Madonna has been sending a message with her music videos for almost four decades, and that message is crystal-clear in Wednesday’s (June 26) “God Control” visual: We need to wake up.
The eight-minute-plus video sees Madonna behind a typewriter, furiously banging out the lyrics to the Madame X disco anthem. It also puts the pop superstar and dozens of dancers in a bullet-riddled club, not unlike the 2016 mass shooting in Orlando’s Pulse nightclub, which killed 49 people and wounded 53 others. There’s a warning at the start of the clip that the video includes “disturbing” images, and it comes through with shockingly loud and graphic shootings throughout.
The video spells out what Madonna was aiming for by making a club banger about the dangers of guns on her latest album: Gun violence can strike anywhere, any time, and it needs to be stopped.
A message at the end of the video puts numbers behind Madonna’s intent: “Every year, more than 36,000 Americans are killed in acts of gun violence and approximately 100,000 more are shot and injured. No one is safe. Gun control now.”
Watch the video below:
“God Control” is from Madonna’s latest album, Madame X, which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 this week — her ninth project to top the chart.
