If you ever had any doubt about how much of an impact Madonna had not just on pop music, but in promoting social causes and progress, a recently resurfaced interview from the early '90s is here to give you a quick history lesson!
During the 1990 Immaculate Collection era, the legendary pop singer-songwriter released a sexy AF music video for her single "Justify My Love" that caused controversy all over the world and was banned from MTV and other TV networks for being way too risqué for the mainstream sensibilities of the time.
Madonna made an appearance on ABC News' Nightline program to defend the music video and talk about her artistic choices when creating "Justify My Love." As was usual with the time, Madge was hit with prudish accusations of trying to corrupt children with overtly sexual imagery, but she wasn't having it, and her responses about how people should be more open to discuss sexuality were absolutely perfect.
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"I think that sexuality is something that Americans would really rather just sweep up under the rug," Madonna said at the beginning of the resurfaced clip.
When the Nightline host goes on to say that children could get confused by seeing sexuality on screen, she continued:
"Good, then let them get confused and let them go ask their parents about it, and let their parents explain to them that it is a sexual fantasy and that these things exist in life, like they see violence, it exists in life. It’s not a pretty picture necessarily, it’s a frightening thing, but it’s a reality. Why are we willing to deal with the realities of violence and sexism and why aren’t we willing to deal with sexuality? Why? The networks won’t even play ads on TV that are about condoms, about birth control, about practicing safe sex. We’re pretending like we don’t have a lot of teenagers that are having sex in the world right now. Why are we subjecting ourselves to this kind of ignorance?"
The host then goes on to tell her that it should be a parent's job to teach children these lessons, not celebrities, but she also had an A+ response for that quip too!
"Well guess what, they’re not doing their job," Madonna said. "Teenage pregnancies in this country have reached a highest high. We have sophomores in high school that are having their second babies already. And the rate of AIDS is rising in the heterosexual community at a really frightening rate. So why is that? These parents are not doing their jobs."
Once the clip of the interview started making its rounds on the web and going viral, many were quick to weigh in on the importance of the biggest pop star in the world at the time publicly speaking up about sexuality and health education during a time where people were largely silent about it.
"When young queer people don't understand why us olds love her so much, I try to explain that at the height of her popularity, Madonna was pushing an agenda that frightened people when nobody else was and she had everything to lose but she did it anyway..." drag legend Peaches Christ shared on her Twitter about her love for Madge.
"Y’all say what you want about thee icon Madonna but she was always saying the things a lot of others weren’t," added Pose star Johnny Sibilly.
While a lot has changed since the early '90s and a lot more people with platforms use their voices for good now (in fact, it's expected), it's always good to be reminded of how much progress has been made and who was there to help us get to where we are today!
