The video for
Madonna’s Material Girl was inspired
by the song Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best
Friend from the Marilyn Monroe film Gentlemen
Prefer Blondes. Madonna herself said in a 1987 interview about the video,
"Well, my favourite scene in all of Monroe's movies is when she does that
dance sequence for 'Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend'. And when it came time
to do the video for the song [Material Girl], I said, I can just redo that
whole scene?”
.jpg)
The video combines acting as well as a dance routine similar
to that in Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best
Friend showing the story of a man trying to impress Madonna with flowers
instead of diamonds. This combination of acting and dancing to create an
overall performance is common in many pop videos even today and Material Girl was recorded in 1985.
Not only was Material
Girl inspired by a film, it has also been in used in films such as the
musical Moulin Rouge. Continuing the
theme of being inspired by Marilyn Monroe, in 1991 Madonna copied Monroe’s
poses for a Vanity Fair magazine shoot.
The song created a legacy for Madonna, helping her brand
herself. Years after the songs release, Madonna was still nicknamed the
‘material girl’. Debates sparked off across the world about whether the song
and video empowered women or did not.
This shows how videos can be inspired by other videos and
then pass that inspiration on to things such as films. However, Material Girl also shows how a video can
contribute towards the overall brand of an artist.
No comments:
Post a Comment