Madonna & Missy Elliot's GAP commercial.....

oh say it ain't so, Jean Reno!

including their own product?

Faithfull does it -- a bit surprising, seems to be a sell-out, but secretly sorta cool ("Hey, I never thought that someone like Burroughs/Iggy/whoever could be well known this way.")

Madonna/Missy does it -- they're already mainstream figures with a whole image and place based on what they do as performers, so seeing them directly associated this way is a bit of a downer.

Might that be it?

(and no the ad didn't disappoint me, since i had no expectations when i heard about it...as with everything else she's done this decade, it's sub-par but again as with all her recent mistakes: it is mirwais' fault. he should be blamed for this ad! oh and btw, at this point one case easily say no one but hipster/hip-hop historians will care all that much for missy elliott in 2019)

Cut an ad that serves Gap,
Slam a war, ignore the flap.
Talk real posh, now raise a kid,
Act just like Diana did
But still you'll never get it right,
cos when you're bored in bed at night,
watching Missy take it all,
if you ditch your Guy you could stop your fall.

Sing along with the common people,
sing along and it might just get you through,
laugh along with the common people,
laugh along even though they're laughing at you,
and the stupid things that you do.
Because you think that being them is cool.

"Mad-hatas"? "Opportunism and integrity"?

I'm so tired of people not even reading my posts and caricaturing me. I said nothing about opportunism or any such thing. I only noted how genial the ad was, how it reminded me of Sesame Street in its sunniness and use of long shots, and how it seemed a bit *too* genial to sell soda cans.

I'll ask for an apology, but I don't necessarily expect one.

and knocking my posting style which is often much more casual (and typo ridden) than yours, or saying that you "get a certain relief" in believing in your superiority/my stupidity compared to you, certainly DOESN'T help remove the "smug" brush from your reputation - a bit condescending, isn't it? and goes further to prove my theory that people who have mondo problems w/ madonna or find her repulsive or insufferable or whatever, usually hate fun (unless they direct their passion towards dubious substitutes i suppose, like...killing joke? =)

I do find Madonna hard to take insofar as her interviews and pretentions to political outspokenness go, which I think is what people were discussing when I called her "insufferable."

I couldn't care less whether people appear in advertisements, nor did I say anything about careerism (pro or con) which I think was the substance of the debates here.

For a start, leave Killing Joke out of this. Secondly, you're making a giant leap by thinking I have a huge problem with Madonna. I don't, and I own and enjoy a few of her records, actually. If I did, in fact, loathe her, I wouldn't have been so surprised at this Gap ad, nor would have I have found it as tragic as I do. I actually have higher expectations for the woman, which is why I find it so tragic that she's pulling such a desperate stunt. I get the impression that it's not the lack of success of her record that's distressing her, but rather the gradual erosion of her relevance that is causing her to make such rash decisions. She should be above such concerns.

>For a start, leave Killing Joke out of this

and nah, i disagree. i don't think madonna is as concerned with her star waning as much as with her assets decreasing, since she views everything through financial eyes first. this was a business move, as is the upcoming publishng of the children's books (in multiple languages?! etc.), to a lesser extent. maverick has had a tough time following up on michelle branch's success, and now even branch wants out. she needs to find herself another alanis or something soon, since these days no record label can afford such a long dry-spell without calling it a day, and i think she's milked her star leverage to keep the company afloat as long as he could. besides, her star is still shining at an even, consistent wattage outside the US, as the album sold between 8 to 10 million copies in the worldwide market, not counting north america. but she knows that she need to solidify her domestic sales again and soon, or else maverick sink faster than you can say "candlebox"

I have lost all respect for Missy Elliot over this. She can go fuck herself.

...And people are FASCINATED by the ad. They stand there in little groups, frozen, staring up at the screens. (Occasionally, they'll break into little conversations about whether or not Madonna's "still got it," etc.) The level of attention is a little unnerving: you'd think they've never seen televised images of these entertainers before. Anyway, by this barometer, the commercial sure is popular.

(But totally, altho when that came out i was like "who's the oddly-familiar fuddy-duddy with Michael?" Paul didn't seem very concerned with still "having it," it just seemed like a laugh.)

"Say, say, say what you want but don't play games with my affection
Take, take, take what you need but don't leave me with no direction"

...and you set them on fire, I trust.

Madge's bills can't be that tight, surely.