Danny Aiello: Madonna's 'Papa Don't Preach' Video Was 'Crap'

who?

[italic]who?[/italic]

Madonna.

Who, indeed.

I'm no Madonna fan but that was a great video.

That "piece of crap" also gave him a career resurgence.

Danny Aiello always struck me as one of those guys who thinks he's talented just because he's Italian. Like most of the cast of "The Sopranos".

Oh--and Madonna.

[quote]I'll do it if my daughter is permitted on the set taking pictures with Madonna. ... Madonna sort of backed up and told her representative that I don't do that. My daughter has hated her ever since.

So he did the video even though Madonna said his daughter couldn't be on set? Obviously, he wasn't doing it for his daughter.

Madonna's karma is rappidly approaching

Who?, part trois

r6, he may have been locked in at that point contractually.

It seem unprofessional for him to request that.

Qui?

[quote]Madonna sort of backed up and told her representative that I don't do that. My daughter has hated her ever since.

If that's true - I think he's exaggerating - Stacey needed to be less needy and get a life. If she still holds a grudge she's downright pathetic!

Her boobs looked quite nice jiggling around in that video.

Didn't his stuntman son die in the last few years? Give Aiello a break, he might just be getting over it (and getting old, rewriting history).

He got an Oscar nod for one of the all time greatest films so he has my respect.

I applaud Madonna for not allowing the kid around. Take your daughter to work day is not daily.

I can be photographed with my nose in a guy's ass, but I absolutely will not permit someone's teenaged daughter to get their picture taken with me!

Gindaloon Republican trash

Of course not, R16! A snapshot with a fan is NOT "art"!

Well it was.

Richard E. Grant writes that Aiello was furious that his character was supposed to die in Hudson Hawk and argued about it until the director caved. So his character survives a car driving over a cliff and returns unscathed at the end.

Grant also writes that David Caruso was playing the part of a mute and got all method about it & wouldn't talk to anyone. Then his feelings got hurt because he thought no one liked him.

I thought he was dead.

What R4 said. The video was a sensation at the time and he was exposed to a whole new audience. He's a bitter old man and his daughter should probably grow up.

Madge may be and have been a cunt, but the video for "Papa Don't Preach" is not crap, it was a superior piece of music video-making at the height of the art form's popularity, and broke new ground in social consciousness for the 80s.

Teen pregnancy was NOT the norm as it is now, was not as open as it is now with reality shows, and young women who kept and raised their babies were still largely shamed and shunned. "Sluts" who got pregnant either had it "taken care of" or quietly gave the baby up at birth, those who kept their babies had little support or affirmation from mainstream culture. It was somewhat radical for a bubble-gum pop star to make the case that teenaged mothers can and should raise their kids themselves. The video portrayed a realistic scenario that possibly helped some young women face this situation.

Again, Madonna is no saint or great artist, but Aiello just sounds bitter and petty for lashing out like this 25 years later.

I always thought that Danny Aiello was a prick and an asshole.

"Teen pregnancy was NOT the norm as it is now, was not as open as it is now with reality shows, and young women who kept and raised their babies were still largely shamed and shunned."

So Madonna made this video in the early 60s?

" It was somewhat radical for a bubble-gum pop star to make the case that teenaged mothers can and should raise their kids themselves."

Madonna's got a lot to answer for, then.

[quote]Teen pregnancy was NOT the norm as it is now, was not as open as it is now with reality shows, and young women who kept and raised their babies were still largely shamed and shunned."

Yeah, sorry grandma, but teen pregnancy was pretty open and accepted by that point. A couple of girls at my high school got knocked up in the mid-80s and had the kids, and the girls weren't shunned at all. But teen pregnancy certainly wasn't celebrated, like it is now.

Maybe my memory is fuzzy but didn't he did a video himself kinda based around Papa Don't Preach. It was telling the story from the father's point of view

When I lived on the UWS, Danny used to frequent a restaurant on the corner, sitting outside at brunch during the warmer months. He would laugh and talk incredibly loud to draw attention to himself. Like "I'm here, people. It's me...Danny Aiello!" And I thought, what a fucking asshole.

