![]() Understanding "Like a Virgin" as an anthem for bachelorettes makes sense to Karen Tongson, a professor at the University of Southern California who studies, among other things, karaoke. Like a virgin, brand new, pure."Ĭara Awill-Lyba, a clubgoer at the Pyramid, told NPR she played "Like a Virgin" at her own bachelorette party, precisely because it's an anthem about reinvention: "Which I think every woman should do whenever she feels like it." Or every man, suggested attendee Oscar de la Cruz: "Someday, when I get married, I will play 'Like a Virgin.' And I fantasize about wearing a white dress and rolling on the floor." ![]() ![]() Learning to love - and be loved once again. "We're talking about a second chance at a new beginning. "That's like, the most requested song when we have bachelorette parties," says Maria Narciso, who manages The Pyramid Club in New York, a nightspot where Madonna used to dance - and the site of a yearly "Maddonnathon," where diehard fans dress up in cone bras and rubber bracelets and dance to her hits all night. The general public tends to see it as just titillating, because Madonna was titillating. They still wear the white dress."Īnd that's perhaps why the song's become an especially beloved anthem - for bachelorettes. She points out that even at today's weddings, "There's the theater of being a virgin. "It just seemed really obvious that she should wear a wedding dress - and not just a wedding dress, but like, the grandest wedding dress that was ever created," Lambert says, recalling Madonna's interest in juxtaposing the sacred and profane. Filmed in lavish Italian palazzos and on the canals in Venice, the video featured gondolas, a live lion (requiring an armed trainer on set the entire time), and Madonna prancing around in virginal white. Lambert directed Madonna's original "Like a Virgin" video - at the time, the most expensive in MTV's short history. "She's just this roaring zeitgeist," director Mary Lambert says affectionately. The documentary Truth or Dare, which came out the following year, chronicles the brouhaha when Toronto police threatened to arrest Madonna unless she censored the song. Or how she made headlines in 1990 during her Blonde Ambition World Tour, when she simulated masturbating while singing "Like a Virgin" onstage. Take the time in 2008 when she dedicated its performance to the Pope. But beyond that, the singer expertly revived the song every few years as a flashpoint for outrage. 1 single, topping the charts for six weeks. "Like a Virgin" became Madonna's first No. "And you knew it was scandalous because they then showed the audience of all these seasoned rock and roll veterans watching her with blank expressions - like, ' What is this?' " "She rolled around on the stage and the cameras went right up the wedding dress," Rettenmund remembers, diplomatically passing over the moment when Madonna rapturously humped her wedding veil on the floor. Then a teenager, he would eventually write the exhaustive, 600-page Encyclopedia Madonnica. Madonna shimmied through the number in an abbreviated wedding dress accessorized with dangling crucifixes and a silver belt emblazoned with the words "Boy Toy." But it was her provocative moves that sent American eyebrows soaring.Īt the time, Matthew Rettenmund was glued to the screen. The furor really began during the first MTV Video Music Awards in 1984, two months before the song's actual release. Debates over Madonna's "Like a Virgin" have raged everywhere, from the opinion pages of the Chicago Tribune to the opening scene of Quentin Tarentino's Reservoir Dogs. Some pop culture just lends itself to being argued over - and when it's the type that pokes fun at purity, sexual norms or religion, controversy is almost guaranteed. Editor's note: The following story may not be appropriate for all ages.
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