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 I have been intrigued by the saga that is Madonna for sometime. When I see her in an interview, I stop and listen. She always has this very strong presence that shows she has been through a lot. Then again, how does she present herself as this classy devoted mother in her photo spread in Vogue and then as a sultry, scandalously clad pop artist in a music videos? I wonder what her shrink knows about her, whether she is bi-polar or something.  Perhaps one of the reasons I watched her from afar growing up was that her voice always reminded me of my (birth) mothers. It was deep and firm, with a surreal mother earthy tone to it. 

 (Picture created in photoshop with very little sleep!)

 As if the name didn’t serve as a prelude to the matriarchal pride that Madonna has built for herself since the birth of her two children, she has recently been all over the press for adopting a boy from an adoption agency in Malawi. At first, I thought this was pretty repulsive. But what do I know? I had my suspicions that this was an attempt at a pr move which has since proved pretty ineffective, possibly even damaging, to her public figure. She plans to go on Opera Wednesday for further discussion.

Watching Nancy Grace (during commercials in The O’Reilly Factor) tonight, I got to see this whole thing hashed out a bit. As it turns out, Madonna has been working with adoption organizations and causes in Malawi for a few years now, before the process of adopting herself. She likley picked this country as it is close to her heart already. She seems to have truly wanted to provide this little boy a good home. Having met with the birth father and gone through the “process”, it seems to me that she adopted with good intentions. The father, who placed his son as a baby in the adoption agency a year ago after the death of the boys sisters and mother, is now claiming that he did not give permission to this adoption, which has the media boistering enthusiastic headlines that victimize him and villianize Madonna. However, let’s be clear that he has gone from saying that he absolutely knows what is going on and wants to give his baby to Madonna, that he does not know who she is but that he knows she will be a good mother, etc, to claiming the exact opposite today. One woman on her program, founder of an organization to adopt African children, has worked with this process from Africa for over 20 years. She urges us to understand the culture of Malawi, in which a father who can not provide for a baby if the mother has died will very very often place that child in care and come back for them when they are about 4 years old. They never gave permission for adoptions and if this happens, they are often illiterate and confused by the process. Once they realize they will never see their child again, they begin to ask more questions. She believes this is what has happened. Others say the father is going to ask for money. I sort of doubt that. I think that is there has been a confusion, the adoption officials are to blame for it. I think both Madonna and the birth father might have had a different version of what was going on, and are know having to deal with what to do now.

Anyway, once we have a few more facts like these, it is much less a matter of evil Madonna doing a few African dances while slithering her way into the Malawi adoption process for a pr move that might pan out similar to the humanitarian efforts of Angelina Jolie.

Why am I even devoting an entire blog to this?

I don’t know. Like I said, I sort of follow some of the major Madonna moves for some reason. It’s a similar reason why White Oleander was such a compelling book for me. These eccentric, powerful matriachal figures are a spectacle to me. Though I wish I didn’t sometimes, like watching the scene of an accident. I can’t help but look on, but really I don’t want to cause it might throw me in a funk for awhile.

 Anyway, adoption is also an interesting process to me, and so is PR and the spin they place on stories to make the nation have one big collective grumble about the otherwise private life of a celebrity.

What’s your thoughts? Does anything I found out from Nancy Grace make you think a little differently about the Madonna adoption fiasco? (If we start up a discussion at the message boards, I can consider this “getting out” for the day! HA!)

Well, I’ll try to catch Opera and see what else comes of all this.

P.S. Made the round trip two hours south today to retrieve my car that I had the accident in. Very tired. Must sleep now.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 23rd, 2006 at 11:39 pm and is filed under Motherhood, Pop Culture