Immaculate Misconception
On its 30th anniversary, revisiting the universal truths of Madonna’s classic ‘Papa Don’t Preach’
THEVIDEOFOR Madonna’s “Papa Don’t Preach,” the 1986 song that turned 30 in June, opens with a shot of Manhattan receding, haze wafting over the twin towers. The point of view is of a passenger on the Staten Island Ferry: the Statue of Liberty, and the way it seems very small until suddenly it seems very big, and the maw of the ferry terminal, ready to receive the homebound.
The view of New York Bay in its glimmering entirety is one of the great pleasures of the city. The water looks one way from Manhattan, another way from Staten Island. Even with New Jersey looming in the background, it retains its beauty. The view of the bay I most treasure is from the Brooklyn waterfront, a third- or fourth-floor room at Long Island College Hospital, in which my daughter was born four years ago. It was the end of June. The heat was like an anvil pushing down on the city. And yet, standing there above the bay, I could only feel pride about bringing a child into this world, this city, in which you can ride the ferry from Manhattan to Staten Island for free.
My daughter is not yet old enough to appreciate Madonna, though the day nears when I will have to explain about those pointy bras. That famous conical brassiere appeared in 1990, at the end of a remarkable decade for the Material Girl, one in which she became one of our most thrillingly unpredictable pop stars. Back then, long before she was a Kabbalist who called herself Esther, she regularly displayed the great artist’s ability to entertain and infuriate us at the same time.
“Papa Don’t Preach” is singular in this regard (“Like a Prayer” is a close second). Nominally about a teenager who has decided not to have an abortion, it is the kind of unapologetic statement that always causes outrage when evinced by a woman about her own body. The aggrieved in this case were chiefly abortion rights activists who thought the song urged what might be called productive irresponsibility. The head of the city’s Planned Parenthood chapter told The New York Times, “The message is that getting pregnant is cool and having the baby is the right thing and a good thing and don’t listen to your parents, the school, anybody who tells you otherwise—don’t preach to me, Papa.”
Cultural conservatives who otherwise objected to Madonna’s overtly sexual public persona praised what appeared to be her anti-abortion stance. Supporters of the song included Tipper Gore, the decency crusader responsible for those “Parental Advisory” stickers that have done exactly zero good in this world. But hopes that Madonna would convince young women not to have abortions were unfounded: There were more abortions in 1987 than in 1986, according to statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Madonna’s song became just another battle in a culture war whose warriors often seem to forget whom they are fighting for.
The video of “Papa Don’t Preach” makes the song’s controversial point without any subtlety— or apology. The video was directed by James Foley, a native of Staten Island. That’s primarily why the teenage romance at the center of it takes place in that forlorn borough. Madonna’s beau is played by a smooth-faced Alex Mcarthur, while her father is the excellent Danny Aiello, a middle-aged working stiff made flabby and sullen by years of cholesterol and regret.
Maybe he is just tired. Parenting, if done correctly, is exhausting. And terrifying. I am worried about BPA, drunken drivers, the potential toxicity of sunscreen, the well-documented dangers of not wearing sunscreen, the sorry state of public schools, the insane cost of private schools, the cost of college, the cost of organic produce, not to mention terrorists, hippies, feral cats, libertarians, the French. This is only a partial list, you understand. There is a lie that every father tells himself: My kid won’t be like that. I have it all planned for her: She will follow me to Dartmouth, where she will date infrequently, then Yale Medical School, where she will meet the man who will become her husband. His specialty will be cardiovascular surgery. They will live in Westchester County, and they will watch their consumption of carbohydrates, and their children will attend schools that are both academically excellent and racially integrated. If they listen to “Papa Don’t Preach,” they will listen to it from the safe remove of a good life insulated from both material and existential concerns.
My daughter is now 4. At a recent parentteacher conference at her absurdly expensive preschool, her teachers were not especially happy with her behavior. Nothing major, but significant enough to rattle both me and my wife. You never fully know your child, because you never fully know anyone but yourself. And so parenting becomes an exercise in radical trust, in letting go the person you least want to let go of. I know there will come a time when I have to give my children the car keys. I will hate to do it, but they will present me with their permits, and I will relent, as we all must. Safety is an illusion. So is certainty. So is the Ivy League.
“What I need right now is some good advice,” Madonna sings. I’ve got nothing for you, kid. The most affecting moment of the “Papa Don’t Preach” video is the very last, right after Madonna’s character has told Aiello’s that she will not have an abortion. They retreat to their separate corners in the house but then return to each other and, finally, embrace, the way people tend to after an argument has burned through, the scene entirely irony-free.
Aiello embraces his daughter without any apparent exchange of words. Loving your children is easy enough. Trusting them is much harder.
SAFETY IS AN ILLUSION. SO IS CERTAINTY. SO IS THE IVY LEAGUE.