Whenever I’m feeling down or dejected, unsure or unsteady, I play this performance by Madonna, and I feel a little bit better. I put on the wardrobe for the day, I march into wherever I’m supposed to be, and I rock it like a star. This was Madonna’s Oscar performance of ‘Sooner or Later’, and it never fails to move me.
Here was a woman playing to a less-than-embracing audience (the Academy has never liked her, let’s be frank), and in the face of such veiled hostility she comes through like a champ. If you’ve never been disliked, you can’t know how difficult this must have been. If you’ve never been the target of rumors or gossip or simple talk, you can’t know the loneliness. And if you’ve never walked into a room full of people watching and whispering, you cannot know the immense fortitude something like this takes. I have luckily never had to face such a firing squad – not in this sort of arena – and thank the Lord. But I do know what it’s like to be talked about, to be judged, to be watched and rendered all sorts of things you never were. And that’s why I love this.
