Madonna-Music videos

"Madonna-Music videos"

In The Madonna Companion, biographer Andrew Metz noted that more than any other recent pop artist, she had used MTV and music videos to establish her popularity and enhance her recorded work. According to him, many of her songs have the imagery of the music video in strong context while referring to the music. The media and oublic reaction towards her most-discussed songs like "Papa Don't Preach", "Like a Prayer" or "Justify My Love", had to do with the music videos created to promote the song and their impact, rather than the song in itself. Her career started in 1984, the same time that MTV also started. Madonna's initial music videos reflected her American and Hispanic mixed street style and a flamboyant glamour. Essentially a dancer, she expressed this imagery through Madonna's music videos. With Madonna's 1st real music videos for songs like "Burning Up", "Borderline" and "Lucky Star", she transmitted her avant-garde downtown New York fashion sense to the American audience. Madonna continued w/ the imagery and incorporation of Hispanic culture and Catholic symbolism with the music videos from the True Blue era. Author Douglas Kellner noted, "such 'multiculturalism' and her culturally transgressive moves turned out to be highly successful moves that endeared MAdonna to large and varied youth audiences". Her Spanish look in the videos became popular and appeared in the fashion trends at that time in the form of boleros and layered skirts accessorizing with rosary beads and crucifix like the video. Academics noted that with her videos, she was subtlely reversing the usual role of male as the dominant s*x and destabilizing the usual power relationship between the "voyeuristic male gaze and object". This symbolism and imagery was probably the most prevalent in the music video for "Like a Prayer". The video included an African American church choir, she "turning on" a statue of a black saint and singing in front of burning crosses. This mix of the sacred and the profane upset the Vatican and resulted in the Pepsi commercial withdrawal. From being in boy-toy girlish roles of Madonna's earliest videos to the s*xual persona in videos for "Justify My Love" and "Express Yourself", she represented herself as someone who is unfazed by the cultures and the struggles Madonna has endured. Devoid of this, Madonna portrayed herself to be dancing off-screen to the music at the end of the video. MAdonna's re-invention has continued in her most recent videos like "Ray of Light", which was lauded with the video of the year award at the 1998 MTV Video Music Awards.

Source: wikipedia