How Madonna References Classic Films 

Madonna took a stand about AIDS at a time when many were too frightened that doing so may cost them their career. That shouldn't be forgotten.

Madonna putting information about aids in Like A Prayer was such a powerfull and legendary statement and move

“The difference between Madonna and her book is that her book wears a cover and she doesn’t” You can tell she spent all day thinking of that one

I agree that videos like Justify My Love, WAP, or Montero aren't appropriate for kids, but it's up to the parents to monitor what their kids watch, not the artists to censor their work.

A+ content. She has never gotten credit for the intelligence that goes into her references and scandal.

It's just fascinating how everything she did was so deliberate, so well thought out - every song, every music video, every outfit and image. She is a true artist.

As a priest in the Church of the Algorithm, I bless this video with a comment.

Now I understand why Veronica Sawyer wore a monocle in "Heathers!"

“All the shit was related” THE CATHARSIS

I didn’t really grow up listening to Madonna & unfortunately I took that take of her only doing things to sell. I thought she was just a package item from the music industry and I feel like a moron now. I pride myself and making my own decisions by reaching thing for myself. Thank you for making this video as a starting point for me learning more about her. The putting info in her CD’s is amazing and inspiring. She did care cause she wanted people to look and learn.

Madonna is not a singer, she's an artist. I became a fan and started exploring her discography in 2015! She is truly a revolutionary and changed society and made cultural impact all over the globe.

Madonna is a living legend. She shaped show business and how to express yourself. 👸🏼❤️‍🔥

Madonna is such a fucking legend, and she's so sadly overlooked. We are so blessed to still have her with us, as sadly many of her peers are no longer here. As usual - sadly no one's going to realize the impact she's had until she's gone.

This is incredible and demands a part 2 analyzing the latter half of her work

Her musical and cultural impact are far bigger than people understand. She has changed the world !

I think every generation has a gay icon (I love Judy, Streisand, and Gaga too) in the queer community and Madonna was mine. Growing up in the rural ultra conservative south there wasn't much culture, gay or straight, to experience. I was on my own but somehow I still managed to find it. Back when renting movies from a store was still a thing, one of the local mom & pop video stores had Truth or Dare on VHS. I probably rented it a hundred times before making that hour road trip to the closest shopping mall to buy the video along with Justify My Love - also on VHS. When MTV banned her music video she just released it as a video single instead. Although I wasn't lucky enough to buy a copy of her SEX book, I met someone who did have a copy of it and I was blown away. It sounds silly today but I thought to myself, "these are my people!" It was incredibly powerful (empowering?) to see queerness being represented. Even at 15 it meant so much more to me than the acts of sex. These days you can easily find a copy of the book in pdf format online if one is interested. *wink wink nudge* So, yeah Madge is the Queen to me.

This is fantastic.

"Be Kind Rewind" one of the very few BEST channels on RU-vid. FULL STOP.

Remember also that this woman is completely self-made. From SCRATCH. What she achieved is truly mind-boggling. She owns her entire catalogue, she started so small and then grew to absolutely incomprehensible levels of fame, and this by doing the *opposite* of what was acceptable each and every time. As a woman. And people are already either writing her off or ignoring her achievements because she’s past sixty, when she’s still as busy as ever and her latest album garnered massive critical praise despite getting very little airtime because radio stations refuse to play her. I am and will always be a stan.

Posting this DURING PRIDE MONTH 🥰🏳️‍🌈 younger gays really need to sit back and take a lesson before they dismiss Madonna for her age...

Even to this day, I think Madonna inspires such vitriol that you don’t see towards many celebrities/pop stars. And to think she’s endured it since the beginning. Thank you for such a well researched video that highlights her risk taking and artistry.

As someone who knows next to nothing about Madonna (I'm 21 and obviously quite uncultured) this video was such an interesting and wonderful watch!! I knew Madonna is iconic, but learning about her clever referencing, her activism, and her art makes me want to learn more

Thank you… I have been defending Madonna for close to 40 years to family and friends. This explanation of her artistic choices is the BEST analysis of what she been trying to accomplish as a woman, artist and human being I have ever seen. Thank you for being one of the few people that has given her work the deeper analysis it deserves and explaining it in a way that is easily understood. Finally I have something I can share that explains the impact Madonna has had on our culture and why she deserves credit for many of the freedoms some of us take for granted today. She fought battles alone and kept moving forward giving voice to so many people that didn’t have one. Great work, I’m looking forward to seeing an even deeper dive should you find time to continue looking at her career.

