Ali Appelbaum - Supplemental Post 6

I’ve always known Madonna’s song Like a Prayer, but had never seen the music video. I watched it immediately after reading the Hooks analysis of the song. Being familiar with the lyrics of the song, I assumed the analysis of the music video was an exaggeration because the song itself has absolutely nothing to do about race, but sure enough the video is completely about race. I wonder how this idea came to life and I wonder who thought it was a good idea. It had to be controversial considering it is a white woman commenting on blackness and the black experience.

I wonder about the black actors in this video and wonder if they had any objections to what is going on here in this video. It kind of relates to a show we just did here at USC in the School of Dramatic Arts. The school put on a production of West Side Story. The story follows a conflict between two groups: a white gang and a Latino gang. In class today, I was talking to some of the Latino cast members and it came up that they weren’t necessarily in agreement with and comfortable with the way their culture was being portrayed, due to some of the directorial choices of the production. But, they didn’t have much freedom to vocalize that or change the direction of the show. It was interesting to me to hear about actors taking part in something that goes against what they believe in. I’ve been in that situation and it’s definitely uncomfortable. So, in a music video like this that is certainly pushing some boundaries, I wonder if there were any objections or hesitancies from the performers.

In the article, the author discussed how there were lots of complaints about the music video, but they generally weren’t around race. But, when I googled the meaning of the video, all of the top hits analyzed the music video in relation to race. It seems unavoidable to me. I’m not sure how you could possibly discuss the video without mentioning race. My initial responses to the article became totally invalid once I watched the video. Without having the visual context, I thought the author was saying that the video had practiced color blind casting and was arguing against it. I thought she was insinuating that she had an issue with the prince being a black man, which totally confused me because color blind casting is the way to the future and what'd I'd think to be the up and coming ultimate goal of casting. But, I realized that it wasn't color blind casting, yet very racially specific casting.

The article also compared the black women in the video to the stereotypical casting in a “Mammy” role. I don’t think this was the intention, but I totally see how it can come off this way, considering the black people are somewhat in service of Madonna. However, I assume it’s probably similar in most of Madonna’s videos: people twirling around Madonna while she remains in the center. I think that’s just pretty common of music videos with huge stars, they will always remain the center of attention.