.840 as a female entertainer. Thank you for acknowledging my ability to continue my career for 34 years in

00:11:04.500 the face of blatant sexism and misogyny and constant bullying and relentless abuse. And then

00:11:12.180 she said, wait a minute, isn't Prince running around with fishnets and high heels and lipstick 0.98

00:11:17.620 with his butt hanging out? Yes, he was. But he was a man. She also looked back at how she was 0.98

00:11:24.520 criticized for setting feminism back and she said so I thought oh if you're a feminist you don't have 0.94

00:11:31.280 sexuality you deny it so I said f it I'm a different kind of feminist I'm a bad feminist

00:11:38.380 anyways let's look back at these performers at the VMA the numbers are in and this VMA of course

00:11:46.940 it's criticized everywhere and people are like oh it's rigged oh it doesn't represent all kinds of

00:11:53.100 artists, blah, blah, blah. But apart from that, it did actually have 51% more viewers than last year.

00:12:02.760 And it's the biggest audience for this show since 2015. That's 11 years. And the audience peaked

00:12:09.600 during Madonna's performance. So 15 million people actually tuned in to see Madonna perform next to

00:12:17.980 Sabrina Carpenter and Charlie XCX. So it's very interesting how people are telling Madonna that

00:12:24.280 she's old and she needs to act her age and whatever but still everyone wanted to watch her.

00:12:31.220 So these are just facts. People want to watch Madonna perform and everyone is talking about

00:12:37.720 Madonna and isn't that exactly what Madonna wants? I think the most controversial thing I've ever done

00:12:44.900 is to stick around i'll keep going today tomorrow and the next 100 years

00:12:52.160 anyways that's it for me today you guys let me know what you think in the comment section

00:12:57.800 should madonna change should she act her age should she stop wearing those clothes or should

00:13:03.500 we just embrace her for what she is thank you so much for watching and thanks for your support and

00:13:10.360 for the tips if you have anything you want me to talk about please send tips to tips at

00:13:15.420 flawsome talk.com and of course if you haven't subscribed please do and hit the notification

00:13:21.260 bell so you never miss an episode of flawsome talk and i'll see you soon

Flaawsome Talk with Kjersti Flaa - October 02, 2026

What No One is Saying !!

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