Background and synopsis (
pictured in 2017).|alt=Guy Ritchie in a blue coat looking to the right. In February 2001, English filmmaker
Guy Ritchie, Madonna's then husband, said that they were planning to work together on her new music video; "creatively, we like the same sort of things, so it just makes sense". One month later, Madonna revealed to Ingrid Sischy that the video would be for "What It Feels Like for a Girl", which she found "ironic because [Ritchie]'s such a macho man, and his movies are so testosterone-driven, but I asked him a long time ago what song on the album he responded to the most, and that's the one". Filming took place in Los Angeles, including on the
Olympic Boulevard. According to Madonna she portrayed a "
nihilistic pissed-off chick" in the clip, doing things that girls are generally recommended against. The video did not feature the original version of the song but the
Above & Beyond remix since the singer "wanted a matching visual to it and an edgy dance mix". The clip starts with the singer in a motel room getting ready to go out; her hair is straight, chin length and parted down the middle. Due to the excessive violence where Madonna's character went on multiple killing sprees, "What It Feels Like for a Girl" became Madonna's fourth music video to be banned by TV channels (and her third banned by MTV), following "
Like a Prayer" (1989) due to blasphemy, "
Justify My Love" (1990) and "
Erotica" (1992) for nudity and bisexuality. Three days later, the clip was shown several times on
Oxygen as part of its "Daily Remix" music series. A spokeswoman for Oxygen said that the decision to air the video multiple times was because "our demographic is of 18–49 year old women [...] older than MTV's". Canadian music channel
MuchMusic followed and aired the video several times throughout the day and night. Norm Schoenfield, US VP of programming for MuchMusic, released a statement saying "[the video] is no more or less violent than what kids see on TV everyday. We weren't offended by it, and treating it just like any other Madonna video. Just because MTV isn't playing it, doesn't mean we can't". Schoenfield also criticized the decision of releasing an advisory warning alongside the video because "it's the artist's responsibility to do that". Nonetheless, other Canadian networks aired it only after 9 pm accompanied by a warning. On April 24, 2001, the video was released as a
DVD single with the disc having linear
PCM sound quality. Regarding the violent content, Madonna said that her intention was to "make people ask questions and open dialogues". Instead of banning the music video, Madonna's publicist Liz Rosenberg called for an open conversation for why Madonna's character went out of control. Rosenberg explained to
New York Daily News that the clip told the story of a woman who had probably been abused, and called it a "kind of an anti-violence film. I can't imagine anyone would want to duplicate it". The apparent suicide at the end had references from
Greek mythology, according to Ritchie.
Reception and analysis David Bianculli from the
New York Daily News felt that "Madonna has always kept her videos and images at least as fresh as her music. 'What It Feels Like for a Girl', though, is a bad attempt to chase attention by promising controversy". Similarly,
Billboards Carla Hay concluded that the video did not live up to its hype.
Entertainment Weeklys Nicholas Fonseca gave the video a rating of C and opined that "
Thelma and Louise it ain't. In fact, little girls can probably find more empowerment copying Britney Spears' provocative chair dance from her '
Stronger' video". But he criticized MTV's decision to ban the clip when they aired much more violent videos on the channel. Eden Miller from
PopMatters echoed this sentiment, adding that MTV aired videos such as
Eminem's "
Stan", in which the main character drives his car off a bridge with his pregnant girlfriend tied up in the trunk, or
Robbie Williams' "
Rock DJ", in which the singer strips his skin off in graphic detail. Critics argued the gender double standards where violent music videos by male singers are largely tolerated by TV networks. Miller relegated the banning of Madonna's music video was because "the idea of a woman taking her aggression out on men is something even an edgy TV network like
MTV was unable to accept. That's what is so disturbing. And that really is what it feels like for a girl". Writing for the
San Francisco Chronicle, Neva Chonin accused the video for being a
marketing ploy and believed that the singer knew it would result in controversy and drive sales amidst the publicity. Nonetheless, she praised it for being a follow-up to Madonna's aesthetics and changing of her looks from her early career. Chonin realized that by making the violent video, Madonna proved the song's concept further by making a girl behave violently in place of a boy.
Louis Virtel from
The Backlot ranked it as the singer's 12th greatest video, calling it "the ultimate (read: solely tolerable) Madonna/Guy Ritchie collaboration [...] She's both chilling and totally confident. It's her most frightening performance in a music video, and when she plows that car into a group of strangers, her stoic response makes for her greatest video moment of the 2000s".
Andrew Morton opined that the video was "entirely consistent with the themes [Madonna] has been exploring for the last twenty years, namely the relationship between the sexes, the ambiguity of gender, and the unresolved conflict, for women in a patriarchal society of being fully female and sexual while exercising control over their lives". According to Santiago Fouz-Hernández and Freya Jarman-Ivens, authors of ''Madonna's Drowned Worlds
, the video represented the female fantasy of behaving like a "bad boy" and doing things associated with men. They pointed out the scene in which Madonna winks at three men at a traffic light just before crashing their car, as they felt that on this particular shot she was "turning the tables of violence back on the men for whom such behavior is considered normal'' and putting them on the receiving end of violence, a position usually reserved for women". == Live performances and cover version ==