Madonna made me want to be a mermaid. I didn't care what Ariel said that same year – when I was just 8 – about flipping your fins, not getting far and yadda-yadda-yadda. I wanted to flip my fins, damnit. I wanted thingamabobs. But most of all, I wanted to be that cute kid in the "Cherish" video that Madonna scoops up and nuzzles and loves.
Was this every boy's dream? Probably. Madonna was larger than life (and she still is): a visionary, iconoclast, trendsetter, a pop cultural juggernaut, the it-girl and almost mystical enough to transcend reality – except I knew that she once lived only an hour from me. To a chubby, awkward, but mostly oblivious kid, she was more of a friend than an overexposed star.
As often as she made me feel good, she made me feel bad. Naughty bad. And sifting through her awesomely monster-sized, career-spanning video retrospect –
"Celebration: The Video Collection," released a couple of weeks ago – is like holding down the nostalgic rewind button in your head.
Her timeless nuggets of sexual spice and freewheeling fun – and even more so, the imagery of actually seeing her as a high-class stripper or donning a wedding dress or obsessing over a bullfighter – are reflections of self. There's "Cherish," and my fantasy of being a mer-boy; there's "I'll Remember," the bittersweet ode to my childhood BFF who moved away; there's "Into the Groove," to which I'd pretend – on roller blades in my neighbor's driveway – that I was a pro figure skater, double axels and all.
I felt cool when Madonna was around, and I never felt cool. But who knew adoring Madonna (and New Kids on the Block and Paula Abdul and Debbie Gibson) could be counterproductive to this goal? And yet I was still invisible, and the times I wasn't, I wish I had been.
I was incessantly bullied at the bus stop for innocently confessing to big-and-bad peers – who'd always ask, expecting something totally gay, I assume – what was playing on my Walkman. Often, it was Madonna: "She's so cool, and her music is awesome. I just love 'Vogue,'" I responded once, and then attempted to cover for myself, "She's pretty, too."
It was always awkward, and I knew what would follow: The inevitable razzing. But I was never too ashamed of going gaga over boy bands and divas (turns out it was also uncool, if you were a guy, to like Mariah Carey). Plus, I was just as screwed even if I didn't spill it. Risk parting with my "Like a Prayer" cassette? I'll take the black eye.
Oftentimes I imagined being the little peek-a-boo boy in "Open Your Heart," observing Madonna from a hesitant distance so my folks didn't think I was being a naughty Catholic boy. And oh how I wanted that kiss. And that peep show.
As she became sexually liberated, almost instantly shedding the punk image and going all sex-kitten – becoming more sexually overt in '90s videos like "Express Yourself," "Human Nature" and "Erotica" – she became otherworldly, the gatekeeper to a magical door that led to a grown-up universe. Fantasies seemed realer. Freedom seemed accessible. "Express yourself, don't repress yourself" – remember?
Entering adolescence, Madonna's tramp videos – which, after perusing them on the DVD as an unchaste adult who's been to a real strip club, seem much, much less smutty – were dirty enough to fulfill that on-the-brink-of puberty need without having to risk a grounding. MTV was, after all, a station I could watch; HBO wasn't. This meant I ogled over the sweaty bodies in her videos instead of tilting my head in multiple directions to piece together what's what in fuzzed-out episodes of "Real Sex."
But Madonna wasn't just the fuel to my sexual awakening. She was hope: I became a fetal-positioned baby while replaying "The Power of Goodbye" after I split with my first real boyfriend. She was escapism: From time to time, I YouTube "Cherish" as a pick-me-up, chuckling at the ridiculously fanciful thought of me as a merman. She was inspirational: "Like a Prayer" still lifts me. I grew up with Madonna, and though thankfully not in the same ways, we changed together.
