Like A Prayer: Opposites Attract

Jon Pulizzi

10/26/2014

English 101

Miss Casey

Madonna – Like a Prayer: Opposites Attract

During the 1980’s, it was very uncommon for pop songs to have dark, gloomy music videos. Most of them were bright and happy to make people excited (Shmoop Editorial Team). Madonna explains her music video, “Like a Prayer”, the best. She said, "A girl on the street witnesses an assault on a young woman. Afraid to get involved because she might get hurt, she is frozen in fear. A black man walking down the street also sees the incident and decides to help the woman. But just then, the police arrive and arrest him. As they take him away, she looks up and sees one of the gang members who assaulted the girl. He gives her a look that says she'll be dead if she

To start the video off, it showed a women being raped by a group of men without them caring about her at all. It also shows Madonna herself as a sex object by the way she dresses and dances. It shows her wearing very low cut shirts with camera angels that make the viewer look at her breasts. She dances in a very sexual ways throughout the video and looks at the camera as if she would look at someone that she is having sex with. When Madonna is in the church looking at the black saint she is sliding her hand up and down the medal bars. Her bra strap is also hanging down her arm and not on her shoulder through the video while she is in the church. She sings throughout the song, “I’m down on my knees, I want to take you there.” These lyrics can be taken sexually very easy but can also be taken in a religious way. This shows the constant battle that some people have between sex and religion. People want to do what is fun and feels good but always want to have morals and do what their God wants them to

Throughout the video she mixed herself with and African American choir by wearing the same colors and singing together. Another way that she mixes the two religions is when she worships the black saint in the same church as the black choir. The black choir dancing and celebrating at the end of the video when she gets the black man freed shows how the power of religion can bring everyone together. With the help from the Roman Catholic saint and the black Protestant church Madonna becomes a savior in the sense that she saved the innocent black of being charged with rape and