I was about to eat dinner, then I realized BKR’s video would be more edible.

I FULL ON GASPED WHEN I SAW THIS SHE’S BACK EVERYBODY IT’S GONNA BE OK

Man...that was a densely packed, thoroughly fascinating, & beautifully articulated thesis that almost singlehandedly revitalizes Madonna's relevance in every way. And it's interesting how - like Springsteen's "Born In The USA" - the intended subtextual critique in "Material Girl" was not only lost on the public but appropriated as a Reagan-era _anthem._

Madonna GOES there and we’re just now catching up.

I was outside having patio drinks with my best friend and a notification popped up for this video and I screamed “oh no she didn’t, bitch!” And my friend assumed something bad happened but I quickly let her know that this is the best thing ever! My favorite RU-vid channel made a video about my favorite artist of all time 🤯 Love her or hate her, doesn’t matter, the impact she’s made on the world for our queer community is everything. Respect for the woman who stood up for us when she had nothing to gain, always.

As a kid growing up in the 80's and 90's - I agree - Madonna's in-your-face sexuality was an upfront against the pervasive and oppressive gender views of the time. I live and breathed in the Church of Madonna! And still do!

I've gotta say, I was not such a fan of Madonna. Your video made me see her in a whole new light, and now I'm listening to her classics.

in a society that still misunderstands madonnas msg about sexuality especially NOW as shes older... this video reminds me of the struggles she bravely faced and the conversations she forces us to make. we are talking about it... therefore, we are on our way to dealing with it. she's a genius and arguably one of the most important artist of all time. i love your videos. so thought-provoking and always soooo well-made.

Never thought I'd be a Madonna fan, but here we are.

This is why I'm glad that although I'm not a fan of hers I know she is G.O.A.T. and an icon for what she has done and is doing.

You articulately detailed in 36 minutes throughout this video why I recommend Madonna as the greatest visual artist in pop music history. When she’s referencing the golden age of Hollywood classics films and stars, she isn’t just doing to get some pop culture reference cred, she’s actually expressing artistically her thoughts and stories of womanhood and sexuality, it sometimes felt like she was taking up for the women of those era who weren’t able to take control fully of their careers and talent (especially in the time of the studio system era) and using a new generation approach to female entertainers in success and power to hold a torch. Growing up as a early Gen Z member I was already developing into a golden age Hollywood stan and also developing into a Madonna stan by watching her classic videos from the 80s/90s was a double edge sword for me picking the references I knew and then discovering the films she referenced that I wasn’t aware of, was like doing easter egg games

This is by far not only your best video, but perhaps one of the most eloquent and intelligent videos about Madonna herself! Thank you! You deserve a medal!!

Thank you so much for this intelligent, well researched and compelling take on Madonna’s film references and homages. As a fan for 40 years, I hadn’t thought about how references to 30s German film actually also points to a time of progressive societal values, especially in terms of queer culture and understanding. It’s so sad to me that so many people have consistently and frequently deliberately misunderstood her message and her artistic choices. And now she’s facing agism, even among young women and queer men whom she’s championed for decades. It irritates me that she doesn’t get the credit she deserves, and the women who have followed her and frequently copy her in their careers don’t properly credit her for the doors she’s opened.

That's why she's THE Goddess of PoP! It would be great if you did more vids along this line and concept of Classic Film references in music and art.

As a closeted bisexual growing up in the 90s, I found an appreciation for Madonna's music. I felt I could be myself, coded as heterosexual among society, but loving how Madonna embraced sexuality as a statement of who she is, and maybe I could be that too. The classic movie references I saw as references, and you did an excellent job showing the artistry as to why she uses them to make the statements she makes in her artistry. I don't know when I stopped following her music, but when I think of the anti-racism of "Like A Prayer" or the pro-choice message of "Papa Don't Preach" or even the still debatable homage to the ballroom scene of "Vogue," I felt more of myself. Madonna knows what she is doing. She is a master marketer. The fact that her style has become a mainstream musically amid the ongoing trials of society in response of a sexually confident person, shows progress. It may not be the goal, but Madonna was sex positive before it became a term. Good for her.