You faggolas know nuthin'! Now beat it!

If you actually watch the video clip, he's just joking around. The article leaves out most of the story and obviously completely misses his tone.

Umm, R6...presumably he'd signed a contract to appear in the video at that point? He couldn't just walk off the set.

Did someone have a gun to his head to do the video?

Dick.

Who's Madonna?

"Madge may be and have been a cunt, but the video for "Papa Don't Preach" is not crap, it was a superior piece of music video-making at the height of the art form's popularity, and broke new ground in social consciousness for the 80s."

Oh shut UP, you fucking idiot! "Broke new ground in social consciousness??!" Jesus God, it was just a stupid fucking music video of Madonna pretending to be a knocked up teenage girl who does not discuss the issue with her father, instead telling him "Ah'm keepin' mah babee!" And in between the bits where she's pretending to be a teenager (a teenager with expertly dyed platinum hair) she's shimmying and shaking her tits in all her rock star glory, full makeup, upswept platinum blonde hair, skin-tight black get-up.

"It was somewhat radical for a bubble-gum pop star to make the case that teenaged mothers can and should raise their kids themselves.'

"Radical?" "Make the case?" It needs to be said again: it was just a stupid fucking music video, not social commentary. And FYI, teenaged mothers CANNOT and SHOULD NOT raise their kids "by themselves." Teenagers who try to do that invariably live in poverty and they and their kids lead miserable lives.

"The video portrayed a realistic scenario that possibly helped some young women face this situation."

Please do explain how a MADONNA VIDEO "helped some young women face this situation?" Are you out of your mind? All the shitty video does is depict a knocked up girl with very unrealistic expectations.

And by the way "Papa Don't Preach" is a dead ringer for an awful song called "Sugar Don't Bite."

I eat Madonna's excrement.

R35 needs to calm herself down.

Just what is her major malfunction? She takes this shit way too seriously.

"I'm beatin' mah baybuhhh!"

(Madonna drop kicks baby down the street)

[quote]"You know, that came about in a very strange way," Danny explains. "I had no idea who [Madonna] was, so I said to [daughter] Stacey in passing, 'They want me to do this music video with this girl named Madonna.'She said, 'Dad, Dad, you have to.' I went back and said I'll do it if my daughter is permitted on the set taking pictures with Madonna. ... Madonna sort of backed up and told her representative that I don't do that. My daughter has hated her ever since. ... I'm a movie actor doing this piece of crap!"

Wow, this shows what a piece of shit Vadge is and how she has always thought she was too good for everyone else. No wonder nobody likes her anymore and all of her "friends" and boyfriends are people on her payroll.

"And I'm bringing this up now because I am just rolling in parts and not looking for some ink at all."

Fuck you, DA - you were glad to get it, knew exactly who the hell she was, and it probably led to work down the line (not that you playing the most stereotypical Italian dad in the world was worth it).

R26, you're an idiot. The HELL teen pregnancy was "accepted." Sure, if you went to LA Sluts All The Time Prep Academy I guess.

[all posts by tedious, racist idiot removed.]

[quote]I wouldn't have wanted some dumb teenager with a camera taking pics every two seconds on set when I was trying to work either.

How times have changed! Now Vadge has to BEG people to take her picture these days because nobody gives a shit about her anymore. Hell, she has to post non-stop ridiculous pics on Instagram all the time just to try to get attention.

If I were hiring for a job I would never hire someone who said they would accept the position if they could bring their kid to work.

Nobody gives a shit about her. That's why she still having some of the highest-grossing tours after 30 years.

I agree with R35. Madonna trying to pass for a teen was also ridiculous. But, damn, the actor who played her boyfriend was hot. It's too bad he never hit it big.

I had never heard of him before the video - it increased his profile quite a bit.

It is unprofessional to request those pics from Madonna, but it's also shitty for her to turn it down.

Madge and Aiello BOTH sound insufferable.

I think Madonna at or near her best In that video.

I'm sorry to hear about his son.

My jaw is still on the floor from R35's hysterical post.

[all posts by tedious, racist idiot removed.]

