Analysis of Music Video
“Like a prayer” - Madonna
I will be analysing the music video of “Fells like a prayer” by Madonna, focusing on technical conventions, symbolic conventions and my own opinion and understanding of the narrative of the video.
The music video itself stirred a great deal of controversy when it was released in 1989, this is mainly due to the bold statements made against the catholic church and the negative connotations used to represent the Catholic religion in general. The video confronts racism in an incredibly bold manor, not only attacking racism in general, but seemingly laying the blame on Catholicism as a religion in general, and if she wasn’t then she certainly made it look like she did. Evidence for this notion comes in the form of the narrative of the music video as well as symbolic conventions supported by the use of technical conventions such as Camera work and Editing. I will begin with the narrative.
The music Video follows Madonna as she struggles with the decision to stand against the thugs in court and testify to the gang rape and murder of a woman by the hands of a group of white men, freeing an innocent black man from imprisonment. She seeks hospis in a Catholic church where a black jesus is presented to her behind bars. She brings him to life and engages in what is insinuated to be sex with him in the church. The general tone of the music video is that racism is bad, Catholicism is bad and empathy for one another regardless of race is the way forward.
At the time of the release of the music video racism was still a huge issue in America, much like the present day what with the baltimore rioting and the contemporary issue of police brutality against ethnic minorities, more so at the time extremely racist and backwards views were sprouting out of Southern U.S.A, the home of Christianity and the Catholic church in America. The symbolic conventions of the music video that really stand out to me due to the justified and at times confusing connotations are as follows: Burning crosses constantly make an appearance, the trademark symbol of the Ku Klux Klan that are to this day a viscously racist hate group from the south of the U.S. Madonna can be seen dancing in front of the burning cross, these crosses were used as a form of warning/celebration ceremony that would be carried out when the group would go out and murder black people by burning down their houses or beating them to death brutally. So Madonna dancing and singing in front of the cross sends out very mixed signals considering she is seen singing and dancing alongside a totally black choir ensemble and engaging in sexual intercourse with black jesus. Confusing. As for the Mise en Scene, Madonna is clad in sexually promiscuous clothing, instead of your average Catholic church goer attire. My theory is that due to Madonna’s Catholic upbringing and her extroverted negative opinion of the religion and its consequent beliefs that people are filled with sin from birth to death, and nothing they do can ever change that, she is actively protesting against Catholicism whilst simultaneously speaking (or singing) out against racism. Regardless of her intentions people around the world of predominantly Catholic belief protested against her, attempting to ban her song from being played on radios, her music video from being broadcasted on television and any live performance of the song being staged. Pepsi revoked a contract made with Madonna to advertise their product through use of her song due to the global negativity toward the song and its video.
Technical conventions used such as editing are used to increase the pace of the video as well as emphasise the points that are bing put across by increasing shot duration on specifically points of the video where black jesus is shown. As for camera work generally low angles are used to represent black jesus to show the power and importance he holds, and high angles are used to show the weakness of the wrongly accused black man. Other than that long sweeping shots are used to dramatics the video and make it more dramatic, composition plays a key part in the aesthetics of the music video too to make it stylised and artistic.
Madonna’s “Like a prayer” was controversial and put across powerful arguments of racism and anti-establishment toward the Catholic church, however these arguments were posed in such a stylised manor that the video was made to seem almost comical and largely confused at times.
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