Anyone else finding the Graham Norton and Madonna interview uncomfortable?

[ChinaKing]

OMG this Graham Norton / Madonna thing is embarrassing. Anyone else feeling like it's just uncomfortable and almost scripted.

Watching now as well. She has this thing of trying to make inane things sound really deep. "Do you ever get the shivers?". Pretty sure everyone gets the shivers. Why not just "Oo, I just got the shivers".

She is just really boring. Graham is such a pro doing his best. He looked visibly relieved at the Kylie bit - thank god for someone normal.

I'd rather have listened to Stuart, the producer.

She's got that flat delivery style of Katherine Ryan. They're probably going to merge into looking the same.

I don’t think she’s ever portrayed herself as a crusading feminist wanting to break down barriers for women though? She appears to loathe most other women and the only person she’s interested in breaking down barriers for is Madonna. But she’s been very successful at doing that, and for almost 50 years shown it’s possible for a woman to smash a niche for herself, entirely on her own terms, within a misogynistic industry run by powerful men.

She has always projected her own power - even in the early 80s, around the Jellybean Benitez era, when men in the clubs and on the music scene in New York would openly mock and laugh at her, she gave no fucks and just kept going.

I think she’s a holy horror of a human being, and yes definitely narcissistic and a stone cold user of people and a pick me girl, and honestly she can’t even sing! But none of that diminishes her achievements as a lone woman in a brutal, crushing industry. She’s a trailblazer who’s never bent or bowed to anyone, and has well earned her iconic status. It’s just a terrible shame that she’s now come full circle and there are more people openly mocking her than appreciating her career and legacy.

Also infamously beaten up by her boyfriend and reluctant to press charges. Rhianna’s a good example of nice girls not always being very good for themselves.

Yes it was quite an uncomfortable watch. I adore GN, and not sure what he could have done much differently, but in future I think just enjoyed her music ajd performances and less of the interviews! Not insightful, not interesting and no real warmth or charisma. I cringed so badly when they were listening to her new tracks in silence and GN half bopping along in the chair to show how much he was apparently into it. When Kylie appeared it was like a pressure value releasing!

I admire Madonna for her decades long career and the way she appears to have always done things on her terms (which is why I find the plastic surgery so disappointing - I dont believe people do that to themselves for their own gaze/enjoyment), she's a great performer but not someone with particular depth or interest. Which is fine, but no need for an extended interview with her as you aren't going to suddenly pull out an engaging personality or any particular insights (even the wonderful GN!!).

True @EnjoythemoneyJane. I suppose what I mean then is that I like it when famous women are feminists and am disappointed that Madge doesn’t appear to be one!

Very Sunset Boulevard

I disagree that Kylie's appearance made things brighter. It just made it all more like some nightmarish twist in a Stepford Wives dystopian world.

I've not seen it but came on to say Madonna in general makes me feel uncomfortable.
As a woman i don't feel proud saying this but i find her overt sexuality in what seems a lot of aspects of her public life difficult to watch.
I think she tries too hard , she's crude and comes across as desperate .
She is heading towards 70 now , do we really want to be seeing as much of her crotch as we do !
I think about the children of women like her in the public eye, for me when you choose to become a mother whether you like it or not i think you have to 'tone' yourself down a bit and try not to become a desperate laughing stock which i think Madonna of late has become.

I think we have to bear in mind that Madonna is a product of US culture, where plastic surgery has long been normalised for rich women. I went to a posh wedding there 20 years ago and was deeply disturbed by the melting wax figurines around me, who could all have been any age from 40ish to 80ish. The bride and her friends, all perfectly lovely women, were all behaving in a very self-consciously "desirable" way that also made me feel uncomfortable, arranging themselves like hookers on bar stools (hard to describe this, you had to be there). As usual the UK is following suit, with all the inflated trout pouts etc, but at the time I found the whole experience rather bewildering and alien.

Sure, but I think that's the depressing thing for many of us. She was such an iconoclast back in the day. I still remember the sheer charge of first seeing her on Top of the Pops and talking about it at school the day after. That's why it's particularly depressing that she's chosen to present herself when older as exactly that generic frozen-faced rich woman who's had so much surgery she looks permanently as if she might be experiencing some emotion but isn't sure what it is. And that she comes across as vaguely unhappy and querulous.

She hams up the imperious diva in that interview.

Yes. But she always strikes me as deeply, deeply insecure. She mentions feeling out of place in the early days when she went clubbing, and depending on dance to find release from that painful self-consciousness. It's why dance music is so important to her - she was evangelical about it in the interview.

There was also that bit where she said she felt envious of Kylie for being so cute, because she didn't feel beautiful. And an awkward silence followed!

I've heard him say it before but he said it again in an interview on Radio Two on Saturday morning

He also said in the taxi on the way there that he was always nervous about interviewing her. No shit Sherlock, that was obvious all the way through!

Hankering for a complment i guess. Like others have said I also was rooting for her to evolve and be better than this.

I’ve wondered this alot recently and hints in the press. She used to be so health conscious…..

I did think of Prince. He’d always been such a wildly dynamic performer, but it took a physical toll on him and he gradually became dependent on painkillers that eventually killed him.

Madonna’s also pushed herself very hard, physically speaking.

It could very easily be scripted and that could be why she agreed to do it .
Years ago I interviewed a famous author ( British crime writer ) In front of an audience .
Once she was booked to do it , we received the questions that she wanted to answer and made it clear that they were to be the only questions asked and in the order they were given .
Come the event and she obviously would answer them in a quickly answered & witty and fairly in depth manner .
It made her look great and sometimes they were slightly sarcastic towards me .
I didn't enjoy meeting her and wouldn't want to interview her again .

Well now we want to know who it was!

But why would she have agreed to an interview with Graham if he's said in public that she's rude and difficult before? I can't find it anywhere

I didn't see the old documentary 'In Bed with Madonna' until about 10 years ago. It doesn't show her in a good light. I loved her Desperately Seeking Susan era music but 2 or 3 albums later the good stuff was very limited. There was a truly dire cover of American Pie that seemed just too much.

He was like a Deer caught in headlights throughout, seeking solidarity from her producer when she was having another 'moment.'

The comment she made about whether he fits into the same clothes (insinuating he doesn't) while she still fits nicely into the original 'confession' outfit, I mean, he didn't even ask 😂

I've never seen someone fake laugh so much in the space of an interview.

I did find it unsettling in that I didn’t recognise her at all.
Yes, I think that people should look however they want, and that we shouldn’t focus on women’s appearance, but at the same I find what both women and men are doing to their faces through surgery and ‘ enhancements’ just unnerving and depressing. I realise that’s contradictory.

I find it really unnerving when people's faces or parts of their face doesn't move or is just expressionless

It's human to be expressive and express yourself