Madonna “Like A Prayer” Analysis

The music video begins with Madonna running away from something when she trips and falls, as she does this she lifts her head and an image of a door closing appears, followed by the image of a burning cross. This from the very outset signifies the importance that religion will have throughout the video. The door could perhaps be a church door and the fact that it is closing could represent how she feels she is not welcome anymore within her religion. The burning cross then reinstates this idea as it seems as though she has betrayed her own religion in some way. Flashbacks are shown in between shots of Madonna, displaying a crime she witnessed where a group of white males were attacking a younger woman. It is then shown that a black man was arrested, presumably for that same crime which he had not committed.

Madonna walks into an empty church and ends up falling asleep to dream about a statue of Jesus, however instead of Jesus being white, which he is almost always assumed to be, he is black. This is Madonna’s way of showing she is beyond her time, she is not racist, in fact the complete opposite, she is standing up for her beliefs and the people of the black community. Jesus then begins to cry, which is another symbol suggesting Madonna has done something to betray her religion, and for that Jesus is not happy with her. The statue of Jesus then turns into the black man that was earlier arrested for a crime he did not commit. This symbolises how the man that was arrested reminds her of Jesus perhaps, and she feels as though she is betraying Jesus by not saying that the man who was arrested is innocent.

More connotations of religion are displayed when Madonna holds a knife to her hand and as she takes it away she has holes in both hands, in the same places as where Jesus would have had the nails stuck through his hand. You could argue that this is because Madonna feels as though she needs to sacrifice herself in order to save the man, in the same way Jesus sacrificed himself to save the human race.

A choir then appear, all of whom are black and are singing Madonna’s song. It is at this point we see the whole scene of the crime Madonna witnessed. The black man went to try and help the woman who had just been killed, however then the police emerged and arrested the man for a crime he did not commit. Madonna is going against stereotypes in the sense that it is the stereotype of black people that they are criminals and constantly in trouble with the law, however in Madonna’s video, she is making a point for people to notice that the black man is innocent and it is the white men that are the criminals.

After this quick scene of the black man being arrested, Madonna is seen dancing around burning crosses. This represents Madonna as rebellious and anti-authority, while also displaying the guilt she feels for not standing up for the man she knows is innocent. The burning crosses has connotations of the Ku Klux Klan, so you could argue that Madonna feels as if she is just as bad as the exceedingly racist and discriminatory group, the KKK, for not saving the man from going to prison.

Madonna is dressed in a rather promiscuous way, in a lace red dress, red having connotations of love and sex, and the lace being almost like underwear. She is highly sexualised because she is the star of the music video and is forced to look promiscuous and good-looking. It is evident that Madonna is her record company’s main big star and they are trying to make her appeal to many different audiences.

It is also evident that her own ideologies have been brought into the video, and she was one of the main reasons the video is so anti-racism. She is represented as being ahead of her time and having unique ideologies for the 90s era that she was in. The very end of the video is when Madonna goes to set the man free and the other men who actually committed the crime get arrested and sent to prison. This is Madonna’s way of sending across her overall message and making sure it stays with the audience after they finish watching. The overall message being that we are all equal, regardless of your race, gender or religion.