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The Icon and the Text: American Book History and the Construction of the World's Largest-Grossing Illustrated Book, Madonna's Sex (1992)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 November 2018

MANAV RATTI*
Affiliation:
Department of English, Salisbury University. Email: manav.ratti@linacre.oxon.org.

Abstract

Madonna's book Sex (1992) is the world's largest-grossing illustrated book, selling 1.4 million copies worldwide and earning US$70 million in sales at retail. This essay is the first to use methods from the discipline of bibliography to analyze the book's production, distribution, and reception. This article extends scholarship on Madonna, including about her iconicity and visuality, from her songs and videos to her print culture. I demonstrate how Sex – both as a printed book and as an expression of national culture – is part of a dynamic American book history that constructs notions of America, including freedom of speech, thought, and religion.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press and British Association for American Studies 2018

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References

1 Maureen Orth, “Madonna in Wonderland,” www.vanityfair.com/magazine/1992/10/madonna199210.

3 Website of Callaway Arts & Entertainment, the producers of Sex: www.callaway.com/sex-1.

4 Nicholas Callaway, founder and CEO, Callaway Arts & Entertainment (including the company's book publishing division, Callaway Editions), personal communication, 20 Oct. 2017.

8 Website of BookFinder, at www.bookfinder.com. Sex has been the most-demanded book in each year except 2016, 2014, and 2009. In 2016 it ranked second, with the highest rank going to Michael Crichton's Westworld. In 2014 it ranked third, with first rank and second rank held respectively by Norman Dixon's On the Psychology of Military Incompetence and Jack Howell's Lovely Reed: An Enthusiast's Guide to Building Bamboo Fly Rods. In 2009 it ranked second, with the highest rank going to Harry Twyford Peters's Currier & Ives, Printmakers to the American People. It should also be noted that in 2009, and between 2003 and 2007, BookFinder organized all of its rankings by categories (rather than raw number of requests), and that in each of these years, Sex ranked first in the category of “Arts & Music,” with other categories including “Biography,” “Fiction and Literature,” and “History.”

9 Frank, Lisa and Smith, Paul, eds., Madonnarama: Essays on Sex and Popular Culture (Pittsburgh: Cleis Press, 1993), 12Google Scholar.

