Conception and development , Harlem, New York, location of the video shoot According to O'Brien, the general critical consensus about
Bedtime Stories was "Madonna in retreat. Still smarting from criticism over the
Sex book, she [evolved] into a softer, more gentle image. Yet despite the pastel tones of her new look, there was also a sense of grit. She combined this to startling effect with the
music video for 'Secret'." Madonna knew that a lot was riding on her first visual after the
Erotica era, and wanted to create an effect with it. The video was directed by
Melodie McDaniel, who had previously gained acclaim as a photographer for album artwork and also as music video director for bands like
The Cranberries and
Porno for Pyros. However, Madonna was more interested in one of McDaniel's earlier short films, where she portrayed baptism combining with voodoo rituals. She enlisted McDaniel and explained that she was "drawn to the rawness of [McDaniel's] film". Madonna wanted to tone down her image and according to McDaniel: Before meeting with Madonna, McDaniel first listened to the song and found it inspiring. When asked by the singer about her references for the video, McDaniel presented her with pictures from her favorite 1970s photographer, Bill Burke, who took pictures of people considered as freaks or inbred. Another reference was the photography book,
East 100 Street by
Bruce Davidson, which showed pictures of people in Spanish Harlem. Madonna let the director live in her New York apartment to continue research and asked her to go through her book collections, including those by
Helmut Newton and
Richard Avedon. It begins with showing the neighborhood of Harlem, with Madonna as a singer in a small jazz club. She simply sits in the club with her band and sings for her small, mostly black and Latino audience. Interspersed throughout the video are scenes of people living in Harlem, doing their daily chores, including a supporting cast of transvestite prostitutes, a pimp, and a black gang member who shows off the scars on his body. During the intermediate verses, Madonna is shown writhing in the lap of an older, maternal woman, who symbolically baptizes her by splashing water on her forehead. Near the video's end, Madonna walks through the neighborhood and climbs a set of stairs to have a reunion with her family, a young Latin man and their supposed son. The video ends with Madonna smiling towards the camera while sitting at the nightclub.
Release and reception The video premiered on October 4, 1994 on
MTV, The video also generated academic discussions regarding the supposed "secret" of the song. According to the book ''Madonna's Drowned Worlds'', author Santiago Fouz-Hernández argues that the young son that is revealed at the end of the video is in actuality Madonna's lover's secret. Throughout the video, scenes of Madonna are interspersed with scenes of drag queens primping, and religious iconography such as rebirth and damnation. In his book
From Hegel to Madonna, author Robert Miklitsch states that the music video for "Secret" is a departure from the various themes—repression and loss, anger and aggression—explored so vividly on
Bedtime Stories. Miklitsch goes on to say that, although the video depicts images of cleansing rebirth, the fact that Madonna announced that she was pregnant in 1996 shows that, in retrospect, "Secret" may have been less about cleansing rebirth, and instead more about maternity as birth. Matthew Rettenmund, the author of "Encyclopedia Madonnica", found contrast in Madonna's white blonde character—with hyper-glamor, heavy mascara, pierced nose and navel, a clingy blouse and vintage high heels—to the neighborhood of Harlem, where Madonna is portrayed as a "
Billie Holiday-esque singer in the jazz club". At the end of the video, Madonna climbs up the stairs to her lover's room, Rettenmund found references to the music videos for the singles "
Like a Virgin" (1984) and "
Papa Don't Preach" (1986), both of which had the singer climbing the stairs but never reaching the destination, unlike "Secret". Rettenmund also observed that "Secret" could serve as a follow-up to the music video for "
Borderline" with the events happening ten years and Madonna all grownup. He concluded by saying that in lieu of the singer's 1994 interview with
The Face magazine, where she expressed her desire to have a family, the video emphasized on Madonna's interest in a partner and a child. ==Live performances==