I heard that Danny's dick almost fell off because Madonna gave him so many blowjobs between takes.

[quote]Nobody gives a shit about her. That's why she still having some of the highest-grossing tours after 30 years.

The only people who still give a shit about her are the sad ancient gays over 40 who want to pretend they're still teenagers. Only they would be stupid enough to pay ridiculous prices to see an old whore who doesn't give a shit about them.

And I agree with everyone else; it was laughable how Vadge was pushing 30 and playing a teenager in the video.

I don't think it revived his career any given he pretty much did it at or near the height of his popularity. It was a good "get" for Madonna and paid work for him, something he's never been in a position to sneeze at.

I support R35. These moronic crustations who think Madonna had so much cultural and social impact should note that Beleibers probably think the same is true of today. Grow up, take on a mature informed world view FFS.

Did R55, mature informed world view and all, mean to say "crustaceans"?

I detest that fucking kurveh, but remember years ago reading an article saying that behind the scenes people in Hollywood called DA "Danny I-ego." So no doubt this was a case of two arrogant assholes clashing.

Transcript from the interview, which was three years ago....

My daughter talked me into that, I didn’t want to do it, because I don’t do videos, but my daughter Stacy loved her and asked me to do it.

No, it was terrible [to work with Madonna]. I didn’t want to do it. Sean Penn asked me to do it, because Madonna had asked him. I didn’t know her. “Would you play her father?” he said. “I don’t do videos, I’m a serious actor.”

So I went home and I didn’t know who the hell Madonna was at the time, to be perfectly honest. Stacy said, “Daddy that’s Madonna… oh my god!” So I called up and I said that I’ll do it. They paid me $450, which I sent back to them, because I wanted to retain my ability to be an actor and say I’m an actor by not doing videos. So I said “Alright, but my daughter has to be permitted on set to take pictures and so forth.”

So she’s on the set, they agreed and my daughter thought that they were going to take pictures immediately. Madonna had turned her down and said “Not right now.” My daughter got so upset she hated her. She still loves her today. Musically she’s fine.

She hasn’t really changed much, except that I think that she was a better singer when she was sorta brand new. I think she became a little too organised, in a sort of raunchy way.

She was very nice to me, I suppose it was like a father/daughter relationship.

[quote]And I agree with everyone else; it was laughable how Vadge was pushing 30 and playing a teenager in the video.

There are worse things she could do.

R58, he's all over the place there. First he says it was terrible to work with Madonna, then he ends it by saying she was nice to him and they had a father/daughter onset relationship. He also says his daughter hated her for not being allowed to take pictures, but that she loves her now.

So the daughter did get her pictures taken with Madonna. It just didn't happen the very first thing when they walked on set.

Is this the most important thing in the world right now?

Danny is one of many who always play themselves.

What an ass. Like her or not that was a major career boost for him. Plus it was a major video. Loser.

He was also very public about how very uncomfortable he was doing scenes in drag for the(horrific) Ready to Wear. He just went ON and ON in interviews about how awful it was, and he just seemed overly worried about what people would think. Came off as douchey in the process.

I love that R55, Mr. Moronic Crustations himself, is lecturing everyone else on how they should be mature and informed.

I am so incredibly jealous of these lucky actors, who aren't good looking, or more talented than the rest, who just step in shit and have decades-long careers, playing themselves in film after film, often with the hottest directors working!

I saw Aiello in the iconic 1986 Lincoln Center production of "The House of Blue Leaves." He and the entire cast were wonderful.

He is probably a Mary Worshiper and thinks the video is "sacrilegious" or "blasphemous" -- or some other religious/superstitious claptrap.

I didn't think it could be possible, but he sounds like more of an asshole than Madonna.

This article is from 2011.

Aiello comes across as a bit of a goomba asshole in Grant's book.

(Don't touch the hair! ★)

Papa don't preach was 1986 right? Funny - Aiello's career seemed to really kick into high gear in 1987, film-wise.

I remember when the film came out, MTV and other outlets kept talking about how respected actor Danny Aiello was in the video. Maybe because I was a teenager, I had never heard of him - but I definitely saw a lot more of him after that.