10 There are scores of biographies and book-length scholarly studies of Madonna. Major titles include the following (biographies are first-edition publications, with nearly all of them having subsequent editions), chronologically listed: Matthew-Walker, Robert, Madonna: The Biography (London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1989)Google Scholar; Voller, Debbi, Madonna: The New Illustrated Biography (London: Omnibus, 1990)Google Scholar; Andersen, Christopher, Madonna: Unauthorized (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991)Google Scholar; Thompson, Douglas, Like a Virgin: Madonna Revealed (London: Smyth Gryphon, 1991)Google Scholar; Thompson, Douglas, Madonna Revealed: The Unauthorized Biography (Secaucus, NJ: Carol Pub. Group, 1991)Google Scholar; King, Norman, Madonna: The Book (New York: Quill, 1991)Google Scholar; Bego, Mark, Madonna: Blonde Ambition (New York: Harmony Books, 1992)Google Scholar; Voller, Debbi, Madonna: The Style Book (London: Omnibus Press, 1992)Google Scholar; Frank, and Lloyd, Smith; Fran, ed., Deconstructing Madonna (London: B. T. Batsford, 1993)Google Scholar; Schwichtenberg, Cathy, ed., The Madonna Connection: Representational Politics, Subcultural Identities, and Cultural Theory (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1993)Google Scholar; Sexton, Adam, ed., Desperately Seeking Madonna: In Search of the Meaning of the World's Most Famous Woman (New York: Delta, 1993)Google Scholar; Rettenmund, Matthew, Encyclopedia Madonnica (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1995)Google Scholar; Faith, Karlene and Wasserlein, Frances, Madonna: Bawdy & Soul (Toronto and Buffalo: University of Toronto Press, 1997)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; O'Dair, Barbara, Madonna: The Rolling Stone Files (New York: Hyperion, 1997)Google Scholar; Benson, Carol and Metz, Allen, The Madonna Companion: Two Decades of Commentary (New York: Schirmer Books, 1998)Google Scholar; Sochen, June, From Mae to Madonna (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1999)Google Scholar; Morton, Andrew, Madonna (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2001)Google Scholar; Taraborrelli, J. Randy, Madonna: An Intimate Biography (New York and Toronto: Simon & Schuster, 2001)Google Scholar; Thompson, Douglas, Madonna: Queen of the World (London: John Blake, 2001)Google Scholar; Victor, Barbara, Goddess: Inside Madonna (New York: Cliff Street Books, 2001)Google Scholar; Clerk, Carol, Madonna Style (London: Omnibus Press, 2002)Google Scholar; Guilbert, Georges-Claude, Madonna as Postmodern Myth: How One Star's Self-Construction Rewrites Sex, Gender, Hollywood and the American Dream (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 2002)Google Scholar; Koopmans, Andy, Madonna (San Diego: Lucent Books, 2003)Google Scholar; Fouz-Hernández, Santiago and Jarman-Ivens, Freya, eds., Madonna's Drowned Worlds: New Approaches to Her Cultural Transformations (Aldershot and Burlington: Ashgate, 2004)Google Scholar; Cross, Mary, Madonna: A Biography (Westport, CT and London: Greenwood, 2007)Google Scholar; O'Brien, Lucy, Madonna: Like an Icon (New York: HarperEntertainment, 2007)Google Scholar; Ciccone, Christopher and Leigh, Wendy, Life with My Sister Madonna (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008)Google Scholar; Clayton, Marie, Madonna: The Illustrated Biography (Croxley Green: Transatlantic Press, 2010)Google Scholar; Barcella, Laura, ed., Madonna & Me: Women Writers on the Queen of Pop (Berkeley: Soft Skull Press, 2012)Google Scholar; Burroughs, Norris W., My Madonna: My Intimate Friendship with the Blue Eyed Girl on Her Arrival in New York (New York: Whimsy Literary Agency, 2012)Google Scholar; Easlea, Daryl and Fiegel, Eddi, Madonna: Blond Ambition (Milwaukee: Backbeat Books, 2012)Google Scholar; Foy, David, Madonna: Like an Icon (Lewes: Ivy, 2012)Google Scholar; Morgan, Michelle, The Mammoth Book of Madonna (Philadelphia: Running Press, 2015)Google Scholar; Rettenmund, Matthew, Encyclopedia Madonnica 20: Madonna from A to Z (New York: Boy Culture LLC, 2015)Google Scholar; Sullivan, Caroline, Madonna: Ambition. Music. Style. (London: Carlton Books, 2015)Google Scholar.

11 Schwichtenberg, Cathy, “Madonna's Postmodern Feminism: Bringing the Margins to the Center,” Southern Communication Journal, 57, 2 (Winter 1992), 120–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wypijewski, JoAnn, “Sex (Review),” The Nation, 255, 20 (14 Dec. 1992), 744Google Scholar; Bergman-Carton, Janis, “Like an Artist,” Art in America, 81, 1 (Jan. 1993), 3538Google Scholar; Lacayo, Richard, “Sex (Review),” People Weekly, 38, 22 (30 Nov. 1992), 31Google Scholar; Squiers, Carol, “The Crotch We Have to Bear,” Artforum International, 31, 5 (Jan. 1993), 10Google Scholar; Cathay Che, “Wannabe,” in Frank and Smith, 21–34; Thomas Allen Harris, “Phallic Momma Sell My Pussy Make a Dollar,” in ibid., 35–46; Roseann Mandzuik, “Feminist Politics and Postmodern Seductions: Madonna and the Struggle for Political Articulation,”in Schwichtenberg, The Madonna Connection, 167–188; David Tetzlaff, “Metatextual Girl: Patriarchy, Postmodernism, Power, Money, Madonna,” in Schwichtenberg, The Madonna Connection, 239–64; Hallstein, Lynn O'Brien, “Feminist Assessment of Emancipatory Potential and Madonna's Contradictory Gender Practices,” Quarterly Journal of Speech, 82 (1996), 125–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lugo-Lugo, Carmen R., “The Madonna Experience: A U.S. Icon Awakens a Puerto Rican Adolescent's Feminist Consciousness,” A Journal of Women Studies, 22, 2 (2001), 118–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Fouz-Hernández and Fouz-Hernández Jarman-Ivens; Prieto-Arranz, José I., “The Semiotics of Performance and Success in Madonna,” Journal of Popular Culture, 45, 1 (2012), 173–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar; José Blanco, F, “How to Fashion an Archetype: Madonna as Anima Figure,” Journal of Popular Culture, 47, 6 (Dec 2014), 1153–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mitić, Katarina, “Madonna: Feminist or Antifeminist? Domination of Sex in Her Music Videos and Live Performances from the 20th Century to the Present Day,” AM Journal of Art and Media Studies 8, 8 (Oct. 2015), 6872Google Scholar.

