Violent Madonna Video to Air on MTV
March 16 -- MTV wants its Madonna — even if she's being bad. Despite what's being called "very strong" violence in her new video, which was directed by her hipster husband, Guy Ritchie, the network's censors decided that it's OK to air.
The four-an-a-half-minute video, for the song "What It Feels Like for a Girl," 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. The short film was done in handheld style, and Madonna rep Liz Rosenberg says it has an anti-violence message.
"There is a lot of violence in the video," Rosenberg told 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."
Actually, the video just may be the last thing you see before hitting the hay; MTV may air the video only in a late-night time slot (as it did with the video for Prodigy's controversial "Smack My Bitch Up" — which, incidentally was admired by Madonna).
MTV previously censored Madonna for being too sexy in her racy 1990 video for "Justify My Love."
Rumors of a team-up between Madonna and her new husband, who's directed hipster-gangster movies Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch — circulated after their high-profile wedding in December, but Ritchie nixed the rumor in January.
Meanwhile, the pair's MadGuy production company is reportedly slinging cash in an unlikely direction for a music-based movie. Def Leppard singer Joe Elliott tells British music magazine NME that MadGuy is fronting the money for a VH1 biopic about the '80s hard rock group.
"I would imagine that Madonna and Guy are just the figureheads for this production company that makes little independent films, though I'm sure she knows she's putting the money up for us," Elliott told the magazine. "But I doubt she went into the production office singing 'Into the Groove' and said, 'You know what, I want to make a movie about Def Leppard.'"