All the movie references used by Madonna in various ways makes perfect sense. She's obviously a fan of all those movies. If I'm not mistaken, Dennis Rodman once said that when he was dating Madonna she enjoyed staying home watching old movies.

One often missed film reference is related to Madonna’s live version of the song Hung Up. Marilyn Monroes 1960 film Let’s Make Love has a dance sequence where Marilyn dances around the stage with a big lilac jumper and pantyhose ending up gyrating with a group of dancers towards the end with some pole dancing in between. In Madonna’s version she is wearing a lilac leotard instead and doing similar dance and pole routine. During this time she also did a photoshoot for W magazine called ‘Blame it on Rio’ where she reimagines the on set photos taken during the filming of the Misfits in Nevada in 1961.

Few people realizes that Madonna is actually an art genius.

There are two more references to classic movies/stars that I would like to point out. The first one is in the "Material Girl" video where the story line references also to " How To Marry A Millionaire" . The character interpreted by Keith Carradine in the video resembles the one interpreted by Cameron Mitchell in the movie , a "fake" poor guy ( who in reality is a multimillionaire ) that ends up marrying another apparent "material girl " ( Lauren Bacall in the movie) who is unaware of his wealth. The other reference is to Italian movie star Anna Magnani in the "Like A Prayer" video . Madonna's look ( dark hair, black petticoat) echoes very much that of Magnani in The Rose Tattoo's film adaptation. You are absolutely right about Madonna's coherence in her referencing to classic movies and she does in a very articulated and detailed way. Nothing casual and at times very original.

I'm glad that we're revisiting the work of women (pop stars, especially) from the 80s/90s and how the public reacted (or over-reacted, I guess) to them making art, essentially. I'm not even a huge Madonna fan, but even to me it's clear she was intentional in her decisions and hugely influential to future artists! I remember at lunch a few years ago my coworker said that Madonna was apparently a "bitch" and "hard to deal with" (OH HOORAY). That those kinds of summations of her with little to no context are gross, and this video shows how much she probably had to fight just to be recognized, even at her peak.

Bedtime Stories is definitely one of the best Madonna music video, referencing so much art and film. Please make a part 2, this video was amazing and barely scratched the surface

Terrific’ interestingly- their 1st names are religious - whilst a child Marie Magdalene fused her name into Marlene. Both also shore an almost unrivaled drive for hard work & perfectionism that overcame what they lacked in technical talent. Dietrich’s bio’s by Stephen Bach and her daughter Maria Riva are fascinating from start to finish’

This was a fantastic piece!!! Madonna is rarely credited for the thought & deliberate cultural references that encompass much of her work. It's a major part of her genius & artistry. She was more than a pop singer or shock rocker. That's what propelled her into the icon that she is today.

I would have never thought that I needed a video like this until I saw the notification. I love your videos. One learns so much about classic Hollywood and pop culture in your channel

Her videos are better than her own movies. I don’t think that’s by accident. What she chooses to say as opposed what she portrays is saying two difficult things. She’s the master of self image. Madonna is a voyeurist and exhibitionist challenging you to say something about it. She wants you to watch. In fact, she dares you to. She uses vast and artful film images to convey her message with absolute ambition and perfection whether you like her or not. She’s the queen of controversy. She thrives in it like the very air that she breathes. She’s very good at it I give her that much. No one’s done it better since. Sorry Gaga.

I've been a huge since I was a ten year old kid. I'm in my early 30s, and I feel like a lot of people my age and younger really don't understand how recycling images worked in context, and how it's different from today. The way Madonna recycles images is worlds away from what we see most stars doing today, but her audience was very different as well. Gen X grew up on old movies. If you wanted to watch TV late at night pre MTV, the choice was basically old movies. Even after MTV, the choice was MTV or old movies. When Madonna created an homage to Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, she was playing to an audience who had actually seen Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Her target audience would likely understand the irony. A good share of the people attending the Blonde Ambition Tour had probably seen Metropolis. People seeing The Girlie Show would have mostly understood the references to Marlene Dietrich, and why references to Weinman Germany were culturally relevant at the time. Madonna was exactly the right pop star for Gen X, who is likely the most cultured generation in history. Nowadays, recycled images are pretty shallow. When stars do an homage to Marilyn Monroe, it's likely they're doing an homage to a photo of Marilyn Monroe, without having actually seen any of her movies, or understanding any of the nuance of her personality. Recycling aesthetics today are almost always surface level, and just for nostalgia. It's truly unfortunate.

