The Madonna Experience: A U.S. Icon Awakens a Puerto Rican Adolescent's Feminist Consciousness

"I wanna conquer the world," stated Madonna Louise Veronica Cicconne in a Behind the Music performance. "See, I get what I want. . . . I do what I want with my life. . . . Absolutely no regrets. . . . I'm really good at provoking. . . . I'm really good at getting people's attention." When I was growing up in Puerto Rico, where the word "feminism" had to struggle for a place in the national lexicon, Madonna was an icon of teenage female rebellion, providing alternatives to the traditional, established definitions of womanhood and femininity. Through this subversion of cultural norms Madonna gave my generation a slap in the face and made most of us stop and rethink the traditional roles we were expected to perform in society, pushing us beyond the conventional rebellion that many teenage girls go through. This Madonna-inspired rebellion meant much more than merely challenging adults and other authority figures. This rebellion was about questioning traditional roles and beliefs in a society where traditional roles and beliefs were set in stone. This article explores a political aspect of the Madonna phenomenon in Puerto Rico by looking at her and her status as a public figure, and by looking at how such status wielded some influence over a group of teenage girls in Puerto Rico. I also explore the possibility of looking at Madonna as a liberating icon and as a symbol for Puerto Rican young women's empowerment during the 1980s. [End Page 118]