12 Harris, Daniel, “Make My Rainy Day,” The Nation, 254, 22 (June 8, 1992), 790–93Google Scholar; Steve Allen, “Madonna,” Journal of Popular Culture (1993), 1–11; Susan Bordo, “‘Material Girl’: The Effacements of Postmodern Culture,” in Schwichtenberg, The Madonna Connection, 265–90; Bourland, D. David Jr., “Sex: A Review of Reviews,” Popular Culture, 50, 1 (1993), 9698Google Scholar; Laurie Schulze, “Not an Immaculate Reception: Ideology, The Madonna Connection, and Academic Wannabes”, Velvet Light Trap (Spring 1999), 37–50; Brown, Stephen, “Material Girl or Managerial Girl? Charting Madonna's Brand Ambition,” Business Horizons, 46, 4 (2003), 210CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rahul Gairola, “Re-wording the Oriental: Critical Perspectives on Madonna as Geisha,” in Fouz-Hernández and Jarman-Ivens, 104–19; Mitić.

13 See especially “Books,” Rolling Stone, 645–46 (10 Dec. 1992), 87.

14 Michael Suarez, “Glorious Bookishness,” www.youtube.com/watch?v=P92ZXth8iRs&t=381s.

15 Belanger, Tony, “Descriptive Bibliography,” in Peters, Jean, ed., Book Collecting: A Modern Guide (New York and London: R. R. Bowker, 1977), 97115, 99Google Scholar. The twentieth-century bibliographer and Shakespeare scholar W.W. Greg (1875–1959) was a foundational figure in the study of bibliography. He offered the following definition, considered a classic, of analytical bibliography: “bibliography is the study of books as tangible objects. It examines the materials of which they are made and the manner in which those materials are put together. It traces their place and mode of origin, and the subsequent adventures that have befallen them. It is not concerned with their contents in a literary sense, but it is certainly concerned with the signs and symbols they contain (apart from their significance) for the manner in which these marks are written or impressed is a very relevant bibliographical fact. And, starting from this fact, it is concerned with the relation of one book to another: the question of which manuscript was copied from which, which individual copies of printed books are to be grouped together as forming an edition, and what is the relation of edition to edition. Bibliography, in short, deals with books as more or less organic assemblages of sheets of paper, or vellum, or whatever material they consist of, covered with certain conventional but not arbitrary signs, and the relation of the signs in one book to those in another.” Greg, W. W., “The Function of Bibliography in Literary Criticism Illustrated in a Study of the Text of King Lear,” in Maxwell, J.C., ed., Collected Papers (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966), 267–97, 271Google Scholar. The above essay by Greg originally appeared as The Function of Bibliography in Literary Criticism Illustrated in a Study of the Text of King Lear,” Neophilologus, 18 (1932–33), 241–62Google Scholar. For further readings in book history see Tanselle, G. Thomas, The History of Books as a Field of Study: A Paper (Chapel Hill, NC: Hanes Foundation, Rare Book Collection/Academic Affairs Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1981)Google Scholar; Finkelstein, David and McCleery, Alistair, eds., The Book History Reader (Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2006)Google Scholar. For foundational and major works in bibliography see Bowers, Fredson, Principles of Bibliographical Description (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1949)Google Scholar; Gaskell, Philip, A New Introduction to Bibliography (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972)Google Scholar; McKerrow, Ronald B., An Introduction to Bibliography for Literary Students (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1927)Google Scholar, which grew from his article Notes on Bibliographical Evidence for Literary Students and Editors of English Works of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,” Transactions of the Bibliographical Society, 12 (1911–13), 211318Google Scholar; and Tanselle, G. Thomas, Bibliographical Analysis: A Historical Introduction (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. As a resource in bibliography and book history see the website of the American Institute of Rare Books: http://rarebookschool.org.

16 Belanger, 99.

17 Ibid., 100.

18 Darnton, Robert, “What Is the History of Books?”, Daedalus, 111, 3 (1982), 6583, 65Google Scholar.

19 Belanger, 100.

20 Ibid., 100.

21 McKenzie, D. F., Bibliography and the Sociology of Texts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 12CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22 Ibid., 12.

