Banned Music Videos selected by Projekt Gestalten

One of the many entries by Madonna in this list. This is one of the sexiest videos ever made and was directed by famous photographer Jean-Baptiste Mondino. It features Madonna in a hotel room for a night of debauchery featuring sadomasochism, voyeurism and bisexuality (just a normal night in Berlin, if you ask me). The video was banned from MTV which forced Madonna’s label to release it on a VHS tape to her fans, giving birth to the first ever “video-single” released in the United States.

Prodigy’s “Smack My Bitch Up” video garnered controversy for depiction of driving under the influence, drug use, violence (including street fighting and a hit-and-run incident), vandalism, nudity, and sex (again, another night in Berlin). It is shot from a first-perspective point and includes a plot-twist in the end. The video was first only included in late-night broadcasts and it was banned altogether afterwards.

Watch on Vimeo.

Taken from the homonymous album, this video, directed by Fabien Baron, was aired by MTV only three times (late at night) before being completely banned. It was highly controversial at the time and features Madonna using her dominatrix alter-ego named “Dita”. It also contains some footage from the making of her “Sex” book: a coffee table book featuring nude and sex content shot by Steven Meisel and sold alongside a CD-Single to help promote her new “Erotica” album (a sealed edition from this release goes for a LOT of money). All of her Erotica era attracted controversy and even the rage of the catholic church altogether with the Pope urging people not to go see her show in Italy. Ironically enough, it was recently revealed that a huge part of porn streaming comes from within the walls of the Vatican. So, I wouldn’t be surprised if a copy of Madonna’s Sex book could be found on the shelves of the Vatican library archives. The hypocrisy of it all!

When Björk approached the director and photographer Nick Knight, she asked him to make a video about her love relationship with her then husband Matthew Barney. So, he gave her a camcorder and told her to go shoot this love she was talking about. The couple shot a video of themselves having sex and gave the footage to the director. He, in turn, processed the images with a lot of visual effects that might go by unnoticed to people with innocent pure hearts. The coolest sex tape ever! Take that, Kim and Paris!

Directed by Mark Romanek, this video includes a heart connected with some sort of device, a monkey tied to a cross, a severed pig’s head spinning and some other imagery related to religion, sexuality and bondage. Sounds more like a bad trip but a great song and video nonetheless (I hope they didn’t hurt the monkey, though).

Unlike the other Madonna videos from this list, this one was banned due to its violent content as opposed to sexual. Using the trance remix made by the English trio Above & Beyond (a fine remix but Paul Oakenfold’s Perfecto Mix is my favourite one), Madonna goes on a rampage of criminal activity with an old lady as her sidekick (whom was just taken by Madonna from an old folk’s home). Madonna crashes her camaro into a bunch of stupid boys catcalling her, steals money from a guy at a ATM machine (only to give it all as a tip to a waitress), between other criminal actions towards men. Those types of images are very normalised within our culture when they are done by men, however, when you put a woman doing the same thing, it gets uncomfortable, it gets banned. MTV US sent an email to all of the other international MTVs warning about the content but MTV Brazil refused to ban it. Actually, they also didn’t ban “Erotica” or “Justify My Love” as well. The United States talks a big game about being so “culturally free”, but, when it really comes down to it, they don’t come through.

Pearl Jam’s Jeremy draws its inspiration in two different stories: a school boy who shot himself in front of his classmates and another boy who committed a school shooting (this was way before the Columbine shooting and the wave of this type of crime in the US). The video, featuring this horrific scene of a boy shooting himself in front of his schoolmates, found its way to heavy rotation on TV. It catapulted Pearl Jam to mainstream fame. The video was not banned but only its final scene; showing the boy putting a gun to his mouth (the version in this article is the original uncut video). Because of the censorship, the weapon was cropped out of the shot by zooming in on the upper part of Jeremy’s face. The ambiguity created by the gun being unseen, combined with the subsequent shot of the defensive posture of Jeremy’s classmates and the large amount of blood on them, led many viewers to believe that the video ended with Jeremy shooting his classmates, not himself. The power of editing.

I love Faithless. This video was banned due to the violent content; displaying scenes of normal everyday life contrasted with war images. Ironically, it is a anti-war video and MTV should get a fucking grip! It doesn’t even feature such graphic images or anything. Stop with all the reality shows and come back to playing music (and stop banning cool music videos such as this).

Directed by French director, Michel Gondry, this surrealist video shows Björk breaking into a museum in order to rescue her man; who is featured in its exhibition Tilda Swinton-style. She deploys a bomb that goes off and rescue him. This video was not technically banned but it has many different alternate endings. The version here is the full uncut version. However, for the TV, the video stops right before the bomb goes off with a “to be continued” message. They also did this out of respect to the victims from the terrorist bombing in Oklahoma City. So, in this scenario, I feel the banning from the ending was justifiable at the time.