2. History Of Madonna
"Like a Prayer" is a song recorded by the
American singer Madonna , Sire
Records released it as the lead single from
the album on March 3, 1989.
"Like a Prayer" is a pop rock song with
elements of gospel music. A choir provides
background vocals that heighten the song's
spiritual nature, and a rock guitar keeps the
music dark and mysterious. The song has
two types of meanings of sexual and
religion.
3. MOTIFS
Fragmentation of the body- close up shots of her
breast, sexually objectified.
High angle shot is used making her look
vulnerable.
She is also wearing a red dress symbolizing sex
and danger.
4. Mythical Places
In this scene she has been thrown into
the sky, this is seen with her being high
up in the clouds representing ‘heaven’.
This shows that the experience she had
with Jesus ‘black man’ has put her in a
place out of the world.
Good experience – falling out of
heaven
The mythical scene mirrors her
experience of meeting Jesus and
having an intimate relationship
with Jesus ‘black man’
IMAGE OF HER LOOKING
THROUGH THE GLASS HERE
5. Horror- Violence
In this scene we see Violence. This
is shown by the burning crosses in
the background and also the fire.
This is also seen as controversial
because Burning crosses mean
The Ku Klux Klan which at the time
were seen are unacceptable
In this scene we see a young girl
getting raped by three white
men. She gets stabbed with
knife which shows extreme
violence through these scenes.
6. ASPECTS OF CONTROVERSY
Even though the video isn’t real and its made up it could still
cause problems for the religious viewers because its seen as
blasphemy having sexual contact between herself and Jesus.
In this scene after having interactions
with the black man ‘Jesus’, the holes
found in the palm of her hands shows
that she’s been touched by a greater
spirit, in this case is ‘Jesus Christ’
Here you can see the touching
between the two and Jesus going in to
kiss her forehead which can cause
conflict between the religious viewers
7. Controversy
In this scene herself and the
man, in this case seen to be
‘Jesus’ are sharing a kiss
between one another and this
is controversial because he’s a
black man
This scene implies that
she’s have a romance
moment between
Jesus, causing conflict
between religious
In this scene the character (white
woman) is freeing the black man.
8. HOW LYRICS INFORM THE
NARRATIVE
Before even watching the video
of Madonna- Like A Prayer, we
looked up the lyrics. ‘ In the
midnight hour I can feel your
power’ interprets some sort of
feeling she's receiving from God
or another man.
The lyrics are seen to be sexual
as she also says ‘ I'm down on
my knees’ which could be
identified as a sexual action. On
the other hand the lyrics could
been identified to her praying to
God.
