Madonna - Like A Prayer

Themes:


Controversy 

The video portrayed Madonna's relationship with Christianity and faith, this was shown through the narrative but is also questionable. Throughout the video Madonna's clothing implies her sexual image as being quite direct and makes her image look less religious. At first, the video implies that Madonna's relationship with the black religious figure is purely based on worship, however, when they kiss the theme of the video is changed instantly. The lyrics throughout the video has a lot of different sexual connotations which implement the relationship that she has in the video with the religious figure.


Religion

The whole video is based on religion, hence the name of the song being ' Like a Prayer '. Despite the typical church connotations, the audience is shown a black Mary and Jesus figure which links to the black gospel choir. This is done in order to criticize the prejudice society by making black versions of religious ideological figures. In the video Madonna wears a cross in order to emphasize her faith in Christianity.

White Superiority / Racism

The story shows how a black man is being accused of beating and abusing a woman even though he was actually the only person who was trying to help her. The smugness of the white male emphasizes the way that stereotypes are being depicted in the video. The whites are being depicted negatively which immediately makes the audience sympathize with the black man who was arrested for no reason.

Narrative and Performance

The burning cross immediately creates controversy as Madonna is burning an extremely influential religious icon. This creative choice was very risky as many religious people might find the video offensive and disrespectful towards their religion, therefore, it makes us think about the ethics behind it. However, in the end this is all resolved because the curtains go down and the audience are presented with the idea that it was only a narrative.