Regardless of how I (or you or anyone) feel(s) about Madonna's music, her performance style, or her personality/persona, what bothers me is that about 90% of what I'm hearing/reading/seeing in terms of people commenting about her right now has little or nothing to do with the music. It mostly has to do with the way she looks and her age. As in, she looks old. Or what the heck did she do to her face? Or what the heck did she do to her body? Or even if she doesn't look old, she's too old to be dressing that way or showing her body that way.
Regardless of how it's done, "aging in the spotlight" tends to generate lots of criticism for celebrities (especially celebrity women), no matter how they choose to handle aging /whether they handle it naturally or unnaturally or somewhere in between. They're trying to look too young for their age OR they look old and are not trying hard enough OR somehow both at the same time or some other harsh looks-based critique. So does that mean once you hit a certain age and/or look a certain age, you just shouldn't allow yourself to be in the spotlight at all anymore? You should just make yourself invisible? You should just die?
What also bothers me in regards to the age related looks-based criticism is that it seems like more than half of the people who criticize other women's bodies, dress styles, and other aspects of their appearance are other women. Why is that? Because since we're judged, we want to judge others?
Of course we all have our own styles and points of view and nobody has to automatically like or approve of anyone's else's styles or automatically agree with anyone else's points of view. But with women, why does it so frequently have to be a looks-based, age-based, body focused sort of critique? The criticism and insults, I mean. But heck, even many supposed compliments directed at women seem to work that way too, such as, "You look so young for your age" or "You don't look a day over 30 or 40 (or some other age that is significantly younger than your actual age)" or "You haven't aged in years" insinuating that looking good is based on looking younger than you actually are.
But then at some point, we supposedly hit an age where looking younger than our actual age or dressing younger than our actual age (whatever any of that even actually means or whatever the heck the age is where we hit that point) suddenly starts to make us look silly or ridiculous or like some sort of embarrassing spectacle to be looked down upon and mocked and made fun of for trying to portray ourselves as younger than we actually are.
As far as I'm concerned, we all have our own styles and we should all choose to dress (and otherwise display and express ourselves) however we choose to dress (and otherwise display and express ourselves) and do whatever we choose to do with our own style and voices and faces and bodies, regardless of our age or size or other people's standards. We're going to be criticized no matter what we do, unless we completely invisibilize ourselves.
In case anyone isn't aware of this, the reason I mentioned Madonna at the beginning of this post is because different posts about her have been showing up the last few days, catalyzed by her performance and appearance during the 2026 MTV VMA's, which were on this past Sunday night (I didn't watch the show, because I didn't realize it was on until afterwards, but I watched some videos afterwards to get an idea for what people were commenting about).
Again, she (and anyone) can dress however she chooses to dress, she doesn't have to stop dressing or performing a certain way because she's a certain age or because of other people's opinions or criticisms.
But also this is not just about Madonna. It's about how so much of what we choose to publicly comment on regarding women (especially their appearances and how they choose to express themselves) is focused on their age and their looks and their personal style and personal expression. Their clothes and their body types. They're too old to be wearing this, they're too young to be wearing this, they're too big, they're unhealthy, they're too little, they're probably anorexic, their dress style is too revealing, their performance was over-sexualized, which would be perfectly fine if they were this particular age and had this particular body type according to this particular person or this particular magazine or this particular algorithmic robo-cop.
Madonna might not care all that much about other people's negative comments about her, because she still has plenty of people who support her and admire her too, regardless of online, social media critique and criticism, which granted every well known celebrity is going to generate, but with women it does seem to be more about their bodies and their age than it is with men.
Again, she (and all of us) can wear whatever she chooses to and present herself however she chooses to. She can show as much of her body as she wants to. She can pull a laser pointer out of her ass if she wants to, because it's her ass. She can do whatever she chooses to do with her own body.
But none of this means that men (or anyone else) can do whatever they want to do with a woman's (or anyone else's) body, without the other person's consent.
Sometimes I feel like some parts of what generates so much criticism of women's bodies is because some other women are uncomfortable with their own bodies and thus criticize women who feel free to show off or publicly display their bodies and some men don't like the fact that they can't be in control of whatever woman's body they desire to be in control of, so they harshly criticize or make fun of women who choose to display their bodies for their own reasons and by their own chosen set of personal standards.
(On a side note, I'll admit this post of mine is not specifically addressing cosmetic surgery, which is also a personal choice to an extent, but which could also generate a whole different post)
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