Can other posters out there help explain Madonna's "Deeper and Deeper" video to me?

And the video, which I'm sure everyone has already seen, but just in case...

Also on Wikipedia it says Madonna is playing Edie Sedgwick, but I don't really know who that is or what that would mean in the context of the video.

Hmm the daddy lines coupled with that imagery implies incest, to me... that would sure explain Madonna's entire oeuvre.

The video is about going to a club and pretending to have fun, but really you are miserable.

If Madonna made this video today she'd be canceled immediately.

R4, that definitely comes across. She doesn't really seem to enjoy herself at all. It really felt like she was looking for something that was no longer there.

Interesting R5, why do you say so?

Did you watched the video, r6?

Yeah I did R5... I should've mentioned, I'm the OP. I was genuinely curious in what parts you thought would get her cancelled these days. There was no sarcasm or anything like that in what I said. I really am interested in the views of others on this videos.

Talk about a song that would barely survive Cancel Culture today:

She would be called out and canceled for cultural appropriation in the video, r8. Especially the wig at the end.

R9, no one cares about that video. You're just a Republican looking to grandstand about "cancel culture"

Republicans can't tell the difference between being "canceled" and being criticized.

I suppose people might be upset about anything, but the video seems pretty fine to me, unless I'm being naive about something. I really am curious about what the balloons are meant to represent.

When you know the notes to sing, you can sing most anything.

Re the Edie Sedgwick comment above, Edie did have a giant oversized convertible Mercedes like that one per the George Plimpton bio. And her Daddy did abuse her. Other than that I don’t get the correlation.

Great dance song, great video. Udo Kier, Soffia Coppola, Debie Mazar, Holly Woodlawn....

^ oh and after watching again, there is definitely a Joe Dalessandro guy in there, multiple times. If anything, very loosely based on Edie

Always enjoyed the video, but this really is one of Madonna's finest pop songs.

You can smell the poppers, stale beer and cigarette smoke of 90s gay clubs when you listen to it.

It really is a great pop song, I would say one of her finest too. It really stands out on Erotica as being probably the closest to what her audience would've expected at the time, the rest of the album being much more underground sounding.

I've been trying to read others' impressions of the video online, but no one really seems to have a definite view of what it's all about. What is clear to me is that it is full of Warhol references, and as I don't really know anything about him, I guess that's why I'm confused. I was also under the impression that those scenes in the video with them and the pillow fight, the strip show and the ceremony are all meant to be flashbacks, and the main scenes are Madonna going back to the club to find her old friends and relieve memories. I always thought the club scene looked like people at a 70s fancy dress night rather than it being meant to be IN the 70s, but I read that most people think it's all meant to be set at the same time, so what do I know?

It's interesting, but to me with all those cameos in there (of people I admittedly don't know very well), it is Debi Mazar who stands out.

Perhaps the balloons are a symbol of Madonna's character holding on to the past and needing to learn to let go and move forward?

^Relive memories, I meant, not relieve! Hahaha.

It's funny, the subtitles at the beginning of this video say:

"Beware! Our idols and demons will pursue us until we learn to let them go!"

But he actually says:

"Du! Miß dem Junker Kleider! Und miß ihm Hosen an!" which means "You! Make clothing for this noble man! And make him trousers too!" It's from Faust.

Was it actually fashionable to wear a backless dress with your bra showing like Madonna does when she goes to the club? It's very Carrie Bradshaw of her.

Her cunt was too stretched out to feel anything anymore, so the guy fucking her has to go deeper and deeper to hit her sweet spot.

I always wondered about it too op. This I still one of my favorite Madonna songs.

Mine too, R23. This and "Rescue Me" I think are the best of what she was going for at the time.

[Quote] Her cunt was too stretched out to feel anything anymore, so the guy fucking her has to go deeper and deeper to hit her sweet spot.

Madonna's cunt is stretched out? Really?

Wow. I knew NONE of this! See, I thought, due to the theft of the line, "When you know the notes to sing, you can sing most anything" (from "The Sound if Music") that Madonna was playing Maria VonTrappe, widowed and--by the 1970's--disenchanted with life in Vermont, running away to Hollywood and burying her grief over the Captain's death and fillibg the emptiness which has grown between her and the vonTrappe children with drugs, drinking, and debauchery. And the balloons were her belief in God, which turns to atheism as she goes deeper and deeper into her new, dark world.

But she"s Edie Sedgwick? Damn!

I don't hate your interpretation, R26! 😂

OP, Edie Sedgwick was a pharmaceutical chemist who accidentally became an actress and superstar. She was close with the aging Hannah Arendt and Madonna had always admired Hannah and her sister Grete Hermann, the mathematician. Udo introduced Madonna to the dasa sil mata, Sister Vajirā, nee Hannelore Wolf, and wrote a biopic screenplay with Joey Arias that was never produced. Deeper and Deeper is a figurative parallel to Madonna's brief but deep exploration of 20th century German critical thought. The balloons are Lebensborn metaphors.

Well, uh, that's as good a theory as any, I guess? 😉😘

Madonna is playing a whore wearing too much makeup who goes clubbing in the video, so she's playing herself. It doesn't go any deeper than that.

Deeper and Deeper is the flip side of Vogue. Whereas Vogue was about leaving your troubles behind on the dance floor, and losing yourself in the fantasy of being the glamorous superstar you deserve to be, Deeper and Deeper takes a dark turn with Madonna as Edie descending into the club underground looking like she's in a drug haze. Scenes of ritual candle lighting, tarot readings, Udo Kier's mad guru posturing (and quoting Faust!), girlfriends ogling a half naked man and dancing wildly, etc., imply that our heroine has joined the dark side. The balloons either symbolize her innocence or her spirit or soul and as they pop one by one, Madonna/Edie rushes out of the club to save the remaining balloons, but Udo cuts them and they are lost forever.

