In a series of tweets Parkland survivor and activist Emma González has slammed Madonna’s new music video, “God Control.”
The video is a statement by Madonna on gun control and anti-gun violence.
Madonna makes powerful statement against gun violence in ‘God Control’ video
It begins with a warning for viewers and shows people, including Madonna, being gunned down with an assault weapon on a dance floor. The scene is evocative of the Pulse nightclub attack in 2016 in which 49 people were killed.
González was a student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida in February 2018 when a gunman opened fire with a semi-automatic rifle killing 17 people.
Over the weekend she tweeted that she had been considering her words carefully and “Madonna’s new video for her song #GodControl was f***ed up, it was horrible.”
“She should have sent out a message warning what her new video contained, ESPECIALLY to the Pulse Victims, ESPECIALLY as it was released Just After the Anniversary on June 12th,” González tweeted. “This is NOT the correct way to talk about gun violence, unlike how many fans have been exclaiming — people who have been working in the GVP community know how to talk about gun violence, not most celebrities #GodControl.” GVP stands for gun violence prevention.
CNN has reached out to Madonna for comment.
At the time the video was released the mother of six told CNN she felt a responsibility to the children of the world when it came to gun violence.
“As a mother, I feel even more attached to and protective of children. Do my children go to school safely? No, they cannot,” Madonna said. “Every child that I meet – as a mother you feel responsible for all of the children in the world. It’s really scary to me that any public gathering, any place of worship, any school is a target.”
She also said that her message to critics who might say the video is too graphic was “understand that this is what happens. Guns kill. A bullet rips through your body, knocks you to the floor and takes your life, and you bleed to death. I mean this is reality.”
“People can watch it in action films, and they are OK with it, but when it is about the truth, the reality of what’s happening in our country, why is it too graphic?,” she said.
González’s voice is featured on another song from Madonna’s new “Madame X” album. The singer sampled one of the teen’s now famous speeches for the single “I Rise.”
Patience Carter survived the Orlando Pulse nightclub shooting in 2016 and told TMZ she felt the video was “really insensitive.
“As a survivor of gun violence, it was really hard to watch,” Carter said. “For someone like me, who actually saw these images, who actually lived these images, to see them again dramatized for views [and] dramatized for YouTube, I feel like it was really insensitive.”
The video ends with a call to action and lists a group of anti-gun violence organizations.
One Pulse for America was one of those organizations and co-founder Jay Kuo told the Huffington Postthat in the past they have asked people “mindful of the sensitivity around graphic depictions.”
“In Madonna’s case, we made no such request, and we are not here to judge her decisions,” Kuo said. “That is the nature of artistic or political expression. Critics are free as well to point out their problems with her video, but there is no doubt she shares the same goal as we and even her critics do: reducing gun violence and drawing attention to the crisis.”
