Althouse: "Madonna had the outfit ready to go. She was really proud of it and said it was her 'Terror Bride' costume."

October 8, 2012

"Madonna had the outfit ready to go. She was really proud of it and said it was her 'Terror Bride' costume."

"She had paraded around in it and said she was going to wear it in her next music video. At first when people started telling her it was madness she just brushed it off. But when they mentioned that her actions could put her life at risk she decided to ditch it from her video and certainly won't be wearing it on stage.''

(Via Instapundit.)

64 comments:

cubanbob said...: So she decided she likes living after all.; 10/8/12, 11:39 AM
Wince said...: Madonna's a "Terror Bride", no costume required, even naked.; 10/8/12, 11:42 AM
Sam L. said...: The jihadists have won, haven't they?; 10/8/12, 11:42 AM
Anonymous said...: Maybe not just her life, maybe the lives of her children. It's OK to sacrifice your own life for a statement you want to make, but sacrificing the lives of innocents, is it worth the statement?; 10/8/12, 11:49 AM
Ann Althouse said...: There's also the audience. She brings in huge crowds, which sets the stage for a terrorist attack... and the mere threat of an attack could wreck ticket sales.; 10/8/12, 11:50 AM
kcom said...: "is it worth the statement?"

Yes, let's surrender to the crazies every time. We'll turn the heckler's veto into the murderer's veto. That way lies freedom.; 10/8/12, 11:51 AM
Automatic_Wing said...: Maybe not just her life, maybe the lives of her children. It's OK to sacrifice your own life for a statement you want to make, but sacrificing the lives of innocents, is it worth the statement?

Way to completely miss the point. LOL.; 10/8/12, 11:51 AM
The Crack Emcee said...: Via Instapundit.

Keeping us abreast of the important issues.

Hey - what's on Frisky or Your Tango today?; 10/8/12, 11:54 AM
Bryan C said...: "sacrificing the lives of innocents, is it worth the statement"

No one is being "sacrificed" for anything. One person is speaking. The other party is murdering. There's no cause-and-effect except in the deranged minds of the murderers. I refuse to dignify their stupid and imaginary pretexts for violence.; 10/8/12, 11:58 AM
dbp said...: It is all about ticket sales. Do: Offend people who will loudly complain and thereby give free publicity. Don't: Offend people who will kill you.; 10/8/12, 11:58 AM
Anonymous said...: You have a choice as to whether you would attend that concert, do her children have a choice in having their lives put in danger because their mother wanted to make a statement that would make crazy people crazier? And what would that statement truly accomplish?; 10/8/12, 12:03 PM
chuck said...: Wasn't one of the reasons that Sinclair Lewis didn't mention that he knew Sacco and Vanzetti were guilty was that anarchists were actually dangerous?

A big point in Hitchen's favor is that he was consistent, and courageously so.; 10/8/12, 12:03 PM
Bryan C said...: "There's also the audience."

True. I don't blame Madonna for changing her mind. Now she can stop pretending to be a boldly transgressive radical speaking truth-to-power, and re-focus on being an aging pop star who exchanges glimpses of her boobies for occasional news coverage.; 10/8/12, 12:06 PM
Anonymous said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 10/8/12, 12:07 PM
Matt Sablan said...: "You have a choice as to whether you would attend that concert, do her children have a choice in having their lives put in danger because their mother wanted to make a statement that would make crazy people crazier?"

-- If she didn't want to make them crazier, she would not have leaked this story. This story getting out there will be just as offensive to the people who are actually liable to be offended. She just lacks follow-through and courage to insult people who won't sit there and take it.

In short: Madonna's just a bully.; 10/8/12, 12:08 PM
Anonymous said...: I'm not denying that her choice in the end, had no selfless purpose, it could very well have to do with ticket sales alone, but if she were a good mother she wouldn't put her minor children in such a situation. Of course you are free to disagree, I'm sure you will, one of the blessings of living in a Democracy.; 10/8/12, 12:09 PM
Matt Sablan said...: I see no reason to disbelieve the quoted piece. Madonna was fine with insulting people; it wasn't until she learned she might face unpleasant consequences to herself that she canceled.