As already mentioned, "Deeper and Deeper" is an homage to Andy Warhol and the Factory denizens. There's of course, Madonna as an Edie Sedgwick-type character. Udo Kier was in "Andy Warhol's Dracula" and "Andy Warhol's Frankenstein." There's also a cameo appearance by Holly Woodlawn, and the late porn star Joey Stefano playing a Joe Dallesandro-type character. And the scene of the the ladies peeling and eating bananas appear to be a visual reference to the famous Andy Warhol designed The Velvet Underground album cover.

Thanks R31 and R32, that is some interesting interpretation and information. Seems like it was a big homage to Warhol for sure (who I believe Madonna herself hung around with in the 80s?).

I can totally see how the balloons represent innocence and Madonna is losing hers in the video. So much of what she was doing around Erotica has this creepy feel to it.

It’s about the Tate-LaBianca murders. The balloons represent her eyebrows and how she misses them.

The eyebrows [italic]are[/italic] odd, aren't they? Especially when so used to normally seeing her with those bushy ones.

Bitches please, if Madonna was molested by daddy, she would have broadcasted loud and proud for the most attention.

I love this song. The production is fantastic, Madonna delivers one of her best vocals and, of course, Niki and Donna are terrific in the background, especially Niki near the end with her repeating, "Deeper and deeper and DEEPER AND DEEPER!".

I enjoy this more than Vogue, to be honest.

Yeah I like it more than Vogue too, and speaking of Vogue I actually remember the first time I heard her go in to: "You've got to just let your body move to the music" in "Deeper and Deeper" and I thought it was the greatest thing. It works so well!

To me, this was a commentary on how 90s club culture wanted so bad to be all about Warhol and glamour. It also disavowed club kids, who were at the time all over mainstream media, in favor of just real people, going to clubs and having fun. I was a baby gay at the time, and my club experience echoed a lot of what you see in the video.

That's a very interesting take, R39! Thanks!

I love the interpolation of the Vogue lyrics and yet I still find the song distinct from Vogue.

I love the flamenco guitar in the middle.

God, I miss this Madonna.

Isn't that Jackie Beat playing a Brigid Berlin type character? Berlin was the receptionist at the Factory. There's also an Edie type making out in the club wearing the giant hoop earrings that Edie wore.

In his Erotica Diaries, Shep Pettibone talks about how he thought it was a really bad idea to take a house song and "put La Isla Bonita in the middle of it", but actually, I think that it's the sort of unexpected thing that elevates the song. I've heard his remix without the flamenco guitar and it's just a standard house piano riff, not nearly as interesting.

I enjoy this Madonna too and feel it's a shame I wasn't old enough to appreciate it at the time. I love her exploration of the 20s and 30s, the 60s and 70s, and then mixing this in with 90s underground club culture and the gay scene.

It's just dawned on me that Edie Sedgwick is a different person to Edie from Grey Gardens. I was confused people thought Madonna was portraying Edie GG without a headscarf.

Many many gay cards must be turned in, dolls, sorry to inform you.

The video followed the SEX book and it carried some of the dark visuals of the book.....and the song also came out when it seemed like AIDS was never going to end....the late 80’s and beginning of the 90’s were filled with great dance music..janet - Control/RN and M-Like A Prayer/Vogue, Expose, Erasure, The B-52’.s...but when Nirvana/Pearl Jam/Sound Garden grunge scene emerged, there was a shift to a foreboding tone...and I can remember seeing the D&D video on the screen at Studio One while out dancing with friends and wondering if all the AIDS sadness was ever going to end....ChiChi LaRue is in the video and she along with Joey Stefano & were regulars at Studio One....they kind of had a porn star recruitment ring at the Studio One Friday Night Boys Club.....I hadn’t seen this video in probably 25 years and watching it after reading this thread brought back a lot of memories from that time....and then 5 years later Ray Of Light came out, the AIDS cocktail had been discovered and the darkness began to lift....more than. half of the group of guys I would go to Studio One with died from AIDS.....M had her finger on the pop culture pulse thru the MUSIC album and had her one return to glory with the Confessioins album and then she lost it.......check out the GIRLIE SHOW tour performance of Express Yourself/Deeper & Deeper to get the feel for 1993....

The balloon imagery seem straightforward. They are representative of nine lives, like with a cat. I count nine balloons as she drives. One blows away from the car, and then she enters club with eight. She rushes out to save the last three. but they are cut at the end. Maybe the scenes of being poor with her friends in the apartment and the seance is where she sold her soul to the devil for fame. Then we flash forward to her and her friends famous and glamorous at the club (the devil's lair). She seeks audience with the devil to try to save herself and her soul, but at the end he takes it all from her by cutting the balloons.

It's far more straightforward. The car represents the limos Madonna took to cruise very young street dick. She fucked them bareback right in the limo. Thus the rumor that Madonna has HIV. The club is her vagina. It goes deeper and deeper. Debi Mazar is Madonna's friend and had the best coke so Madge keep Debi on set. Madonna's abortions are the balloons. Udor Kier also plays himself, earning another paycheck.

Thanks R47, that does make a lot of sense!

Who's the other woman eating bananas with Madonna, Debi Mazar and Sophia Coppola?