‘Like A Prayer’ - Madonna
Firstly, this music video shows off that Madonna is a single artist, it also shows that she's probably signed to a larger record label meaning that they have a budget to afford the scale of this music video. The audience can tell that this is because of the mies-en-scene, for example location, actors, props, lighting. It could be argued that this shows off her synthetic nature, although in my opinion Madonna is an organic artist becuase she writes her own music and seems to have creative control over the content that she releases.
Intertextuality is also included in this video, the biggest reference is a biblical reference. Throughout the whole video they are referencing the Christian faith, this is shown through location, the music video is based in a church as well as props, the big crosses a statues.
This music video for Like a Prayer consisted of a performance and narrative based music video. Whilst featuring Madonna in it as she lip-syncs, there is also actors and a story line behind the video that correspond to the lyrics of the song. The director, Mary Lambert probably chose this becuase it was the most engaging method of showing off this song. They also probably wanted to tell a story with music video.
The narrative of the music video from my perspective is a story about a couple how get beaten up by a gang, the girlfriend gets killed or severely injured and when the police arrive, the gang flee and becuase the boyfriend is black, he gets framed for the crime. This can be seen as a common stereotype associated with black people and many white policemen associate them with criminal activity, This can also be controversial for its time of its release which was 1989. This is because there was still a lot of racial discrimination in the 80s including police brutality, although it wasn't spoken about as much as it is today. Madonna and Lambert may have also been trying to portray that racism was specifically more prevalent in religious circles and they were not very excepting of other races. In addition to this, the music video also features a non-liner narrative, in the beginning of the music video it shows clips of the some of the scenes that happen towards the end of the film. An example of this is when the gang is beating up the couple as well as the man arrested.
Another way that characters are represented is how Madonna is being represented. Throughout the video, the costume she is wearing is a little bit provocative for its time as well as wearing it in a place of worship. Along side this, she is shown at a high angle shot portraying her as more vulnerable. In my opinion, the director chose to do this because its portraying her as the worshiper and the other man as a saint emphasising the story line more. Although it could be argued that another reason they chose to do this is becuase she is being objectified and her image is being sold to the public to get more KPIs, hence the reason why she is wearing slightly more provocative clothing.
To conclude, this was a successful promotional campaign and collected lots of KPIs because it was quite controversial. Madonna’s image in the 80s has always been quite controversial but with reference to religion, addressing racism and wearing slightly revealing clothing, she would have attracted a lot of attention from the press which would get more people watching the video and buying into the campaign.
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