Madonna - 'Like a Prayer'

Throughout this blog i will be looking at the elements/features of the music video 'like a prayer' by Madonna, i will particularly be looking at the conventions of the video. This whole video has many different controversial elements to it and this heightened convocation of the artist.

This music video relates around Madonna who sees a woman being abused by 2 whites males and Madonna goes to the church for religious guidance. We witness Madonna's previous mistakes and we see her dreaming about her religion, she then falls asleep and wakes whilst still remaining in her dream and this then leads her absent ming to find Jesus. We slowly start noticing that the same black male that got arrested is the man in the church, which is why Madonna suddenly feels guilty as the wrong man went to prison.

'Like a prayer' does not follow a particular narrative for example the artist does not mirror the lyrics of the song so the video's main focus is the performance. We see some close up's of Madonna where she looks directly into the camera. On the other hand there are some aspects of the music video where the movement mirrors the words 'fall from the sky'.

 

Throughout this video there have been many references towards religion and the artists mind track on this subject and she shows her representation of them in this video. An example of this would be how Catholic symbols (crucifix), the Ku Klux Klan cross burning and how Madonna dreams about being with a black saint. Conventions come through when the video shows burning crucifix's. These are used to link Madonna's feelings to show how she has been betrayed by her religion as she did not do the correct thing so therefore she feels as bad as the KKK, as she sent the wrong man to prison. The burning crosses shows Madonna's violence and how powerful she is. Conventions are also used when we see Jesus behind bars in the church, showing a metaphoric convention as the wrong man is in prison.

Madonna appears/presents herself as a strong creature is society and this video heightens this image. This video was made in the late 1980's and this was a huge time for racism and Madonna aimed to make a change to this and vote for equal rights, so this video was made showing different race, religion and gender. 

]During this video Madonna is viewed as a pure, attractive female as she is shown surrounded with white. However Madonna begins to show a certain amount of rebellious aspects, this shows ideologies throughout society, it also shows a sense of feministic theories; a lot of men/some women see woman as a object. This video attract male attention as they are seeing women as a sexual object, which is shown by Madonna wearing tight clothing and having messy hair as this enhances the sexuality of the piece emphasising the attraction. This raised many discussions and problems with the artist’s music video. 

Having in mind that the video was created in 1989, this music video is very modern and upcoming by looking at the very futuristic impacts, it shows she is ahead of time, which created a huge impact on the viewers. This video is not hugely different to more recent videos, which shows she can take risks as an artist and is not afraid to challenge herself. 

This music video was released to the public to help brand her image and to aim her target audience at a much older audience. As if she went for a younger audience they would not understand the messages she was trying to send. Madonna’s more typical music videos were aimed at a much younger audience used as a fashion icon, but wanted to change this to a more mature audience. Women were a huge percentage of this audience as they aspired to be as empowering and having equal rights. There were a lot of male audiences because it gave them pleasure to see women as a sexual object.

 

Overall this video is a video with different political arguments and gained many people who commented both negative and positive remarks. I think Madonna has thought out this video very well using a correct amount of advertisement and marketing to draw in a different audiences and get people to listen to the message she is trying to get across.