The music video for "Like a Prayer" by Madonna caused controversy for depicting religious and racial imagery. It shows a burning cross, white men raping and murdering a woman while a black man is wrongly arrested. Madonna witnesses this but does nothing. Later she prays to a black statue of Jesus in a church, is thrown from heaven by a black angel, and kisses the feet of the statue which comes to life as the arrested black man. At the end, Madonna goes to the police to say she witnessed the crime and the black man is innocent, showing she is not racist.

1. Like a Prayer - Madonna

2. At the beginning of
the video, we are
shown an image of a
burning cross. This
automatically causes
controversy amongst
the views as this
symbol was
associated with white
supremacy terrorist
group The Ku Klux
Klan.

3. The next scene shows Madonna
witnessing a group of white
men, raping and murdering a
young woman.
We then see a black man being
wrongly arrested for this crime
which she also sees but does
nothing about it.
This scene is also controversial
because it shows how black
people would automatically get
the blame for crimes they did
not commit purely because of
their race.

4. We see Madonna then enter the church
upon the lyric ‘feels like home’
suggesting that the church is like home
to her. She is then seen to be praying for
forgiveness for not preventing the black
man from being arrested earlier on.
However, she is praying to a statue of
Jesus which shows him as black which is
controversial as he was always assumed
to be white.

5. We then see an image of Madonna being thrown into heaven, to be caught by a
black angel who, although smiling at her, proceeds to throw her out. She could
possibly be foreshadowing that white people that are racist or fail to prevent
racisms towards black people will be thrown out of heaven as it is a sin. The fact
that the angel is black shows represents that contrary top popular belief at the
time, black people were just as good as white people and it is possible for an
angel to be of any race, although they were assumed to be white.

6. Madonna is then brought back to the
church, where she kisses the feet of the
statue of Jesus. This then brings the
statue to life and we see that Jesus is the
same as the man who was arrested
earlier on in the video. He and Madonna
proceed to kiss. Madonna is showing
here that she is not a racist person and
that she believes there is nothing wrong
with interracial relationships.

7. After the man has left the church, she picks up the knife by the blade causing her
to cut her hand and drop it. We then get a close up of her hands and notice
stigmata. This are holes/cuts in the centre of each hand like those which Jesus
had after being nailed to the cross to die. Some Christian denominations believe
that those who have these have been touched by God. This belief is ironic in this
video as Madonna has just kissed Jesus.

8. At the end of the video we see
Madonna visit the police station to
say that she witness the crime and
that the black man is innocent so
that he is released from his cell. This
shows that she is not a racist person
and that the actual message of the
video is to maintain racial harmony.