MTV has decided to pull the plug on the Material One's latest clip, "What It Feels Like for a Girl." The music channel, which made Madonna the superstar she is, will only air the video once, late at night, due to its extremely violent content.
"There is a lot of violence in the video," Madonna's rep, Liz Rosenberg tells 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."
The video is directed by Madonna's hubby, Guy Ritchie, who has made a career out of over-the-top violence in his feature flicks Snatch and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. It's shot in his typical frenetic, hand-held camera style.
As Rosenberg explains it, Madonna plays a woman in a rage, a nihilistic chick who's pissed off and angry. The clip ends with Madonna in a car crash--but whether she dies is open to viewer interpretation, says her rep.
According to Rosenberg: "Guy says, 'All the answers to the video are in Greek mythology.'"
MTV, which previously censored Madonna's "Justify My Love" video in 1990 for explicit sexual material, will air the new video once and for all on Tuesday at 11:30 p.m. ET/PT, after an MTV News segment about it.
Apparently, MTV and its sister network VH1, are concerned the vid's violence could prove impressionable upon the young 'uns.
Rosenberg disagrees. "To me, it's kind of an anti-violence film," she tells the News "I can't imagine anyone would want to duplicate [the car crash]."
Then again, MTV has taken much heat recently after a Connecticut teen copied a human BBQ stunt from the music channel's Jackass, and suffered severe burns.
Meanwhile, Rosenberg says the video will not be shelved for good (especially now with all this free publicity drummed up by the censorship hullaballoo). "We would like VH1 and MTV to make a very strong commitment to playing this video," she tells the Associated Press. "There are many other possibilities that we can explore but our first choice has always been for VH1 and MTV to play this video, and more than once."
The clip could surface on HBO, which, like Madonna's label, Warner Bros. Records, is owned by AOL Time Warner. Not too coincidentally, AOL has already agreed to make it available on the Internet. There's nothing like synergy.