The Madonna wars

IS MADONNA any more vacuous and unbearable than other spoilt, self-obsessed celebrities? Perhaps not. What is irritating is that her dippy whims have been taken more seriously than the antics of, say, Jade Goody or Kerry Katona. So it is with her split from husband Guy Ritchie.

Madonna undeniably has an impressive capacity for self reinvention: an army of producers, choreographers and personal stylists have helped her parlay a slender musical talent into a £250 million fortune.

Yet few commentators have had the courage to dismiss her devotion to kabbalah for what it is: loopy mumbo-jumbo suggestive not of depth but of credulity and feeble intellect. Her four-hours-a-day gym habit has been portrayed as some sort of fitness ideal instead of merely obsessive and damaging behaviour. In her country-house phase, the American Vogue pictures of her feeding chickens were taken as charming homage to the English way of life rather than self-promotional kitsch.

No wonder Ritchie wants a divorce.

And then there are the bizarre but persistent claims that Madonna represents some sort of feminist role model. I've never quite understood this one but it seems to have something to do with her parading around in her underwear. Which just shows that even if you're Madonna, you have to get your kit off to get noticed as a woman.

Now yet again we are asked to believe that Madonna's divorce says something significant about women's position in society.

It doesn't: it's just two silly, narcissistic breadheads fighting over money.

SHE SAYS...

MADONNA has always been our favourite whipping girl. She is the world's great female icon yet she's never taken the easy route. So it was touching that after so many incarnations sex goddess, geisha girl, proto-lesbian she should try proper, formal marriage. And to an Englishman at that. When Madge tied the knot with one Guy Stuart Ritchie, mockney geezer and stepson of a baronet, we gave a collective sigh of approval.

But in retrospect it never really suited her. The hunting-and-fishing, English-rose persona she adopted always rang false. She gave up all those edgy gay friends (Rupert Everett, Sandra Bernhard, Ingrid Cesares) to hang out with who? Vinnie Jones and Jason Statham? Sorry, that was never going to work.

Ritchie is hardly a first-league brain. Yes, the alpha-male, macho stance was a draw at first. He's blond and brawny good breeding material. But Madonna collects contemporary art. She knows about theatre and ballet.

Ritchie has made one good film, 1998's Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. He barely reads and calls his wife "the Missus". What greater proof do you need of an infantilised attitide to women?

I'm amazed the marriage lasted so long. As a complex, multi-tasking superwoman Madonna invented the postmodern family. Have a child with your personal trainer? Why not? Adopt a child from Africa? Let's find a window in the schedule. She doesn't need a husband never has and now the Material Girl is cutting loose.

They haven't shared a bed for a year (even I blush that I know that). What she needs is a sex life. Nothing drives a woman to the gym and kabbalah like a reduced libido. So bring it on.

Suddenly the world's most eligible woman is 50 ("She has a fortune of £250 million," a male colleague observed. "I like that in a woman."). The rules of dating are being rewritten overnight. I can't wait for the next chapter.