An attempted slight on Madonna and her risque choices at 63 years old turned into an internet lesson in former first lady Nancy Reagan’s intimate life during her Hollywood days. According to BroBible, Abby Shapiro, sister of Daily Wire maestro Ben Shapiro, took to Twitter to compare Madonna at 63, barely clothed in a risque photo shoot, to former FLOTUS Nancy Reagan at 64, surrounded by family and husband President Ronald Reagan.
The mission was accomplished if it was the goal to go viral and garner attention. If it was to make a point about Reagan being a saint compared to the sexualized music icon, this was a total failure. Users on Twitter started to mock Shapiro, with user Zach Hetzel pulling out the records to show Reagan was happily in tune with her sexuality during her Hollywood days.
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Hetzel shared a snippet from a Village Voice column looking into Kitty Kelley’s biography of the former first lady. The book claims that Reagan was well known in the MGM days for her sexual talents. “Nothing says ‘classy’ like pitting women against each other and shaming women for appearing to age,” one user wrote in response. None of it is warranted and it borders on the worst type of online behavior, but the circumstances helped it take off online.
Twitter users quickly made jokes and praised Reagan with some essential nicknames. Others were unwilling to accept the reality about the First Lady and continued posting under protest while complaining about learning “without consent.”
Other users took another route in criticizing Shapiro by pointing out the social record of both women, specifically their reaction to the AIDS crisis in the 1980s. “I choose the one who didn’t let thousands of people die from AIDS,” one wrote.
“Double standard aside, [Madonna’s] given millions to AIDS charities, to fighting poverty & hardship endured by Malawi’s orphans, to Bill Gates’s Philanthropy Partners to accelerate vaccine creation, production & distribution & groups like V Day, which fights violence toward women,” user Lesley Abravanel added, according to Unilad.
On top of all of this, Shapiro’s comments and choice of photo used imagery Madonna originally used to criticize censorship and sexualizing women at all chances. “[We] live in a culture that allows every inch of a woman’s body to be shown except a nipple. As if that is the only part of a woman’s anatomy that could be sexualized,” she wrote in the photo from Thanksgiving.
