Why Madonna’s ‘Erotica’ Was Too ‘Repellent’ for MTV
The world should value consent. However, Madonna‘s “Erotica” was banned from MTV for depicting consensual roleplay. The Queen of Pop had a surprising reaction to this development. One of the musicians behind Madonna’s album Erotica also had some perceptive things to say about the controversy.
Madonna’s ‘Erotica’ was pulled from MTV for being ‘repellent’
Madonna’s music video for “Erotica” looks like a rediscovered print of a black-and-white silent film about the Folsom Street Fair. It’s grainy, disorientingly edited, and niche in a way that’s generally anathema to a mass-market pop offering. The video has a lot of images that nobody would want to watch with their grandma. The Material Girl had previously explored BDSM in her music videos for “Express Yourself” and “Justify My Love,” but she took things to a new level of explicitness with “Erotica.” After all, the music video had to live up to the song’s title!
According to the book Madonna: An Intimate Biography, MTV’s Kurt Loder explained why the network wasn’t too fond of the video. “Some people have no objection to such roleplaying games as long as they’re consensual,” he said. “Others find such practices repellent, which is why MTV is not airing this video in regular daytime or evening rotation.”
How Madonna reacted to the ban
While Madonna has sometimes championed herself as a proponent of free expression, she took no issue with MTV pulling “Erotica.” “MTV plays to a huge audience and a lot of them are children,” she said on that cable network. “And a lot of the themes explored in my video aren’t meant for children, so I understand why they can’t show it.”
Doug Wimbish, the bassist of the band Living Color, worked on the album Erotica. In a 2017 Billboard interview, he gave insight into the controversy surrounding the album. “There’s all this controversy going on,” he recalled. “Here’s the deal. From ‘Borderline’ going on, she’s a teenage pop idol. And now all the sudden them [breasts] is out. Middle America and everybody else giving their daughters that $10 to buy that record are like, ‘Hey, wait a minute.’ Having a record come out with explicit can take sales away from a label. It’s all b*******.”
Why ‘Erotica’ would shock people today
“Erotica” was definitely racy 30 years ago, but would it shock audiences today? On one level, BDSM has become a bigger part of popular music. Rihanna released a hit single called “S&M,” Lady Gaga has repeatedly incorporated fetish gear into her music videos, and superstars such as The Weeknd, Beyoncé, and Taylor Swift contributed songs to the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy. Avril Lavigne and Marilyn Manson even released “Bad Girl,” a duet about BDSM that’s more musically abrasive than anything in Madonna’s catalog.
On another level, Madonna went deeper into the BDSM subculture with “Erotica”‘ than her successors did. Nicki Minaj may have shown off more of her body in the “Anaconda” video than Madonna did in “Erotica,” but Madonna showed off a side of sexuality that many people find strange, alienating, and repulsive. “Erotica” is as daring visually as Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was musically.
“Erotica” proves that a sex symbol can challenge her audience.