I'm also too lazy to click through and read the whole thing.; 10/8/12, 12:12 PM
Chef Mojo said...: Madonna has always been a coward. She's also as edgy as a beach ball.

Speaking truth to power? What a joke.

There was a time when dissent meant pledging your lives, fortunes and sacred honor. It also meant that of your family.

Madonna? Not so much. She is a washed up entertainer who never deserved or earned the "dangerous" reputation that she's purported to have. She always picks the easy targets. She's a cultural bully.; 10/8/12, 12:21 PM
Strelnikov said...: Oh, it is soooo typical of you conservative Christian nuts to criticize her! She made her point by wearing it in private! Now she'll have plenty of time to work on a new piece deploring the awfulness of the Catholic church. Take that, heaters!; 10/8/12, 12:26 PM
Strelnikov said...: Obviously, that should say "haters" not "heaters", although I do like the sound of "Catholic Heaters". Sounds like a band name.; 10/8/12, 12:28 PM
test said...: kcom said...
"is it worth the statement?"

Yes, let's surrender to the crazies every time. We'll turn the heckler's veto into the murderer's veto. That way lies freedom.

The key takeaway is not that Madonna's a coward for not appearing in the terrorist dress. It's that she's a poseur for pretending to be edgy by mocking a Christianity when she - and everyone else - knows doing so presents zero retaliatory danger to herself.; 10/8/12, 12:28 PM
Methadras said...: Hmmm, not as fierce as she used to be. Sad.; 10/8/12, 12:28 PM
YoungHegelian said...: @Strelnikov,

Don't make me come over there and smack you with my thurible!

But, Catholic Heaters would make a great band name....; 10/8/12, 12:31 PM
Ralph L said...: Catholic Heaters
For burning incense--and heretics and Jews when it's really cold.; 10/8/12, 12:51 PM
Sigivald said...: A "statement against oppression of women and war"?

Does she not realize that it's rather hard to stop the former in a dictatorial/theocratic state without the latter?

I wouldn't mind pop stars being idiots if they weren't so cocksure that they were deeply insightful and clever.; 10/8/12, 12:54 PM
Anonymous said...: EDH, I think you misspelled "especially".; 10/8/12, 12:57 PM
gerry said...: their mother wanted to make a statement that would make crazy people crazier

Crazy people. You mean Muslims, right? Or at least Islamists, right? And since the Islamists are crazy, they needn't be in control of themselves, right? WE have to control them.

That's a lot of mind control.

Wow.; 10/8/12, 1:02 PM
Anonymous said...: Gerry, the Islamists should most certainly be in control of themselves, good luck getting them to do it. I'm sure they will comport themselves as you wish, because you demand it.; 10/8/12, 1:05 PM
TWM said...: Inga, please don't go into your whole "yeah we can do it but we shouldn't because it might offend people and when they get offending they kill us and it's our fault then because we should not just offend people for the fun of it" mode again.

The last time you did it, it was quite embarrassing for you.; 10/8/12, 1:19 PM
TWM said...: Anyway, Madonna's actions are typical of the people who say they are anti-religion when, in fact, they are anti-Christian. They don't have the balls to bash Islam because they know they won't just get prayer-circles and boycotts in response.; 10/8/12, 1:22 PM
Anonymous said...: TWM, I wasn't embarrassed. That's all that matters to me, what makes you think that I should care about your opinion of me? It's best to try to control yourself, not other people.; 10/8/12, 1:22 PM
edutcher said...: Madge has just found out all those Christians, and particularly Catholics, she hates so ostentatiously aren't so bad, after all.

They will put up with her denigrating their morals and beliefs and her attempts to corrupt their children for a quick buck.

