Audience and Madonna

In this video, we are able to see how Madonna witnesses a murder of a woman by a group of white
people. These people then run away, giving Madonna a smug look and a black man runs up to the
woman who has been stabbed. The man immediately acts by giving aid to the woman who has been
stabbed, however this is misinterpreted by the police, who immediately assume that the black man
is the murderer. At the time that this music video was released by Madonna, racism was common in
society and stereotypes of people were made.
Bulmer and Katzs theory of Uses and Gratifications Model can be
applied to this music video as the audience has an expectation of
what is to happen. For example, in this video, we see a lot of shots
of Madonna in a very revealing dress. This is expected before the
audience even watch the video due to the image that Madonna
gives off to people in society. This dress has been used to make
her seem sexy and saucy. These shots are shown through a series
of high angled shots, in order to make her look more submissive
and attractive as we see her as attractive.
Halls theory of encoding and decoding can be applied
to this music video by Madonna as he says that
audience members respond to a text in different ways.
For example, due to the main story line of this music
video being a black man being accused of a murder,
people of different ethnicities will interpret the video
in different ways. For example, a black person may feel
blamed or like they are being put against by everyone
due to the fact that the black man is accused of the
murder, however, may also feel powerful and
important due to the fact that Madonna prays to a black God. Halls theory can also be applied in the
oppositional sense due to religious people understanding that this video rejects the idea of religion due
to the burning cross. Religious people may understand this code, however will reject it due to the fact
that they believe that it is wrong. The murder scene is shown through a wide shot, so that we are able to
see the whole scenario and how the black man is wrongly accused of the murder.
Adorno and Horkheimers theories of Hypodermic Needle
Model can be applied to this music video as they say that
the media injects its message directly into the audience.
This can be proved as in this music video, Madonna is
asking for forgiveness from God because she didnt go
forward and tell the police that the black man is innocent
and that it was actually the group of white people who
murdered the woman. We are shown this shot of Madonna asking for forgiveness through a close up
shot, as the audience are able to see the pain and guilt that she is put through by watching the scene
and not going forward to the police. We are also shown these shots through close ups with high key
lighting, as the audience are able to see how Madonna is the main person in this scene as she is the
artist.
Morleys theory of Social and Cultural Context can be applied to this music video as people from
different social groups will have knowledge of the codes and
different types of media text. For example, in this video the
white men who commit the murder of the woman get away with
it, therefore if white people were to watch this video they may
feel empowered. Also, due to the fact that Madonna is white,
white people may feel like they are important due to the fact
that Madonna is centre of attention in this video, which is visible
by the use of close up shots and lots of lighting on the artists face in order to make her stand out
compared to all other characters in the video.