Prove me wrong, but he should be thanking Madonna for those few hours of work.

[all posts by tedious, racist idiot removed.]

Who played the bf who knocked her up?

When Madonna " passes " (dies) her obituary is going to be heavy on " set the pop world alight with her raunchy dance tunes" and " adopted African kids" and very thin on anything post Ray of Light.

She's been tired and irrelevant for such a very long time now. I was 14 when Papa Don't Preach came out. Sounded trite and horrible even then. And we laughed at her pretending to be a teenager.

While I agree it isn't that big of a deal now, but it was back then. She invested a lot in her videos because they created her image and branding, which was powerful. Not so much anymore.

Also, before MTV turned into a former shell of itself, it was a channel devoted to music and videos - what Madonna did, like Duran Duran, was take the music video format and make it into a cinematic concept. In fact in a lot of ways she took it even further. Before then, no one really invested or took MTV seriously.

She made MTV what it was, and in return they made her during the late 80's earlier 90's. Unfortunately, music taste and ideas continued to change and it became about her ability to shell sex and controversy in competition to the grunge movement that was popular. A lot of pop acts at that time became very sexual as well.

However, time is a great equalizer, she isn't that age where it is glamorous and hot to do these things, now it is embarrassing. And the only way she can make money now is revisit older songs. While I love what she did in the neo-conservative era, she did act like a cunt. Which, in turn made her even capable for controversy.

R75, I don't recall "us" laughing at Madge pretending to be a teenager. I was a teen then too, a girl teen a couple of years older than you, and we all thought it was cool and raised important issues.

I remember hysterics in The Sun, the British tabloid crap, about how a tiny glimpse of Madonna's nipple could be seen in the video, when she did a sharp backward lunge during the dance scene and raised her chest. Actually, not even the nipple but the areola.They seem like such ridiculously naive times now. Anyone who did truly live through that age knows just how much Madonna challenged and broke down some of that crap.

What her obituaries will say is just how much she transformed popular culture and society in the 1980s and 1990s. Look at the obituaries and career trajectoriess of any pop musician: very few have careers that last for decades and which have a consistent impact all the way through. Even Bob Dylan's obituaries will focus on the 1960s and 1970s.

I was never a follower of Madonna, my musical interests were elsewhere. I am familiar with her career. It was hard not to be, she was so desperate to shock.

Curious, I just watched the video and agree with DA it's a piece of crap. Melodramatic and simplistic. The song is not horrible but I don't need to hear it again. Neither Madonna or Aiello look particularly good in it.

She is not promoting single teen parenthood in the song. The unwed teen is pregnant and wants to keep her baby. She is also in a loving relationship that appears will endure, at least as long as many other partnerships endure.

My older sis, in 1965, was pregnant when she married at 18. My parents were shocked and ashamed, especially my mother. Apart from that, no one said seemed to care except for a few who thought she was too young. My sis went on to get a college degree, buy a house, have a successful career, and those two former teen parents are still married, 50 years later.

Bob Dylan has never been known to Instagram a dick shaped bong or to tweet a reference to one of his sons as "n*gga" in a pitiful bid for attention.

It's called dignity. Madonna never had any, ever.

[all posts by tedious, racist idiot removed.]

What R80 said. Madonna rocked the boat.

Madonna seems to think she invented sex. I have news for her, the country was on a trajectory of change before she came along. Young people were in a transitional period of rejecting traditional lifestyles, including rejection of wealth. Being "poor" was a thing when I was in college (early 70s) and people were going back to nature, eating simpler, and promoting environmental concerns.

Madonna was shocking in part because she was all about materialism, shallow behavior, and shock value. If anything, she coarsened society and her contributions were trashy.

Yes, there were the uptight straights like Reagan who represented a traditional image but it was false. The US culture was still in social upheaval, Madonna was a small part of it but her innovations were nothing new.

I dunno, r79 - Dylan caused a lot of outrage when he picked up an electric guitar.

The born-again Christian thing was weird too, especially since he's Jewish. So was that plagiarising he did in his paintings and some of his lyrics. And I'm sure you can find any number of people to say he's an insufferable cunt.