Not a surprise, but so incredibly well done. As far as I'm concerned, you can produce as many parts about this as you want. Especially about her work since Ray Of Light up to Madame X. It baffles me how people can watch this video (packed with examples of eloquent statements straight from her mouth etc) and still don't acknowledge her intelligence and courage and monumental impact. Almost 40 years later, we still consider so much of her art controversial, so I can't imagine just how brave she really must've been back then.

As a die hard Madonna fan I’m amaze, as an art historian I’m LIVING! The references, the contexts, the graphic material, EVERYTHING is so accurate and precise. Thank you for proving once again that pop culture is meaningful. Madonna’s legacy should be revisited and celebrated. ASTONISH WORK!

Madonna always has been a true artist. Pop girl nowadays doesn't have 5% of her artistry. She should be celebrated while she is still with us, but unfortunately people just wanna shit on her for her young boyfriends, her face, butt, hands. She is such a cultural phenomenon yet we don't appreciate it. Thanks for the video. This woman deserves all the best.

She’s honestly such an interesting person

There is no one. Male or female. Like Madonna. She was, is and will always be a force to be reckoned with and look up to. The true and real meaning of an artist.

This video has completely educated me about Madonna's work as an artist and advocate. I was born in 94 and I feel that most contemporary references to her use her as a punch line, and I think after watching the video, I'm reminded that one should always investigate the work before making up their mind about an individual performer or artist.

Every pop star should be thanking madonna for paving the way, pushing boundaries, and breaking the cieling. Very few pop stars could match the consistency of her concepts and its message.

A Be Kind Rewind video on my birthday?! DELIGHTFUL! 😍😍😍🎉 Thank you for your excellent work (and the inadvertent gift)!

This video opens pandoras box! It might sound funny but Madonna is underrated. Even by you. The main reasons for Madonna referencing what has inspired her, is her oldschool clubkid era in NY and her study of the arts/dance! Back when we dressed up for the clubs all we did was referencing pop culture. Our clothes, our makeup and persona that we would put on for the night was ALL ABOUT referencing art/artists while communicating to others what we knew! In the drag queen scene it still happens and this attitude survived! It‘s a rule for the dressup kids to know their references and USE THEM accordingly, craft their own outfits/looks and also pay homage the people that inspire them! If you used references that you didnt know and believed you are original, you were not respected in the clubs, were looked down upon and got sometimes even physically and verbally attacked! Millenials and Gen Z don’t have the understanding, research chops or sophisticated communication skills to understand that! This leads to the fact that Madonna to many of them is just an old lady while Kim K or Beyonce are the biggest stars of their generation!!!!!! At the beginning Gaga did not pay respect to the people she „stole“ from! The drag queens read her to filth and Madonna calls her „reductive“!!! She, unlike Madonna, Grace Jones or Debbie Harry will never truely be one of the originals. Everything I know about music, politics, culture, film and art is because of Madonna! Growing up at the same time as Madonna was the greatest thing that happened to many many gay kids! Not only she changed lives by her msuic and art, she also changed lives by her charity work in AIDS reasearch since day one! She brought the Beastie Boys to the mainstream ...and Alanis Morisette! Studying her music career and watching her interviews should be the entry level art lesson requirement for all children. You have missed atleast 20-30 other references including one of my favorites: Gwen Verdon‘s performance Of „Whatever Lola wants“ from the movie „Damn Yankees“ inspired her choreography in „Papa don‘t Preach“!!!! Her dance and choreography references alone are worth a documentary! Thanks for this video. It is so good to see all this information floating around on the internet while we had to research and recreate every little detail before the internet ourselves and through other/older gays!!! Being gay is truely a blessing from gods! We are gods gift to this planet.

as a fan of this account and a madonna fan, i clicked watch as fast as i could

The keep it together number in the Blond Ambition Tour also had references to A Clockwork Orange.

