Video Analysis Of 'Like A Virgin'

“Like a Virgin” was full of innuendos and inter-textual meanings and the video further expands the controversy of the song. Madonna was featured leaving the Brooklyn bridge on a boat and travelling to Venice. The action of the clip is shot in Venice’s Piazza San Marco and features a provocative-looking Madonna on a gondola, a lion walking between the columns of the piazza and the statue of San Marco and alternative scenes of the performer singing as she walked through marble rooms and wore a wedding gown (Smith for out.com). The symbols used in the video – such as the white wedding dress, the rosary beads and the cross were Madonna’s way of pushing the envelope around the intersection of women and religion. She actively mocked cultural norms
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 tells. ''The girl runs, not knowing where to go until she sees a church. She goes in and sees a saint in a cage who looks very much like the black man on the street, and says a prayer to help her make the right decision. He seems to be crying, but she is not sure. ''She lies down on a pew and falls into a dream in which she begins to tumble in space with no one to break her fall. Suddenly she is caught by a woman who represents earth and emotional strength and who tosses her back up and tells her to do the right thing. Still dreaming, she returns to the saint, and her religious and erotic feelings begin to stir. The saint becomes a man. She picks up a knife and cuts her hands. That's the guilt in Catholicism that if you do something that feels good you will be punished. ''As the choir sings, she reaches an orgasmic crescendo of sexual fulfillment intertwined with her love of God. She knows that nothing's going to happen to her if she does what she believes is right. She wakes up, goes to the jail, tells the police the man is innocent, and he is freed. Then
The controversial video was nothing Pepsi wanted to be associated with because that would have meant that the backlash against the singer would have had repercussions on the company. J. Randy Taraborrelli explained in his book “Madonna: An Intimate Biography” that religious groups worldwide protested against the video because according to them it represented a “blasphemous use of Christian imagery” and they invited their followers to boycott PepsiCo and its subsidiaries as a result (Taraborrelli, p.