23 American performance artist Ann Magnuson has parodied the book's photo sessions, as has Greg Scarnici in his book Sex and Drag, 1st edn (eBook) (n.p.: Dirtybooks, 2013). Scarnici's book was first published in hardcover in 2010 and was shot in Cherry Grove, Fire Island, NY. Sex also influenced a scene (subsequently deleted) of an episode of The Simpsons in 1993.

24 See Parrington, Vernon Louis, Main Currents in American Thought: An Interpretation of American Literature from the Beginnings to 1920 – Colonial Mind (1620–1800), Romantic Revolution (1800–1860), Beginnings of Critical Realism (1860–1920) (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1930)Google Scholar.

25 Darnton, 65.

27 Ibid., 66.

28 Broek, Michael, “Hawthorne, Madonna, and Lady Gaga: The Marble Faun's Transgressive Miriam,” Journal of American Studies, 46, 3 (2012), 625–40, 629CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

29 Ibid., 639.

31 Prieto-Arranz, José I., “The Semiotics of Performance and Success in Madonna,” Journal of Popular Culture, 45, 1 (2012), 173–96, 185CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

32 In 2003, Madonna authored the illustrated book X-StaTIC PRO=CeSS, a 260-page collection of her photographs taken by Steven Klein, with only one thousand copies printed. Other photobooks about Madonna include The Girlie Show, co-authored with Glenn O'Brien (New York: Callaway, 1994); Parker, Alan, The Making of Evita (New York: HarperCollins, 1996)Google Scholar; Schreiber, Martin H. M., Madonna: Nudes 1979 (Fort Pierce, FL: Longwind Publishing, 2002)Google Scholar; Schreiber, , Madonna: Nudes II (Cologne: DAAB Media, 2016)Google Scholar; Schreiber, , Madonna: Nudes + (New York: ACC Publishing Group Ltd, 2017)Google Scholar; Delebarre, Johann, ed., Madonna: Nobody Knows Me (Los Angeles: Boy Toy, Inc., 2004)Google Scholar; Oseary, Guy, Madonna: Confessions (New York: powerHouse Books, 2008)Google Scholar; Oseary, , Madonna: Sticky & Sweet (New York: powerHouse Books, 2010)Google Scholar; Corman, Richard, Madonna NYC 83 (Bologna: Damiani, 2013)Google Scholar; Dubose, George, Madonna … Raw: A Very Early Concert (New York: Wonderland Publishing, 2015)Google Scholar; Rebel Heart Tour (Live Nation, 2015)Google Scholar.

33 The Oxford English Dictionary defines “icon” as “an image, figure, or representation; a portrait; a picture, ‘cut’, or illustration in a book.” The earliest example it gives of this usage is from 1572, when the English heraldic writer John Bossewell in his Works of Armorie writes “The Icon, or forme of the same birde, I haue caused thus to bee figured” (III. F. 23v). The more contemporary definition of “icon” the OED gives is “a person or thing regarded as a representative symbol, esp. of a culture or movement; a person, institution, etc., considered worthy of admiration or respect.” With this sense of “admiration or respect” in mind, “icon” also can connote a kind of veneration and worship of the person thus admired. This sense builds on the OED’s definition of “icon” from the tradition of the Orthodox Church, as “a representation of some sacred personage, in painting, bas-relief, or mosaic, itself regarded as sacred, and honoured with a relative worship or adoration.” The earliest example of this usage the OED gives is from 1833, from missionary, linguist, and translator Robert Pinkerton's book Russia; or, Miscellaneous Observations on the Part and Present State of that Country and its Inhabitants (London: Seeley & Sons, 1833), 227Google Scholar: “Behind them were carried … six censers, and six sacred ikons.” Madonna's fame combines elements of each of these three definitions of “icon,” with her music videos frequently containing religious, especially Catholic, imagery, to say nothing of her name itself (and that of her daughter, Lourdes). For scholarship on Madonna and iconicity see Lister, Linda, “Divafication: The Deification of Modern Female Pop Stars,” Popular Music and Society, 25 (Fall 2001), 110CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Garber, Marjorie, “From Dietrich to Madonna: Cross-gender Icons,” in Cook, Pam and Dodd, Philip, eds., Women and Film: A Sight and Sound Reader (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993), 1620Google Scholar; McCracken, Ellen, “Madonna vs. Guadalupe: Religious Icons, Sexual Transgressions, and the Politics of Signification,” Thresholds: Viewing Culture, 7 (Spring 1993), 5964Google Scholar.