Finally some redemption and respect Madonna deserves.

reminded of that time Agnès Varda considered remaking Cleo from 5 to 7 with Madonna and during an interview said about her: « she is a provocateur and in the word provocateur there’s the word ‘pro’ »

28:27, I want to thank Madonna for saying the word “homage” properly. I’ve noticed people are butchering that word lately.

Oh my f***in god, this totally changed the way I view Maddona and her impact on today's culture. Thank you, this is so informative. She's not just an artist, she's an artist with a purpose. And if you read comments, I hope you do because this video is so interesting, maybe because this truly served your interest in history. This is awesome!

Wow, I've been subscribed for 2 years and absolutely love every video you create but this one was such an unexpected, wonderful surprise. I'm a huge Madonna fan and I can't express in words how much this video means to me! Thank you endlessly for all your incredible work. Love from NYC

This is incredibly well done. Madonna was decades ahead of her time. This video needs to be watched by later generations to understand and respect the impact she had on entertainment and society.

Madonna is one of the three people I admire the most in this world (along with my mother and Bette Davis). You mentioned so many of the things that I value in this woman. And it makes me happy to see it put out there and so eloquently! Thank you for making this video

You could do a whole channel examining Madonna's career and impact 😹

There may have been other allies in the eighties and nineties, but really there was no one who made it so central to their work and their being. Love her on so many levels and love what you did here!

my favorite "art" music video will always be my "bedtime story" by madonna, each frame in that video is a reconstruction of incredible surrealist art

Blonde Ambition tour was her best tour and best era.

I love the baby boomers in the 80s who weren't Yuppies

“Will a Fosse neck do it?” 😅 greatest ever You could’ve also used Robin Williams in The Birdcage: “Fosse Fosse Fosse! Michael Kidd Michael Kidd or Madonna! Madonna! Madonna!”

This was great! Loved hearing your take on Madonna, her work, and her influence. Please do a part two!!

This is the kind of Madonna analysis I have been waiting for!

Absolutely phenomenal video essay. While I've clocked some of Madonna's references I had not at all realised how deep and pervasive they are - nor did I really know about how active she was against AIDS at a time when that was a real risk for any celebrity. My respect for her has grown exponentially. I would love a feature length documentary on this subject, with you at the helm. Where do we send the petition?!

Madonna reinvented what it is to put in a pop show when she toured Blonde Ambition. You can STILL see it’s references to this day. What an icon.

She's always so smart with the work she does, she seems to sense the pulse of the collective and knows exactly when, how and what to reference in here work, and when to change it up. Madonna is deeply artistic, intellectual, and provocative. Madonna said of all the controversial things she did, the most controversial was to stick around and still be doing it, now she's fighting ageism x

Excellent job scratching the surface! Madonna has always been deeper than anybody ever really understood. She was THE ONLY PERSON in her position to do what she did. When she was the most famous person on earth she was fighting for the LGBT community, and all marginalized people. It will be a long time before people give her the credit she deserves...for some reason people still can't figure it out, but this video came closer than anyone has to date. Thank You!

I have always had a general understanding of who Madonna is and how influential she is, but its kind of amazing how media just redirect the narrative that they like the most about someone, loved this thank you, Madonna is the baddest and i still the wrap my head around it

That's why Madonna is the Queen of Pop. She made referencing pop culture a thing before it was cool.

One of my favourite RU-vid channels analysing my favourite artist with lots of references to my favourite city (Berlin). Thank you very much, Be Kind Rewind, for your great work!

Everyone should watch that 1990 Nightline interview as well as the one from Hood Morning America. Both are very important and historical pieces. And they show what Madonna is made of. She's a true artist who knows what she's doing, in full control of her creative choices. She knows what she's talking about, and she's fierce and confident while standing up to all the bullshit that was thrown at her. Those interviews show how smart she is and how she shines under preasure. And yes, she definitely paved the way. She changed culture.

