The Madonna-Whore conundrum

With Bellita leaving The Gendersphere, no-one will feel her absence more than me.
She was the one to hand me 'The Crazy Pill' that saw me start up this blog, a crazy pill that I subsequently handed to BeijaFlor by his own account :-)

As Bellita and I both note, we had a certain synergy going.
When she leaves, where am I going to get my ideas from?

I am grabbing as much as possible while she is still with us in the Gendersphere.
My latest poach from our dear Bellita actually comes from someone else who commented on her blog.

Bill writes, in response to Bellita'a post The face of Mercy:

"My best friend reminded me the other day that much of classical English literature portrays women as either the Madonna or the Whore. Neither model is wholly accurate and few women fit neatly into one category or the other.
Yet much of the thesis of Gender Feminism is that Woman’s natural state is the Madonna: virtuous and noble.
Much of the Manosphere categories women as the antithesis of the Madonna: the Whore. They see all women as venal and self-centered.
The more accurate model of reality probably lies in the synthesis of the two. A few women are outliers on either extreme. Most are a mix of the two.
The problem with that is how to develop rules for men to follow in such a complex world. In the United States, the legal system has been so permeated by two dogmas:
1. “All women are inherently vituous, until proven otherwise”, and
2. “All men are selfish, irresponsible and stupid.”
That combination has made marriage a fool’s errand for men.
We men want virtuous women whom we can turn to for mercy. Unfortunately, the gender feminism message coming from American society is, “Ladies, you are virtuous by nature. Your wants, no matter how base and selfish by patriarchal standards, are naturally pure and wholesome. You Go, Girl!”
As that mindset becomes more widespread and more deeply ingrained in all aspects of Western society, the “treat all women like whores” model looks better to men."


I always sit up when I hear a man express a deeply-felt sentiment such as this.

For two reasons:
1. I am inherently primed to be 'grateful' when a man 'talks'. That in itself is a kind of 'treat'.
Seriously.

2. It is a chance to reflect on a shared experience of sorts.
It is a great opportunity to sink or swim.
That is, swim with a man or sink with him to the bottom of the sea, figuratively speaking.

Or at least flail my arms wildly in his vicinity hoping he will rescue me from my impending drowning :-)

So, does Bill have a point?
My overwhelming response would be, 'Oh yes Sir, most definitely!'

On a related note, Bellita herself also brought in (on a post on this blog) the related concept of the perception of women as Maiden, Mother or Crone.
Which, to my simple mind is the depiction of the three main stages of a woman's life, (in the same way that we might intuit that the three stages of a man's life are something of the order of 'Page boy, Prince or King') and there is room to suppose therefore that the Madonna-Whore spectrum still applies to each of these stages to relative degrees.




I guess this post should really have been titled 'Film Review: Maria di Nazaret'.
Because Bill's comment took me back to this Italian film which I recently watched over Easter depicting the life of Our Lady.
It is of course a play on the more famous 'Jesus of Nazareth' exploring the life of Jesus.

I am not sure it is available in English. But if I may digress, of course there are many biblical films like this one in English which are shown around Christmas time and Easter. Pre 'Maria di Nazaret', my favourite one was 'King of Kings' for the sole reason that the 'Mary' in that one is so unbelievably beautiful. (With my Manosphere goggles on, easily a 10 :-) The casting team certainly did their job very well in that one.

And then of course there is the film by Mel Gibson that caused all sorts of controversy, not least because worldwide, no fewer than 6 people died from heart attacks watching it.
The film, 'The Passion of the Christ' was so raw in its depiction of Christ's suffering that I can see how it can draw out emotion in its audience.

More on 'Maria di Nazaret' later.

But first, my own thoughts on the whole Madonna-Whore thing.

For the life of me I don't know how this happened, but I shall hazard a guess or two as to how and why the opposite ends of the spectrum of female chastity became so entrenched in one another as to be deemed almost (and absurdly) interchangeable.
I do agree with Bill in that no woman is exclusively one and not the other.
Everything in life is a spectrum.

But I can tell you, as a former convent girl, I have had my fair share of this confusion.
A confusion which is definitely not helped by the antics of another former convent girl, aptly named 'Madonna' but given her public behaviour, is anything but.
A confusion not helped by recent reports of a certain Prime Minister with a penchant for under-age prostitutes and 'bunga bunga' parties where female participants are dressed as nuns.

