The pop icon’s latest video, for the song “What It Feels Like for a Girl,” which was directed in a handheld style by her husband, Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels director Guy Ritchie, has been deemed too violent to make its way into regular rotation on MTV or VH1.
The networks have opted to air the video, which features the Material Girl as an angry woman on a crime spree and ends in a car crash that may or may not be fatal, just one time, a decision they say is irrevocable.
MTV News will air the four-and-a-half-minute video on Tuesday at 11:30 p.m. EST.
“MTV and VH1 feel that the Madonna video is newsworthy and can be seen with proper context,” said MTV News.
Madonna rep Liz Rosenberg says the video actually carries an anti-violence message. “There is a lot of violence in the video,” Rosenberg conceded to the New York Daily News. “It tells the story of a woman who has probably been abused. It’s very strong. It’s not the last video you’d want to see before going to sleep at night.”
MTV previously censored Madonna for being too sexy in her 1990 video for “Justify My Love,” which only boosted video sales of the banned clip. Her 1992 video for “Erotica” was played on the network, but only in the wee hours, a restriction apparently not repeated until the video for Prodigy’s controversial “Smack My Bitch Up” – which, incidentally, was admired by Madonna – was relegated to a wee-hours slot by the music network.