This is extremely well done and you have touched on many of the aspects of her imagery that was truly an education for me. She is a postmodern artist and I like the juxtapositions and references in her work and how she uses them to tell a story. She is drawn to historical figures she identifies with, and has constructed her own mythology by embodying and continuing the personas begun by others in the past, and by doing that has held a mirror to society to show how things have both changed and stayed the same.

This is definitely VIDEO OF THE YEAR. The way you contextualize the subject is just amazing. Not only did we learn about Madonna’s film references, but also about pop culture history and social issues. Congratulations!

Wow! This is an outstanding primer on Madonna‘s extraordinary impact on late 20th century American society. What many dismissed as Madonna’s vainglorious attempts to gain attention you correctly cite as cultural, cinematic, sexual and political references and commentary presented as entertainment. She was pretty and danced and sang well too. Well done!

Dare I say it, Ariana even snatched Madonna's high pony

BKR Madonna 9/9/23 When Madonna started her career, I just couldn't stand her and thought she was the worst example of the shallow popstar. I started to reevaluate that within a couple of years, because I found that I was drawn to her songs, some because they were fantastic to dance to and others because they were surprisingly moving or sensitive. So I won't say that I got stuck in a judgmental mindset - something it was important to me never to do - but at some level I suspect that I harbored some of those original suspicions. And this is why I can honestly say how much your video humbled me. And I'm so glad that it did. Thank you for your intelligence and commitment to seeing what lies beyond the surface and for your skill in creating and presenting these videos. I'm grateful to have watched this as I can now make amends for the ways I underestimated such a committed and talented artist.

This just became my fav video from your channel!! I can’t believe I never caught on to the Weimar references. Except one…. Metropolis. Thank you for the further education on Madonna’s genius.

I for one am absolutely GOBSMACKED at finding out that there was almost a film version of "Chicago" made that would've starred Madonna as Velma Kelly! And with Fosse directing too!

Really excellent. I have been a fan of Madonna since her very first album showed up in cassette form in my Christmas stocking thanks to my very music savvy mom...I mean Santa. I have loved her work so deeply, and you taught me a lot with this video. You have taken me love and admiration of this great artist to new levels. There has never been and may never be an artist to have been as famous, successful, impactful for the duration that she has and continues to do so (yes, things have waned a bit, but no one had done what she has done. Michael Jackson, Elvis, Prince, John Lennon, George Michael---all died too soon, some not sustaining her nearly non-stop career. Other artists pop in and out of pop culture--and gloriously so (Cher, Tina Turner, Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel, Elton John, Paul McCartney, Janet Jackson, Rod Stewart, Bette Midler). New and newer artists show promise of some level of, if not her heights (Beyonce, Drake, Taylor Swift, Rihanna, Jay-Z, Katy Perry, Nicki Menaj, Pink, Britney Spears, Billie Eilish, and, of course, Lady Gaga). But she will always be the Queen of Pop. With a legacy we may never truly realize.

While not the biggest fan of Madonna, I give it to her. Her activism for the LGBT Community , during the height of the Aids Pandemic, is beyond admirable. And her styling has always been iconic. She really is a moment to be forever remembered

Omg this feels like it was made specifically for me. I love Madonna and classic films and this is one of my favorite channels!

I AM HERE FOR THE DOCUMENTARIES! Your videos are so focused & organized. Plus your voice tone & cadence is perfect! I can't wait to see what you create!

Wow what a great video. Not only amazing analysis of Madonna as an artist but also of her influences and what impacted her. It's a shame she doesn't get the credit she deserves. We don't really see this kind of influences on artists today, Madonna always had a vision which is why it worked. She knew what she wanted to say or show, artists today do it for aesthetics.

She even referenced Pasolini’s Salò in the Erotica video. Madonna was the one.

Love everything about this video. Be Kind Rewind is one of my favourite channels on RU-vid. Thank you so much for all the amazing videos. I learn so much and am constantly referencing things from this channel and directing anyone who is listening to me talk about old movies and pop culture to your fantastic videos

Perfect video. And yet begs for a second part. Amazing video, as Always!

Madonna is a living artist-and everything she did/does, was art 💗

There are is a reason these kinds of performances are there full of so many cultural motifs and gems from past films . Madonna is sophisticated and she does have a great deal of culture. The 80s are a testament to that.