By the way, on the subject of Madonna the singer, I realise that 'Madonna' was in fact her real name, and not a stage name. It was her mother's name - a mother she lost quite early on in life.
(I have a lot of sympathy for this reason).
But...and there is always a but.

I have always wondered what the deal is with Madonna.
In fact I could easily write a whole post just on her - for she seems to singlehandedly embody the whole Madonna-whore debate.
I don't understand the whole thing with her seemingly obsessive 'imitation' of Our Lady - with titles of her songs/albums such as 'Like a virgin', 'The Immaculate Collection', 'Like a prayer' and so forth, all the while churning out gratuitously graphic material which are so explicit as to elicit a ban from The Vatican, a step which is fairly unusual by The Church.
And then she names her daughter 'Lourdes'...

I don't get it...
But then again, maybe I am not supposed to.
They do say that imitation is the highest form of flattery.
But this is the most unusual form of flattery I have ever come across.
All I want to know is, is Madonna confused or sinister?
Yes we all know that sex sells. But does one have to go so far to earn a bob?

Let's just say that there have been depressingly woeful moments in my life where associating myself with a convent school was not the smart option.
Because of this confusion.

Let's just say I am on intimate terms with the whole Madonna-Whore debate.
As are, I guess, most women.

I have said before that there are some locker rooms I will not enter. This is one of them. But I shall hover on the threshold of this one long enough to say that it may be not so much a locker room as an enclave of the great unwashed.

It does not escape my notice that the whole association between the Madonna and the whore may have come about as a result of what I would call 'faulty womanhood'.

No man could have come out with that fantasy unless somewhere somehow a woman created it.
I am joining up some murky dots here, I know.
The same murky dots can be found in the association of children and said fantasy.
Think the pop industry.
Think Britney Spears and her school uniform outfit in 'Baby one more time'.
And of course, that's not the very worst of the pile.
But in the interests of keeping The Sanctuary relatively clean...


We reap what we sow.
With that I make my hasty retreat from the locker room door.

I am however not totally humourless when it comes to this issue.
I can see (very much so!) that there is a funny element to the Madonna-Whore complex.
The film industry has exploited this to good effect.
If anyone has seen Robbie Coltrane and Eric Idle in 'Nuns on the run' or Whoopi Goldberg in 'Sister Act' you will know what I am talking about. Sister Act is particularly funny. You haven't lived if you haven't seen this film (and its sequel) or the musical :-)

Of course there are more traditional films based on nuns, such as 'The Nun's story' and 'The Sound of Music' too. But these are relatively mild compared to what we are talking about here.



Back to 'Maria di Nazaret', one thing bothers me about his film. I may be nit-picking here, but it happens to tie in perfectly with the whole Madonna-Whore thing, so I shall pick away...

In most depictions of the life of Jesus, eg. in the films mentioned above, Mary Magdalene, a woman of let's just say, less than desirable repute until she is forgiven by Jesus, is a woman who becomes a friend of Mary's, in the sense that Mary takes her under her wing and they become involved in a sort of mother-daughter relationship.
At least that's my interpretation of things.
I find it ridiculous of course when it is suggested by the anti-Christian crowd that Mary Magdalene becomes a 'girlfriend' of Jesus.
I think it is more likely she becomes a sister of Jesus due to the arrangement she has with his mother.


Anyhow, the unusual feature of this film is that Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Jesus are depicted as childhood friends whose lives take on different paths and who remain friends despite the Grand Canyon of a gulf that separates them as their destinies diverge at a given point in their young lives.

The ultimate in the Madonna-Whore divide.

Somehow, I find this angle a little distasteful.
I am not sure why the idea that the mother of Our Lord was best friends with Mary Magdalene before  and during the time she was a prostitute bothers me so much and not so much the idea that they were friends after she was 'made clean' again.
Is this my 'prude within' coming up for air?

I dunno.

But it does leave a bitter taste in my mouth somewhat.
It smacks of a 'Charlotte-Samantha' friendship ala 'Sex and the city' and I don't like it.

I am neither Madonna nor whore.
Like all women, I am somewhere in between.

But it won't ever sit well with me to see the ultimate Madonna depicted as BFF with the ultimate whore at the peak of her whoredom.

That's just not right.





Excuse the Italian in the following videos. Like I said above, this film was an Italian production and I can't find a version with English subtitles.
Any requests for a translation should be directed towards Danny, our resident Italophone :-)

This scene resembles 'The Passion of the Christ' in its brutality. Please avoid if you have a tendency to heart trouble.