The Moslems will be the judge, jury, and executioner she's always claimed her own people are.

Go on, Madge, wear it. Show 'em what you're made of.

(and when the suicide belt goes off, we'll certainly see); 10/8/12, 1:28 PM
TWM said...: "TWM, I wasn't embarrassed. That's all that matters to me, what makes you think that I should care about your opinion of me? It's best to try to control yourself, not other people."

Well, it should have embarrassed you. Your whittling away at free speech with that "self-control" nonsense is dangerous. If it were just you no one would care, but when the left is trying to stretch the "crying fire in a theater" limitation to just simply offending someone that should worry all free people.

We have the right, and sometimes the obligation to offend people. To mock and disagree at the top of our lungs. How they react is 100% on them.; 10/8/12, 1:33 PM
kcom said...: "The key takeaway is not that Madonna's a coward for not appearing in the terrorist dress. It's that she's a poseur for pretending to be edgy by mocking a Christianity when she - and everyone else - knows doing so presents zero retaliatory danger to herself."

I agree with that, too. After posing for 50 years as the courageous, transgressive set defending free speech and expression, most of these "artists" have proven to be all talk and no action. When the World War II generation was called to defend our values and way of life, they put aside personal concerns and did what had to be done, quietly, at great personal risk to themselves in a war the brutality of which couldn't be foreseen. This current group, on the other hand, after blathering for decades about how great they are, finally gets their chance to show true courage and they run away.

So really there are two issues -
1) Society as a whole and how it deals with insane Islamism, i.e. we cannot grant them a murderer's veto.

and

2) Individuals, and whether their deeds will match their self-inflated opinion of themselves. They don't have to do brave, transgressive things against Islamists. But if they don't have the courage to stand up against the greatest threat to intellectual freedom of our time (as the World War II generation stood up) they need, as you observe, to dump the self-congratulatory praise they routinely heap upon themselves. Truth in advertising, and all.; 10/8/12, 1:35 PM
Anonymous said...: No TWM, It would be odd if I cared what strangers on a political forum thought of my opinion. You are free to disagree with me as I am with you, but when you get personal it only reflects badly on you.

Is Madonna's "speech", so precious that it's worth the danger it poses to her children? Not in my opinion and I am free to have one and you are free to disagree, but I most certainly do not need to be embarrassed by my own opinion. That is controlling of you and doesn't fit your narrative of respecting free speech.; 10/8/12, 1:42 PM
Quaestor said...: Former Oop wrote: Do her children have a choice in having their lives put in danger because their mother wanted to make a statement that would make crazy people crazier?

Muslims aren't any crazier than any other adherents of religion. Stop making excuses for evil.; 10/8/12, 1:44 PM
Baron Zemo said...: We should all tailor our speech and activities to kowtow to muderous barbarians. That is what our fearless President would do.

"The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam."; 10/8/12, 1:47 PM
Carnifex said...: Paraphrased from Franklin for Inga's easy digestion--They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

Those Who Sacrifice Liberty For Security Deserve Neither.
He who would trade liberty for some temporary security, deserves neither liberty nor security.

He who sacrifices freedom for security deserves neither.

People willing to trade their freedom for temporary security deserve neither and will lose both.

If we restrict liberty to attain security we will lose them both.
Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.

He who gives up freedom for safety deserves neither.

Those who would trade in their freedom for their protection deserve neither.

Those who give up their liberty for more security neither deserve liberty nor security.; 10/8/12, 1:50 PM
Quaestor said...: Three things are certainly true about Madonna:

1) She's a contemptible coward. Madonna has made a career of assaulting the sensibilities of others, mostly others who could be counted on to take the abuse in silence.

2) Madonna is not in fear of American soldiers reaction to her intend to equate their faithfulness to duty with terrorism. (You can guess who she really fears, can't you?)

