Madonna's Like A Prayer Analysis

Madonna's Like a Prayer

The only rules that an artist goes by are the ones they set upon themselves. Artist's criticize current hot topics and sometimes explore their context threw the use of their imaginations. One very fine example of this is Madonna's Like a Prayer music video at the time that it was released it was a huge hit on the music charts. Still today " Like a Prayer" is a very well known song. At the time of its release it was at the center of controversy with parent groups, church groups, mainstream media, and the government. Throughout the history of art this has been a reoccurring phenomenon that art can be offensive. My position within my group is I am a member of the media but I am neutral and am just interpreting the content and the implied context of the video.

Pepsi and Sears both wanted to pull advertisement support from MTV if they continued to show the video. One of the reasons for this was the controversial religious content and both companies are family oriented which they thought may have blemished their image. In the opening scenes of the video you see Madonna witness a crime and a black man coming to help the woman just in time when the cops get there. This man is arrested for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. He is totally innocent and in fact was trying to help the woman. So Madonna goes to the church where she prays to the black Jesus, which also looks like the hero from earlier. Jesus was an innocent and sin free person wrongly accused of crimes he did not commit. This is the connection that Madonna was trying to establish with the black Jesus.

When Madonna dozes off on the church pew she has a dream of being in Heaven and then she is in front of burning crosses. Burning crosses are usually synonymous with the KKK. Here again I believe Madonna was not promoting the KKK obviously but she was again trying to establish the assault on innocence and the context of the burning crosses and the black Jesus fits in perfectly. The cross burnings symbolize the backdrop of hate and what prejudice can create. In this case it was white men attacking a white

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