Lots of controversy over Lust Icon Rihanna's new video "We Found Love", but what else would you expect?
Before the video even debuted, news broke that filming was interrupted by an angry farmer in Ireland. Rihanna was shooting scenes from the video on his farm and he was "outraged" over her public nudity. That's the least of the controversial material. There is plenty of drug references in the video's plot circling around an abusive relationship.
Lust Icon Madonna's third and final single from the album, Music, was "What It Feels Like For A Girl". The song describes the pressure women feel to conform to social norms of "politeness and subservience".
The music video that eventually followed is not in fact the actual single, but a trance remix by Above & Beyond. This remix only contains a sampling of the original lyrics, including the opening line "Girls can wear jeans and cut their hair short, wear shirts and boots. It's okay to be a boy. But, for a boy to look like a girl is degrading, because you think that being a girl is degrading. But, secretly, you'd love to know what it's like, wouldn't you? What it feels like for a girl."
It was mostly popularized by this music video which was directed by Madonna's then husband, Guy Ritchie. Her depiction of violence and abuse for the music video caused it to be banned by both MTV and VH1 before 9PM. In it, Madonna suits up in bullet proof vesting, picks up an elderly women from a retirement home, and causes violence and chaos on the streets of Los Angeles [including grand theft auto, setting a gas station on fire, and shooting a police officer with a water gun]. You'll have to see what finally happens for yourself.
Madonna responded to the controversy saying that her character was acting out a "fantasy and doing things that girls are not allowed to do". The decision to ban the video was in itself controversial, since it appeared to be no more violent than some television shows that aired at the time. Ironically, the video went into heavy rotation on "Oxygen" and was streamed on "America Online" frequently.
