One of the ways in which the two music videos are different is that in LAP we are offered a representation the black community that is positive, supportive and embracing of other cultures. One section that illustrates this point is when we see Madonna's dream vision of the black gospel choir in the church; they invite Madonna to join them on the altar and she is symbolically baptized. This section has been skillfully constructed to position the audience as cinematography, sound, mise-en-scene and editing have all been used to great effect. If we look closely at this section we can identify that the camera angles are key to the general feeling of the area in new york. we see the black man at 1.48 minutes, there is a low angle medium close up of the black man who seems to be in a bad state, the low angle shot looks as though it is showing the man who is reading the newspapers view which is below the black man who is standing on a set of stairs,
At this point, the camera zooms in to a close up of the black mans face after a man who is walking by knocks his arm off. The close up is so effective because it shows his facial expressions and his general distress.
At this point in the video, there is almost completely non diagetic sound, apart from the sound of cars and sirens and the surrounding city. The reason why non diagetic sound is so effective in this scene is that we can feel empathy through the surrounding music which links to the distressed black man, and the background sounds help to create the harshness of the environment in the city. There is absolutely no dialogue in this scene.
In terms of mise-en-scene, there is the city block for the setting, which has a large square in the middle of the high rises, there is a newspaper in one of the white spectators hands, there is a yellow taxi in the background and there is a flock of birds, e.g. pidgeons. In terms of costumes, the black man is wearing army green coloured shorts and a short sleeved shirt. All of the people around the black man however are wearing suits and ties as though they are ready to go to work in a banking style profession.
The editing is not very complex in this scene, as the camerawork makes us feel empathy and disgust at the same time as we feel empathy because the black man is helpless and onlookers just ignore him even in a time of distress, we feel disgust however, as we witness the black man lose an arm e.g. he is being broken down and the white man who commits this incident/ crime just ignored what he inevitably did