3) Madonna does not know the difference between irony and jejune sarcasm.; 10/8/12, 1:52 PM
PatCA said...: Now that Madonna's middle-aged and more and more sounding as dated as a hippie, she should examine her own life, not ours.

Humility, Madge. It helps to deal with life's little paradoxes, like why such an edgy artist like you can't afford to offend as many people as you thought.; 10/8/12, 1:54 PM
Quaestor said...: Correction: intent; 10/8/12, 1:54 PM
Anonymous said...: Quaestor, Islamists aren't crazier than Christian Fundamentalists? I think Fundamentalists of every religion can be dangerous, but I don't think Christian Fundamentalists have sunk to the same level of Islamists.; 10/8/12, 1:55 PM
gerry said...: It's best to try to control yourself, not other people

You are allowing yourself to be controlled by other people. What's worse, you advcocate others to allow themselves to be controlled by other people.; 10/8/12, 2:02 PM
Anonymous said...: Gerry, some speech is truly precious, I don't consider anything Madonna "says" to be of any value, much less putting others lives in danger over, but I would not agree with her not having the right to make it.

No government agency forced her to make her decision to not go through with her precious "statement". It was a good decision, whether it was for the safety of her children or lost concert ticket sales.; 10/8/12, 2:09 PM
TWM said...: "No TWM, It would be odd if I cared what strangers on a political forum thought of my opinion. You are free to disagree with me as I am with you, but when you get personal it only reflects badly on you."

Look, if we are disagreeing on something innocuous - like what color we prefer for drapes - that's one thing. But when you propose we should limit our speech because we might offend someone and that, once offended, any violent reaction they have towards us is somehow remotely our fault, well, then yeah I take it personally. You want to restrict your rights that's fine with me, but don't expect me to just follow along because you think it's best.

"Is Madonna's "speech", so precious that it's worth the danger it poses to her children? Not in my opinion and I am free to have one and you are free to disagree, but I most certainly do not need to be embarrassed by my own opinion. That is controlling of you and doesn't fit your narrative of respecting free speech."

All speech is precious. The fact that you don't see that is quite embarrassing. As to my being controlling, well, that's just nonsense. You are free to say what you want and others, including me, are free to voice our opinions otherwise. If you decide to stop talking that's on you since, like I said, you are free to restrict your own speech all you want.; 10/8/12, 2:09 PM
TWM said...: "I don't consider anything Madonna "says" to be of any value,"

So who gets to decide what speech has value? You? Me? The government? Islam? Christianity?; 10/8/12, 2:11 PM
Shouting Thomas said...: This is what I really hate about Dylan.

It's not Dylan, but what he brought into the music scene, the damnable political bullshit.

I won't listen to any musicians prattle about politics. That's why I've always just refused to listen to Madonna.

Dylan writes a level above political bullshitting, but he inspired generations of copycats to try their hand at what he does... and they almost uniformly fail.

I hate politics in music. I loathe musicians who like to pretend that they are "revolutionary" and "rebellious." Really, who gives a shit? Well, I guess somebody does.

That said, Madonna's been busted, hasn't she? It's all been bullshit about how tough and courageous and rebellious she is. She's just a coward when faced with the real prospect of violence.; 10/8/12, 2:12 PM
Anonymous said...: TWM, no one gets to decide, she made the decision for HERSELF. You are attempting to make it appear as if I am saying she doesn't have the right or shouldn't have the right to free speech. She does, again the decision was hers, not the governments or mine. I have the right to say her speech is crap, but we all have the right to crappy speech.; 10/8/12, 2:24 PM
Shouting Thomas said...: Yes, Madonna certainly did make the decision herself.

After all the years of infantile posturing about how brave she is, she chickened out.; 10/8/12, 2:28 PM
Anonymous said...: And one more thought, not all speech is precious, what is precious is the RIGHT to it.; 10/8/12, 2:33 PM
sakredkow said...: It's Dylan's fault.; 10/8/12, 2:40 PM
Shouting Thomas said...: At least, now the truth is out.

