Madonna Courts Colorado Controversy With Gun Stunt In Concert
by Sean Comer
Hey, come on, folks. It's completely understandable that Madonna didn't realize even pointing a prop gun at people in Colorado would touch a nerve.
Oh, wait. It's not understandable. My mistake. It's that other thing - "stupid." Yeah, that's the word.
The pop icon and Rock and Roll Hall of Famer invited this same controversy this past summer during an overseas gig in Europe - a couple of them, actually - but this time Madonna pulled out the onstage gunplay during a Thursday night Denver tour stop. E! Online reports that the 54-year-old used prop guns throughout the Pepsi Center concert, and even kicked it off with gunshots.
Of course, Denver neighbors Aurora, the city where James E. Holmes stormed a packed theater premiering "The Dark Knight Rises" just after midnight July 20 and opened fire on the audience, killing 12 people and injuring another 58.
In addition, during her performance of "Gang Bang", she and and several black-clad dancers vamped about the stage mock-shooting one another while a video playing in the background depicted splattered blood and bodies. A local NBC affiliate, 9News, received calls from concert-goers offended that Madonna didn't respect the lingering impact of what transpired just three months ago.
Still others were reportedly just pissed that she took the stage "three hours late."
Madonna explained her MDNA Tour's use of guns and swastikas in her staging with a diatribe released previously to Billboard.
"When you watch a film there are usually good guys and bad guys to help illustrate this point," Madonna said. "Sometimes I play both. I enjoy acting out this journey . . . I know people can relate to it. It's very important to me as an artist that my show not be taken out of context.
"[Guns and swastikas] are symbols of wanting to appear strong and wanting to find a way to stop feelings that I find hurtful or damaging," she added.
Yeah, pretty sure that between the 1999 Columbine High School massacre and the one in Aurora on July 20, nobody in Colorado really cared to hear your statement about "hurtful" and "damaging" things. Maybe she's the one who could have benefited from having "context" explained.