Information about the song:
Artist Name: Childish Gambino (Donald Glover)
Song Name:This is America Album: This is America Released: 5th May, 2018 Genre: Trap Music Award: Grammy Award for Best Music Video Nominations: MTV Best Cinematography |
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Donald McKinley Glover Jr. (born September 25, 1983) is an American actor, comedian, writer, producer, director, musician, and DJ. He performs music under the stage name Childish Gambino and as a DJ under the name mcDJ. Since 2016, Glover stars in the FX series Atlanta, which he created and occasionally directs. He also plays the piano and drums as well as sings.
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violent content and how the production value has a bearing on how the video is presented
Childish Gambino uses the ambivalent reception of black art to represent the tightrope of being black. The music video is built on the sharp contrast between jolly syncretic melodies and menacing trap cadences. The director Hiro Murai turns the tension into a satire through seamlessly transitioning
between activities such as warehouse dancing and gunning down people. |
The bulk of Childish Gambino's work traffics in iconoclasm which is a distinction from the rest of the rappers out there. The whole music video is overflowing with imagery. This comes from aspects of the gunning down which is a clear representation of the Charleston Massacre but also the fact the gun is handled with care in a velvet cloth while in contrast, the bodies are left to rot. The video itself starts with a delicately handled gun as Gambino strikes a famous Jim Crow pose shooting a smiling guitarist who happened to look in the style of Trayvon Martins father. A bag is then wrapped around his head and is dragged off unceremoniously. This is followed by police violence which goes on constantly in the background of the video as schoolchildren are seen dancing. These kids represent how the youth is by showing them dancing and filming all the violence on their phones without a care in the world about the important things which happen around them.
STEREOTYPING of young people, social groups, ETHNICITY'S and/or gender
''Childish Gambino’s work is masterful in its execution and it has generated much needed discussion and attention regarding the numerous issues surrounding gun violence in America, along with the prevailingly indifferent treatment towards POC and police brutality.'' - Emily Waitson
When taking into consideration both the fans and critics, you can feel really drawn into the music video the more times you watch it due to the production value. This production value makes you more curious about where the artist gets his ideas from in order to highlight the way these Americans and social groups have been treated especially through the cinematic footage which, through a structured narrative, carries us across this journey showing us points of views we didn't fully understand or werent aware of that affects the country America as a whole.
When taking into consideration both the fans and critics, you can feel really drawn into the music video the more times you watch it due to the production value. This production value makes you more curious about where the artist gets his ideas from in order to highlight the way these Americans and social groups have been treated especially through the cinematic footage which, through a structured narrative, carries us across this journey showing us points of views we didn't fully understand or werent aware of that affects the country America as a whole.
How content challenges moral, legal and ethical viewpoints
There is a ton of dancing which is there to symbolise a few things:
- A distraction: They purposely used it to distract you from everything going on in the background. It shows us that the dancing connects to social media. It distracts us from the real things going on around the world. It also shows how America loves to adapt different things from black culture whether thats music, fashion or even dancing however, they don't care about whats going on in the black community such as the gun violence in Chigago or the police violence to their race.
- Police Brutality: The lyrical line ''this is a celly / that's a tool'' has a powerful double meaning as fans have pointed out that it can refer to different things. One of these things would be Stephon Clarks case. He was shot down dead just weeks ago by Sacramento police who assumed he was armed, but in reality, he only carried an iphone on him. The artist distills the distorting way black men are seen by police with the ''tool'' in this case meant a gun.
- Gun Violence: Throughout the entire video, the artist is seen to reference a number of recent flash points which would involve gun violence. When he sings 'I'mma go into this', he refers to the Charleston Shooting; the Black Lives Matter protests. He even clearly seems fed up with the entire conversation around gun violence, race, and policing in America. He even gives us a heavy-handed reminder that the nation's gun violence is a uniquely American epidemic.
How different audiences have RESPonded on social media to the content of the video
Straight after the release of his song, the reactions came down pouring. The four minute clip has received an overwhelming amount of positive feedback on social media which came from Eryakah Badu who tweeted that Glover was ''Genius'' to other fans praising it to be video of the year. On the oppositional response however, some described the clip to be ''evil garbage'' which was noted by the extreme, hard-hitting violence. For the more negotiated audience members, they pondered on the various elements of symbolism hidden within the clip. In response however, famous Rapper, Kanye West claimed that slavery was a choice by African-Americans but the public did not agree with his POV. The viewers were rushing out to support Childish Gambino by roasting Kanye saying that he should make some thought-provoking music instead of pushing out songs with lyrics like ''poopity scoop'' which can be found in his song ''Life Yourself''. But besides what Kanye thinks, this video was so publicly appreciated, it gained nominations on MTV and even won an Grammy award for best music video.
https://pitchfork.com/reviews/tracks/childish-gambino-this-is-america/
https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/hip-hop/8454700/childish-gambino-donald-glover-this-is-america-reactions-social-media-kanye-west
https://whatculture.com/music/10-most-controversial-music-videos-ever?page=2
http://theconversation.com/childish-gambino-this-is-america-uses-music-and-dance-to-expose-societys-dark-underbelly-96379
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/may/07/this-is-america-theories-donald-glover-satirical-video-childish-gambino
https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/hip-hop/8454700/childish-gambino-donald-glover-this-is-america-reactions-social-media-kanye-west
https://whatculture.com/music/10-most-controversial-music-videos-ever?page=2
http://theconversation.com/childish-gambino-this-is-america-uses-music-and-dance-to-expose-societys-dark-underbelly-96379
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/may/07/this-is-america-theories-donald-glover-satirical-video-childish-gambino
https://thecord.ca/how-this-is-america-challenges-modern-society/
https://zuriz.wordpress.com/2011/03/05/lady-gaga-and-the-gay-gene/
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=this+is+america
https://zuriz.wordpress.com/2011/03/05/lady-gaga-and-the-gay-gene/
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=this+is+america
magazine title - ''the good and the bad ''