34 McNair, Brian, Striptease Culture: Sex, Media and the Democratisation of Desire (London and New York: Routledge, 2002), 267CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

35 Orth, “Madonna in Wonderland.”

37 “Time Warner and Madonna Form Maverick, a Multimedia Company,” PR Newswire, 20 April 1992, financial news section, 4.

38 Deirdre Donahue, “Heat Is on at Bookshops,” USA Today, 21 Oct. 1992, Life section, 2D.

39 Dody Tsiantar and Joshua Hammer, “Risqué Business at Time Warner,” Newsweek, 2 Nov. 1992, Entertainment section, 101.

40 Esther B. Fein, “Book Notes,” New York Times, 21 Oct. 1992, C20.

43 Madonna, , Sex (London: Secker & Warburg, 1992), [61v]Google Scholar.

44 Toshiya Masuda, a designer at Callaway during the production of Madonna's Sex, personal communication, 26 April 2018.

45 Quoted in Orth, “Madonna in Wonderland.”

46 Madonna [61v].

47 For details on these aspects of type see Dowding, Geoffrey, An Introduction to the History of Printing Types: An Illustrated Summary of the Main Stages in the Development of Type Design from 1440 up to the Present Day (London: Oak Knell Press, 1961), 264Google Scholar.

48 The book used to identify all the typefaces listed in this article is Berry, W. Turner, Johnson, A. Forbes, and Jaspert, W. Pincus, The Encyclopædia of Type Faces (London: Blandford Press, 1970)Google Scholar.

49 Madonna, [61v].

51 Q magazine, Dec. 1994. See www.pauldunoyer.com/madonna-interview-1994.

52 Gaskell, Peter, A New Introduction to Bibliography (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), 323Google Scholar.

53 Quoted in Orth.

54 Susie Bright, “A Pornographic Girl,” in Frank and Smith, Madonnarama, 81–92, 84.

55 Madonna, [1v].

56 Ratti, Manav, The Postsecular Imagination: Postcolonialism, Religion, and Literature (New York and London: Routledge, 2013), 66CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The death sentence against Rushdie generated enormous media attention in the UK and around the world, bringing both the novel and its author to global notoriety, with scholars terming it the Rushdie affair. Madonna likely would have been familiar with the media furor, and perhaps that too inspired her to create a book seeking to shock and provoke.

57 See Madonna, [56r], for an erotic short story, narrated in the first person through a male character, that subverts the patriarchal gaze.

58 Nigella Lawson, “Meanwhile, Back at the Raunch,” Evening Standard, 14 Oct. 1992, 11.

59 See Douglas Crimp and Michael Warner, “No Sex in Sex,” in Frank and Smith, 93–110, for further discussion on the subversion of the male gaze in favour of a narcissistic one.

60 For further discussion on the influence of the icon's fame on the quality and identity of the photographs see Sue Wiseman, “Rights and Permissions: Sex, the Model and the Star,” in Lloyd, Deconstructing Madonna, 99–110.

61 Orth.

64 Madonna, [61v].

68 Eben Shapiro, “Edging into Madonna's Limelight,” New York Times, 19 Oct. 1992, D6, available at www.nytimes.com/1992/10/19/business/the-media-business-edging-into-madonna-s-limelight.html. For further information on Callaway Arts & Entertainment, see www.callaway.com.

69 Orth.

73 David Anderson, “Printing of ‘Sex’ Points Up Clash: Firm Producing Madonna Book Also Does Work for Baptists,” Dallas Morning News, 2 Nov. 1992, 44A.

74 Toshiya Masuda, personal communication, 26 April 2018. The rest of the information in this paragraph is from Mr. Masuda and from this communication.

75 Orth.

78 Alan Hamilton, “Madonna Hype Stripped Bare,” The Times, 10 Oct. 1992, home news.

79 Secker and Warburg,” in Rose, Jonathan and Anderson, Patricia J., eds., Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume CXII, British Literary Publishing Houses, 1881–1965 (London: Gale Research, 1991), 293Google Scholar.

