Madonna – Like a Prayer

Music Video Analysis

Madonna’s Like a prayer video was released and broadcasted on MTV in the 1980’s. However, it was deemed to be very controversial because of it’s content and was taken off air.

The video was taken either as sexual or religious.

Brief History of “Like a Prayer”

The music video has many recurrent motifs. Some of these include; the burning cross, violence, slow motion sequences, ritual celebration and sexualisation.

Motifs

The Burning cross was very offensive to Black people as it was a sign of the KKK supporting white power.

Racism was very strong in the 1980’s as people tolerated it whereas todays society a video showing a burning cross would not be given the chance to be broadcasted.

The Burning cross is also a recurrent prop that is used throughout the music video.

The Burning Cross

Violence is a recurrent theme in the video At 2:21 we see a woman being attacked by three men and then stabbed and killed.

An innocent black man is then arrested because he was at the scene of the crime but was entirely innocent. It outlines racism by the police as the man was trying to help her.

It also contrasts with the fact the man is Jesus as well in the other scenes with Madonna and this was seen as controversial as society don’t picture Jesus being black.

Violence

The music video alsoconsists of slow motion sequences an example of this would be (0:21) here we see Madonna close the door then turn away. This is what the screenshot (right) is showing.

The director has done thisto make the video lookmore dramatic to theaudience as it is still settingthe mood for the video.

Slow Motion Sequences

This is when Parties happen e.g. on beaches etc. In typical musicvideos we we white artists as being demonnetic and black artists asBeing usually happy.

In the Madonna video we see ritual celebration taking place. This takes

place in a church, where see a choir and other religious people singing

and dancing as you can see in the screen shots below.

Ritual Celebration

We also see a lot of sexualisation involved with the music video and it was seen as very controversial as Madonna is kissing Jesus. This offended the church as he is portrayed to be intimate with Madonna.

Furthermore, the lyrics of the song may be taken as sexual imagery instead of religious “I'm down on my knees, I wanna take you there. In the midnight hour, I can feel your Power.” The word choice can be seen as innuendo's.

sexualisation