Did you know that on her first night in New York City, Madonna slept in an alley with rats crawling on her?
Really, it's totally true. It's right there in the Fox docudrama "Madonna: Innocence Lost," starring Terumi Matthews, which airs at 8 tonight on WBFF (Channel 45). And the film is made by the same folks who brought us "Amy Fisher: My Story" and "Honor Thy Father and Mother: The True Story of the Menendez Brothers," two other totally true docudramas. So, like, let's not even question whether this is true, OK?
Let's not talk about truth. Better we should talk about myth when it comes to "Madonna: Innocence Lost," because the filmmakers try to shoehorn virtually every single show-biz myth into this lurid little flick.
Take the young-star-sleeping-with-rats scene. For 10 points and the game, what other pop superstar was recently depicted in a made-for-TV docudrama as bedding down with a rodent?
That's right, Michael Jackson in ABC's epic "The Jacksons: An American Family." Granted, little Mike liked to hit the sack with his pet rat on a regular basis because he was so lonely, whereas the young Madonna was forced to share a gutter with brother rat on her fateful first night in wicked Gotham. But, as the literary critics say, it's enough to establish the genre.
The opening scenes of the Fox film are all myth. There's Madonna, fresh out of Detroit, wandering the mean streets of Manhattan with her little cardboard suitcase, just like Dorothy blown into Oz straight off the great American prairie of Kansas. But Dorothy becomes Horatio Alger before too long as she starts her climb to the top.
In fact, it seems as if almost every scene in the film is a reworked version of another mythic show-biz story line.
There's a bit of Marlene Dietrich's "The Blue Angel," as Madonna, the nude model, becomes the object of desire for a fool of a middle-aged photography professor.
Then it's "The Josephine Baker Story," as two French promoters bring Madonna, the struggling dancer, to Paris to be a disco-diva-stripper.
After Paris, Madonna returns to New York, joins a band and does her best "All About Eve" to sabotage the lead singer's career so she can become the star.
Ultimately, Madonna becomes Marilyn Monroe, as she sits alone in front of the dressing room mirror saying: "I never thought it would be like this. I thought there would be friends."
Instead of the larger-than-life sense of genuine myth, though, "Innocence Lost" has the empty, tinny feel of the cliche. It's all so formulaic, predictable and drenched in low-rent TV sex: Madonna in bed with the professor, Madonna in bed with the bandleader, Madonna having sex with a 16-year-old go-fer, Madonna having sex with a record producer.
And for those Fox viewers for whom the action is not explicit enough, there's pillow talk for further stimulation.
Through it all, the film says that Madonna is a user. "I take what I need and I move on. And, if people can't move with me, well, then I'm sorry," is the way she coldly puts it as she dumps her manager.
But she's a user because her mother died young when Madonna was just a little girl, we are told. Her untimely death made Madonna what she is.
Personally, I don't care what kind of psychobabble Fox wants to sell about Madonna. In fact, after two Roseanne docudramas in recent months, I'm at the point where I don't even get upset about docudramas (much) any more. I might have even had a few nice things to say about this one -- such as that Matthews is better than I thought she was going to be.
But there is something that does make me mad about "Madonna: Innocence Lost." Fox is airing it at 8 p.m., when lots of pre-teens watch the network. Madonna is a role model to lots of pre-teens. The film shows her relentlessly using sex in her climb to the top. In fact, it says sex is the way to get to the top.
We could debate that one all day. But if a film in 1994 is going to send a message like that, it ought to at least have some discussion of safe sex and the possible consequences of not taking precautions. This film acts like it's 1968 and AIDS does not exist.
Madonna as an American hero? I can live with that. But I think it's reprehensible for producers, in telling that story, to use TV to glorify a kind of sexual behavior that can kill.