80 Hamilton.

81 Miranda France, “Don't Believe the Hype,” Scotland on Sunday, 29 Nov. 1992, 5.

87 Ibid. Ian Katz, “Unclad Icon Screened by Wall of Hype,” The Guardian, 9 Oct. 1992, 8.

88 Katz. Brian MacArthur, “Madonna Outvotes Maastricht,” The Times, 13 Oct. 1992, Features.

89 “Sex Set to Sell … and Sell,” The Bookseller, 9 Oct. 1992, 1067. Katz.

90 MacArthur.

91 France, “Don't Believe the Hype,” 5.

92 “Reed Distribution,” Publishing News, 30 Oct. 1992, 4.

95 “Reed Order Reprint for Madonna Book,” Publishing News, 16 Oct. 1992, 1.

96 Jean Rose, personal communication, 21 Oct. 2017.

97 Katz.

98 “Book Trade Sex Starved,” Books in the Media, 26 Oct. 1992, 1.

100 “Sex – OK if You Can Get It,” The Bookseller, 23 Oct. 1992, 1203.

101 Ibid.

102 “Sell-Out as Queues Can't Get Enough,” Daily Mirror, 22 Oct. 1992, 5.

103 “Sex – OK if You Can Get It.”

104 “Sex Set to Sell … and Sell.”

105 Katz.

106 “Madonna’s Book Now Out on the Street,” Toronto Star, 21 Oct. 1992, A1.

107 Tony Kenwright, “Audience with Queen of Sleaze,” Daily Post (Liverpool), 22 Oct. 1992, 10.

108 “Sex – OK if You Can Get It.”

109 Roger Tagholm, “It's a Sell-Out!”, Publishing News, 30 Oct. 1992, 1.

110 Kenwright.

111 Tagholm.

112 Ibid.

113 Ibid.

114 Ibid.

115 Ibid.

116 “Sex Set to Sell … and Sell.”

117 Jauss, Hans, Toward an Aesthetic of Reception, trans. Bahti, Timothy (Brighton: Harvester Press, 1982), 79Google Scholar.

118 Jonathan D. Silver, “Madonna's ‘Sex’ Sales Keep Booksellers Happy,” Capital Times, 23 Oct. 1992, Business, 5B.

119 Anderson, “Printing of ‘Sex’ Points Up Clash.”

120 Paglia, Camille, Vamps and Tramps: New Essays (London: Viking Press, 1995), 367Google Scholar; Barbara Lippert, “Joyless Sex,” Adweek, 26 Oct. 1992, 25.

121 Books in the Media, 26 Oct. 1992, 8.

122 Hamilton, “Madonna Hype Stripped Bare.”

123 Martin Amis, “Madonna Exposed,” Observer Magazine, 11 Oct. 1992, 36.

124 Laurence Romance, “Sex and Romance,” The Guardian, 16 Oct. 1992, A4.

125 Andrew Neil, “I'm on a Mission,” Sunday Times Magazine, 25 Oct. 1992, 61.

126 “Books of the Year,” Sunday Times, 29 Nov. 1992, Features.

127 Anton Antonowicz, “A Toe Job? It's Wonderful, er…as Long as They're Clean,” Daily Mirror, 14 Oct. 1992, 16.

128 Katz, “Unclad Icon Screened by Wall of Hype.”

129 Baz Bamigboye, “At Play in the Palace of the Material Girl,” Daily Mail, 17 Oct. 1992, 17–18.

130 Fergus Kelly, Dominic Midgley, Andrew Penman, and Robyn Foyster, “Aren't You Sick of Madonna?”, Today, 14 Oct. 1992, 20–21.

131 Allan Hall, “What a Thrash,” The Sun, 17 Oct. 1992, 9.

132 Tony Parsons, “Cynical Star Who Gives Tolerance a Bad Name,” Daily Telegraph, 17 Oct. 1992, 18.

133 Jane Gordon, “Why Men Are Scared of Madonna,” Today, 14 Oct. 1992, 7.

134 Although his focus is on the American press, for a discussion of the various motives of reviewers see Harris, Daniel, “Sex, Madonna, & Mia: Press Reflections,” Antioch Review, 51 (1993), 503–18Google Scholar.

135 Gervase Webb and Geoff Garvey, “Madonna's Sexy Book Will Go to Crown Lawyers,” Evening Standard, 15 Oct. 1992, 4.

136 Ibid.

137 “Sex – OK if You Can Get It.”

