20 years after pulling the video, Madonna has finally unleashed the director's cut of her controversial music video American Life...in 4K.
Set at a fashion show with designs from Jeremy Scott, models sashay down the runway in army costumes and begin beating normal people, symbolizing the victims of war, to rapturous applause from a crowd. Then images of real war victims are spliced into the frame, and the message about how war affects the innocent becomes apparent.
Madonna pulled the video after criticism grew over the video's subject matter, which people felt the pop icon was criticizing America's glorification of war.
At the time there were tensions building due to the Iraq war, and while we got the point Madonna was making regarding the video's subject matter, at the time it was for the best the video was pulled because most Americans weren't ready to deal with what was going on at the time politically.
Check out the video, which was directed by Jonas Åkerlund below...