The allegation that Madonna has made a career out of leveling at Christians is bullshit.

No Christians aren't intolerant. The don't have a Madonna/Whore complex. Christians don't want to punish their daughters for being sexual, or to beat and exile them if they become pregnant.

That was Madonna's act. It was all bullshit.

She's come up against the people who really espouse the ideas she professes to be courageously mocking, and she collapses and runs.

There is real evil out there in the world. Madonna doesn't have the guts to fight it. She was, and is, just a spoiled brat sticking her tongue out at a doting Daddy.

She always knew that Daddy really loved her and would tolerate just about anything.; 10/8/12, 2:55 PM
chickelit said...: She always knew that Daddy really loved her and would tolerate just about anything

Madonna lost her ciccones and is trying to get them back.; 10/8/12, 3:22 PM
Methadras said...: Inga said...

Gerry, the Islamists should most certainly be in control of themselves, good luck getting them to do it. I'm sure they will comport themselves as you wish, because you demand it.

Muslims, islamists, and jihads everywhere will be gone in a generation or 2. Iran alone has a negative birthrate I've never seen before and an exodus by it's people. Like all death cults, it too will be gone soon enough. You are watching a pre-medieval, unreformed religious movement in it's death throes because it is a moon god worshiping death cult.; 10/8/12, 3:59 PM
furious_a said...: Now she can stop pretending to be a boldly transgressive radical speaking truth-to-power...

...and embrace the Old-and-Busted 80s reunion tour that she has become.; 10/8/12, 4:34 PM
Aridog said...: Madonna is a master at publicity. She's purveying ignorance again and everyone's paying attention.

What is, pray tell, a "Muslim Bridal Dress?" She hopes all y'all think it is one kind of outfit?

Try again.; 10/8/12, 4:42 PM
Aridog said...: Inga sez ... ... we all have the right to crappy speech.

Yes Mam, and Madonna has made a career of it. In this case, she's just prevaricating ... nobody of any substance actually told her squat diddly about her life in danger for wearing a dress she portrays as a "Muslim Bridal Dress."

Why would they...she hasn't clue one about what such a dress might be...since there are at least a dozen varieties per country. I doubt Mz M has ever even been to a Muslim wedding.

She got her pathetic owe, ahh, moment.; 10/8/12, 4:52 PM
Zuni said...: They are not crazy...

"Islam says: Whatever good there is exists thanks to the sword and in the shadow of the sword! People cannot be made obedient except with the sword! The sword is the key to paradise, which can be opened only for holy warriors!; 10/8/12, 5:13 PM
bgates said...: I'm sure they will comport themselves as you wish, because you demand it.

I'm sure you will comport yourself as they wish, because they demand it.; 10/8/12, 5:22 PM
chickelit said...: I understand that some women/girls have been or have felt inspired by Madonna. I never got the hype. I think saying that Madonna is good for women is a bit like saying Andrew Dice Clay is good for men.

*shrug*; 10/8/12, 5:33 PM
Zuni said...: Not at all my friend, not at all...; 10/8/12, 5:37 PM
sakredkow said...: Back in the day she was the "immaterial girl". These days, when I listen to even less corporate music, I give her a grudging respect for survival. And I confess I thought that was a great performance of hers at the Superbowl.

Good wishes Madonna. Whatever.; 10/8/12, 6:05 PM
Kirk Parker said...: chuck,

"A big point in Hitchen's favor is that he was consistent, and courageously so."

Amen!

Though, all things considered in their proper relative importance, I'd say Brian C has the absolute best of it @ 12:06pm.

Transgressive shmansgressive.; 10/8/12, 9:18 PM
Kirk Parker said...: Inga,

"I wasn't embarrassed."

So much the worse, then. You're trying to make it, here, just about Madonna being free to do or not do what she wants; but over there it was very clear you were saying, "Don't say stuff if it will arouse the crazies".; 10/8/12, 9:22 PM