138 Marilyn Warnick, “Sex and Sequels,” Daily Telegraph, 7 Oct. 1992, 17.

139 Ibid.

140 Ibid.

141 Ian Hamilton, “Why Make So Much Fuss about Madonna?”, Sunday Telegraph, 25 Oct. 1992, 111.

142 “Madonna ‘Porn’ Seized,” Daily Mail, 7 Oct. 1992, 2.

143 Edward Buscall, “Madonna's Naked Ambition Profits in the Material World,” The European, 15–18 Oct. 1992, 18.

144 Romance, “Sex and Romance.”

145 Buscall.

146 Bill Brownstein, “Art or Smut? Sex Is Mostly Hype: Madonna's Book of Lurid Photos Proves Hote Sellet,” The Gazette (Montreal), 22 Oct. 1992, D7.

147 Buscall.

148 “Sell-Out as Queues Can't Get Enough.”

149 Roddy O'Sullivan, “Ban on Magazine Puts Censorship Board Back under Glare of Publicity,” Irish Times, 12 Aug. 1999, at www.irishtimes.com/news/ban-on-magazine-puts-censorship-board-back-under-glare-of-publicity-1.215725.

150 “Japanese Customs Censors Madonna's ‘Sex’,” Associated Press, 28 Oct. 1992, International News.

151 “Madonna, the Book: Contraband in Japan,” International Herald Tribune, 29 Oct. 1992, 12.

152 “Sex in an International Context,” The Bookseller, 30 Oct. 1992, 4.

153 Ibid.

154 Ibid.

155 Interview with New Music Express (NME), Dec. 1995, at https://allaboutmadonna.com/madonna-library/madonna-interview-nme-december-02-1995. For Madonna's contemporary responses to Sex see Gentleman's Quarterly, March 2001, 149.

156 Suzanne Moore, “Sex and the Star,” The Guardian, 21 Oct. 1992, Section 2, 8. See John Champagne, “Stabat Madonna,” in Smith and Frank, Madonnarama, 111–38, for readings of how some Sex photographs can be seen as merely reactionary and also truly subversive with respect to gender, race, and class.

157 Baudrillard, Jean, Simulacrum and Simulation, trans. Glaser, Sheila Faria (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1994), 6Google Scholar.

158 Ibid.

159 Details of production and copyright information are inserted discreetly at the back of the book. See Madonna, Sex, [61v].

160 Ibid., [3r].

161 See Marshall, David, Celebrity and Power: Fame in Contemporary Culture (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997)Google Scholar, for an extended discussion of the blurring of this distinction.

162 Araghi, Roozbeh, “Making It All Up: The Sex Event,” Philament: A Journal of Literature, Arts, and Culture, 7, 30 (Dec. 2005), 75Google Scholar, available at www.philamentjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/ARAGHI_makingitup.pdf.

163 For a discussion on this notion of complementarity between the verbal and nonverbal in the context of her music videos and lyrics see Prieto-Arranz, “The Semiotics of Performance and Success in Madonna,” 190.

164 Amory, Hugh and Hall, David D., eds., A History of the Book in America, Volume I, The Colonial Book in the Atlantic World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 2Google Scholar.

165 Ibid.

166 Ibid., 3.

167 Ibid.

168 Schudson, Michael, “The Enduring Book in a Multimedia Age,” in Nord, David Paul, Rubin, Joan Shelley, and Schudson, Michael (eds.), A History of the Book in America, Volume V, The Enduring Book: Print Culture in Postwar America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009), 122Google Scholar.

169 The short documentary The Town (1945), set in the rural town of Madison in Indiana, was made for overseas audiences to portray the virtues of American democracy and governance, the country's multiracial and multiethnic polity (especially the harmony among the races and ethnicities), and the country's embrace of Franklin D. Roosevelt's Four Freedoms: Freedom of Speech and Religion and Freedom from Want and Fear. This documentary was part of a series called The American Scene produced by the Office of War Information (OWI). For an analysis of the film within American political and presidential history see Kotlowski, Dean J., “Selling America to the World: The Office of War Information's The Town (1945) and the American Scene Series,” Australasian Journal of American Studies, 35, 1 (2016), 79101Google Scholar. For analyses of American global influence in other industries see LaFeber, Walter, Michael Jordan and the New Global Capitalism (New York: Norton, 1999)Google Scholar; and Von Eschen, Penny, Satchmo Blows Up the World: Jazz Ambassadors Play the Cold War (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006)Google Scholar.

170 Figure of earnings available at Pollstar, www.pollstar.com.