…and what is being completely overlooked, what is completely offensive and bile-building and a total affront to her fanbase, is performing “Vogue”, a song so intricately latticed into gay culture —- particularly the AIDS crisis —- that through the dint of its performance at the Super Bowl feels like a betrayal, a panhandling grasp at the masses to restore her lazy career by resuscitating the memory of her golden period. Except it went to the wrong people. ”Vogue” was our song, a song so fucking faggy that even listening to it in 1990 dangerously marked you as gay, marked your blood as fearful, your body weak, and exposed you to attack by anyone, and even Dead Naff Danny the Patriot fan knew this. 

And you see, her performance cannot be justified, it cannot be acceptable and it will not suffice to redact the history of that song for this context, or to edit Dead Naff Danny out of the bleachers that day, for America has not come a long way, and no, it is not just a performance, not just entertainment, because that song was ours, and that song shepherded us through sickness, and that song was the last which many of our friends heard, and that song, as fucking gauche as it is now, released us onto the dancefloor during trauma, after the forced cremations of our partners, or after hearing stories of bigotry and fluid fear, and it was a spark in the dark for floundering gay youth who could detect its queerness and draw themselves forth from shitty households into a place they were safe, and the song was proud of all of this and it was specifically for us, so its performance means something else, and no, it is not amazing that Madonna can queer the Superbowl, for that demographic, yes, football-loving steak and potato men drinking beer in the suburbs, will still access their latent violence, and they are not the ones who need reminding of Madonna for they are often the ones who mark her male fans derogatorily, as queer bait, and as fag, and they are the ones who elevate their masculinity —- of which football is a reinforcing outlet —- over ours. You should be incensed.