A conservative YouTuber asks social media users: do you want to be trashy like Madonna or classy like Nancy Reagan?
Madonna, 63, garnered a lot of attention after she posted a racy bedroom photo shoot to her Instagram on Nov. 25, with fans showing their support and haters dropping their critiques. One of those critiques is now coming from conservative YouTuber Abby Shapiro, who’s the sister of other notable right-wing commentator, Ben Shapiro. “This is Madonna at 63. This is Nancy Reagan at 64,” Abby began in her tweet, showing the boudoir pic of the pop icon next to a family photo of Nancy with her husband, the late president Ronald Reagan, and other family members. “Trashy living vs. Classic living. Which version of yourself do you want to be?”
Numerous social media users flocked to the comments section with their takes, with many showing their support of the “Material World” singer and her radical sexual acceptance as a woman in her mid-60s. “Way to drag a woman who’s still expressing herself anyway she sees fit and doesn’t care about your opinion,” one user commented. “I guess that bothers lots of insecure people. So you are just going to fade when you hit 40, right?” Meanwhile, other posters who seemed to agree with Abby wrote in their take on Madonna’s “photoshopped” pic, saying, “Mrs. Reagan and it’s not even a contest.”
Other users, however, went beyond the simple aesthetics of the two photos and took Abby to task for more deeply political matters, prompting questions about causes Madonna and Nancy stood behind in their time and arguing against the Reagan’s policy positions both economically and culturally.
As we continue to unpack our prescriptions for how women should act, look, and behave, and how those value judgments have emotional and psychological consequences for the women who inherit them, the hollow conversation between “classy vs. trashy” continues.