You can pick any artist and find any number of faults with them, if that's what your intent is.

What do you think of a 30-year-old Cyndi Lauper playing a teen in her video for Girls Just Wanna Have Fun?

Hear, hear, r80.

[all posts by tedious, racist idiot removed.]

Danny Aiello? Loved him in "Taxi".

#84, I don't remember any screeching halt to sexual repression in the 70s and 80s. Heterosexuals were having a field day with open relationships and marriages. The divorce rate soared and single parenthood became more common. The gay culture was gathering momentum and the San Francisco Chronicle even appeared to be written solely for and by gay people. For a while, that is, before AIDS took hold.

Although there was much wretched excess exemplified by the hippie years, it was regretful for me to see the materialistic yuppie culture take hold. The rise of the religious right was also regrettable as religion should always stay out of politics.

These diverse groups have always been with us, and the election and reelection of Obama gives me hope because it looks the youth in the US is not buying the buffoonery of so many conservatives today.

Apart from that, music and pop culture always changes. There is great music from every decade and that includes the 80s.

The video. Love the stripes.

Looks like I'm the only one, but I fucking hate this song and the video!

Her boobs pop out in the last frame of her singing in the black bustier shot, when she throws her arms back as she snaps her head back. You can see her nipples emerge for one second. It is actually quite hot. I freeze-framed the shit out of that on my VHS tape, in my carpeted suburban basement.

The message in the song is a complete laughable contradiction considering the abortions she had.

R74, Alex McArthur.

I thought the song was about her wanting to keep her baby (i.e. lover). I assumed the father disapproved of their courtship and she was just telling him that she was gonna stay with him, come what may. I didn't realize it was about an actual baby (i.e. pregnancy).

When did you realize that R92?

R93, I suppose I always assumed it until reading this thread.

Re-reading the lyrics right now, they're kind of ambiguous. The two lines that could be interpreted as an infant and abortion are:

[quote]I made up my mind, I'm keeping my baby

[quote]My friends keep telling me to give up / Saying I'm too young, I ought to live it up

But it could also be interpreted to mean that even though her friends encourage her to give up her romance with the older guy who wants to marry her and her father disapproves, she's gonna stay with him, regardless. Plus, the way she pronounces "baby" as "baybay" is the way you address a lover, not a newborn (bay-bee).

Thanks, R91.

Betty Hutton did it better

R94 Im not sure of your age, but at the time it was well known what the song was about, having a baby, not about her lover.

R20 He also writes that Aiello wouldn't let anyone touch his hair, what makes him sound like Paulie Walnuts in The Sopranos. But in that book, Grant still tries to be nice about anyone he mentions by name (which is all his co-stars) Even when he writes about Joel Silver's constant bully-boy behaviour he still does it in a somewhat affectionate way.

The only people he slags off are the odd idiots on sets eg. a dog trainer and some ridiculous luvvie who tries to suck up to James Coburn, and some harridan he has to deal with when filling out the death certificate for his stillborn daughter.

R98 And a bunch of Germans in a hotel jacuzzi who all get out when a black woman gets in, muttering "Schwarze!"

In a movie populated with overacting "Italians," Danny Aiello gave the worst performance ever as the erstwhile groom-to-be of Cher in "Moonstruck."

"And you are a son who does not love his Mother!!"

R82, it's always amusing when people make such a big deal about Madonna's cultural impact. She was Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian without a trust fund. There were women long before her who used sex and intelligence-Mae West and Marlene Deitrich, especially. I remember on Behind the music, one of her producers said "she made it ok for the girl to want to get laid". Wow, it took until 1983 for women to want to get laid? Give this woman a medal!

I hate Vadge but she looked good in the video and Aiello was good in it as well.Even still Vadge is one of the most self important cunts in the entertainment world. From her vapid boy toy days to her faux English accent to her current phase of irrelevancy she has always scraped the bottom of the barrel and/or appealed to the lowest common denominator.

Unlike Kim and Paris, Madonna has some talent.

R103, what was this talent?

