7 Madonna 7success signaled a clear message of financial control to
other women in the industry, but in terms of image she
was a more ambivalent role model.
In 1992 Madonna took her role as a sexual siren to
its full extent when she published Sex, a soft-core porno-
graphic coffee-table book featuring her in a variety of
“erotic” poses. She was criticized for being exploitative
and overcalculating, and writer Norman Mailer said she
had become “secretary to herself.” Soon afterward
Madonna temporarily withdrew from pop music to con-
centrate on a film career that had begun with a strong
performance in Desperately Seeking Susan (1985), faltered
with the flimsy Shanghai Surprise (1986) and Dick Tracy
(1990), and recovered with Truth or Dare (1991, also known
as In Bed with Madonna), a documentary of one of her
tours. She scored massive success in 1996 with the starring
role in the film musical Evita. That year she also gave birth
to a daughter.
In 1998 Madonna released her first album of new
material in four years, Ray of Light. A fusion of techno
music and self-conscious lyrics, it was a commercial and
critical success, earning the singer her first musical
Grammy Awards (her previous win had been for a video).
Her experimentation in electronica continued with Music
(2000). In 2005 she returned to her roots with Confessions
on a Dance Floor. Despite a marriage in the 1980s to actor
Sean Penn and another to English director Guy Ritchie
(married 2000; divorced 2008), with whom she had two
sons, Madonna remained resolutely independent. That
independent streak, however, did not prevent her from
enlisting the biggest names in music to assist on specific
projects. This fact was clear on Hard Candy (2008), a hip-
hop infused effort with writing and vocal and production
work by Justin Timberlake, Timbaland, and Pharrell