“Don’t Tell Me” and the Yeehaw Agenda

Liana Satenstein at Vogue discusses how Madonna took the country music style genre and spun it on its head in one of the most transportive videos of her career – Don’t Tell Me –  marking the beginnings of what they call the yeehaw agenda.

The genius behind Madonna’s look was famed stylist and costume designer Arianne Phillips, who worked with the French director Jean-Baptiste Mondino to handle the Queen of Pop’s foray into Western surreality. It was a fated match: When Phillips learned of the music video’s theme, she had recently read Rodeo Girl by Lisa Eisner, a photography book that explored Eisner’s hometown of Cheyenne, Wyoming, and the colorful rodeo culture that thrived there. “t was one of those synchronistic moments when I showed the book to Madonna, and I showed it to Mondino, and she loved it,” says Phillips. “It was meant from a tongue-in-cheek place, and that really informed the video. [Madonna and Mondino], it was never literal. It was always with a wink and a nod.”

Read the full article at Vogue.com.