Part of this video and her early career was her back in your face "Fuck you Catholic Church - Your not going to control me anymore" I grew up not far from where M did under the same Catholic dictatorship/regiem.

Her own mother did not have a chance agaist cancer. Being an x-ray technician and not given a lead apron to do her job - they did not know better. Also, Dow Chemical opened their first zip lock bag factory right across the street from the family ranch house. Dow knowing danger got it out of there under 5 years and let the Mexicans enjoy the polutants and possible cancer contamination.

[quote] I grew up not far from where M did under the same Catholic dictatorship/regime.

M did not grow up under a Catholic dictatorship/regime.

So it's ziploc bag fumes we have to blame for the excrescence known as Madonna?

Not any choice on going or not going to church on Sunday , I call that a regiem.

The fumes may have added to her artistic output later in life.

Some say she is a gay man trapped in a womans body. I think it is more of some of her mothers last words to her before she died. They were instructions for M to show the highest respect for her dance instructor who was ridiculed by the locaal towns folk.

This was some background matter as she embarked on her career and really set up a main buying market for her wares.

[quote]I call that a regiem.

You ought to call it a "regime."

Whoosh, R108. Fucking WHOOSH.

The video was brilliant. Aiello? no one remembers hm now

He played Cher's fiancé' in Moonstruck, R111.

Madonna was shit then. Madonna is shit now. "Brilliant," my ass.

R112 And ? who fucking cares ABOUT MOONSTRUCK?

Madonna haters are so pathetic

[quote] Madonna haters are so perceptive, tasteful, and will school you and read you every single time you defend her mediocre voice, her below-average screen acting, her degradation of popular music, and her popularity forcing women to have to degrade themselves sexually in order to get a career in the music industry.

Fixed.

[quote]Madonna was shit then. Madonna is shit now. "Brilliant," my ass.

The only thing brilliant about her is the way she markets herself, but there's still no "there" there and even those who championed her can see that, and when we see what we gave up in order to embrace her, was it worth it? I don't think so.

[quote] He played Cher's fiancé' in Moonstruck, [R111].

And he was Sal in [italic]Do the Right Thing[/italic].

Millennials have no respect for anything.

R114 that is your (stupid) opinion, of course.

R108 her mom died when she was five, and she didn't start dancing or have a gay dance instructor until a decade later.

Dumb Gizs both

[R119] No biggie if I am right or wrong. Maybe if I have time I will find the interview.. But, old Madonna did mention her mother taking her to the local Bay City gay dance instructor a short time, before her mother died. Back then he would have been maybe one of the 7 openly gay men in a early 60's town of 45,000. Being gay back then could be the kiss of death, not something most young gay can comprehend today. In her brother's Christopher C book there is a picture of their beautiful mother riding the rather large circus elephant. A little bit out of the box in Bay City. Must have left an inpression on Madge, for some of her antics and stage performances later,,, even that bizare free concert in New Zeeland (Roco took off to live with his dad) where she was dressed as a clown and riding a tricycle, maybe a circus memory back to her mom and dealing with the conflict in her own family at the time. Her street/ homeless brother was paid 10,000 by some Jewish magazine for an interview, he stated their mother held Jewish Holiday rituals for the family. Big wonder Madge went into overdrive with Kabalah later in life on her own direction as her mom practiced on her own direction, with Judaism. A friend's employee was riding on a Bay City transit bus. Madge was in town for a visit to her grandmother... On the bus everyone knew it was M.. The f's emplo was doing her makeup. Madge came over without permission, and re-did the young ladies makeup. People were speachless. My dad watched her pee standing upright in Central Park. She was just becomming famous, early 80 s. She asked my dad if he wanted her autograph. He said that his sons enjoyed her videos . But, no thanks. My dad looks like her dad. Maybe that is why she approached him and we had the same stupid, bicentenial van that brother mentioned their family having....

M did give an interview about her mother taking her to the local gay dance instructor, before her mom died.

He hasn't been in a movie in years except for a couple shorts and some voice-overs. His looks really took a nosedive (alcohol?).

It seems like she just stuck around too long.