Matt Cain on Madonna: ‘She opened up gay culture to the mainstream’

UK newspaper The Guardian has seven articles today looking at Madonna ahead of her 60th birthday next month, here is the third by 'The Madonna of Bolton' author Matt Cain:

Madonna was a radical, brilliant pop icon who changed so many people’s lives. Mine included. I grew up in Bolton in the 1980s, at a time when no one wanted to say anything positive about gay people. If we were represented in the media, it was as disease-carrying sexual predators who couldn’t be trusted around children. The idea of gay role models didn’t even exist. And then along came Madonna.

I first became aware of her around the time Like a Virgin was released in 1984, and felt myself being drawn in, but I resisted. I’d been conditioned to be mistrustful of transgressive, rebellious women who expressed their sexuality. By the time the True Blue album came out in 1986 - I was 11 - I was starting to realise I was gay. And that made me sexually transgressive too.

Then came the Open Your Heart video. In it, Madonna played a stripper dancing in a venue for an audience that included a lesbian drag king and two gay sailors locked in an affectionate embrace. The thing about her that had been my point of contention suddenly became a point of connection. After that, I didn’t just enjoy Madonna’s work: she became like a spirit guide.

To read the rest of the article visit: www.theguardian.com/matt-cain