Last week, Madonna shared an intense music video for the track ‘God Control’ off latest album Madame X. The anti-gun violence video depicts a shooting at a nightclub and its aftermath, and calls for increased gun control.
Despite the artist’s seemingly good intentions, not everyone thought her delivery was particularly sensitive.
Emma González is a prominent anti-gun advocate, who survived the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida last year. She’s criticised the Madonna video, calling it “fucked up” and “horrible”, and critiquing the video’s timing after the anniversary of the Pulse nightclub shooting, June 12th.
“So I’ve been ruminating on this thread for the past few days, make sure I get the words right,” said González in a series of tweets.
“Madonna’s new video for her song #GodControl was fucked 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.
“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
If you want to support the gun violence prevention movement, donate to the places who need it, in this case the One Pulse Foundation and listen to the actual stories from actual survivors of gun violence. #GodControl
Also if you tweet pictures or videos from the video of #GodControl, please tag it as Triggering for fucks sake.”
Patience Carter, one of the survivors of the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando back in 2016, also commented on the video. She said it was “hard to watch” as a survivor of gun violence, and insensitive to the shooting’s survivors in a video posted on TMZ.
https://twitter.com/Emma4Change/status/1145015482698698754
https://twitter.com/Emma4Change/status/1145015486377103361
