A feminist version of “This is America” ​​creates controversy

Musique

While Childish Gambino paints a gloomy portrait of American society in “This is America”, a Canadian youtuber was inspired to publish a feminist “parody”. But this reappropriation does not pass.

It’s been ten days since Donald Glover alias Childish Gambino struck a blow with his clip “This is America”, a dark mirror of American society marked by racism, violence and weapons. Ten days that the whole world speaks only of this “genius” of music, who is also an actor, director, screenwriter and producer. Since the release of the clip, which has reached over 120 million views, the violent images and the dance of the multi-cap artist have quickly gone viral, even resulting in unlikely mashups like with “Call Me Maybe” or “September from Earth, Wind & Fire. But it was also (unfortunately) entitled to many covers and parodies.

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Women’s Edit

One parody in particular has been talked about a lot: that of Nicole Arbour, a Canadian youtuber who wanted to use the codes of “This is America” to talk about another important subject, feminism. In her “Women’s Edit”, Nicole Arbor addresses rape, unequal pay and criticizes the importance of beauty standards and the pressure placed on women’s shoulders in today’s society.

While Childish Gambino criticizes our tendency to become easily distracted when it comes to racism and racial inequality, ignoring the struggles for black rights, parodies such as Women’s Edit are proof that what the creator of series Atlanta tries to denounce exists. ” To take a critique of America’s habit of extracting black culture, while ignoring all the trauma that happens to the black community, and use that same critique to do the exact same thing, which was the object of this criticism, it is ironic and really problematic”, explains Aaryn Green, sociologist specializing in culture and origin at the microphone of AJ +. ” Nicole Arbor parody is proof that white people think racial pain and oppression is funny”wrote a user on Twitter.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QW8whgmyTNU

Nicole Arbour’s « This is America » parody is proof white people think black pain & oppression is funny. They’re constantly joking about things they dont experience because they lack empathy. They laugh at our pain & deny our oppression, while stealin our culture for money. #Evil

— Wokeness ‘Blerd’ Everdeen (@AnimeOtaku1723) May 13, 2018

Some Internet users have brought out an old tweet, dating from May 4, 2018, before the clip “This is America” was posted online in its original version. This old tweet from Nicole Arbor gives a whole new face to this reappropriation. The Canadian actress and YouTuber wrote that she had ” so sick of people who were mad at slavery. It’s the past, we weren’t there. We did not do it. But what we can do is fix our economic slavery. Focus on the present ».

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Others remembered that Nicole Arbor is used to controversy. In 2015, the youtubeuse published “Dear Fat People” (“Dear Fat”) where she openly criticizes overweight people. ” Fat shaming does not exist. It was the fat guys who made it up.”, she said. “‘Yes, but I couldn’t enter a store. It’s discriminationshe imitated before retorting: ‘Uh no. It means you’re too fat, and you should stop eating. Are you gonna tell the doctor he’s mean and embarrassing you because you’re fat when you’ve got fucking heart disease? »

Are we really surprised that Nicole Arbour gentrified This Is America? I mean, she tweets stuff like this. pic.twitter.com/x3xFmlNgN8

– eoin (@AUTOAMERlCAN) May 14, 2018

Given the magnitude of the new controversy about her feminist video, Nicole Arbor wanted to clarify some things. ” Due to the sensitive nature of the original, I understand why some people mistakenly describe it as ‘whites against blacks’. However, that was not my intention at all.”can we read in the description of the video and on his Twitter account.

Certainly, the debate tackled in this version, namely the inequality between men and women, also deserves a clip as poignant as that of Childish Gambino, but some Internet users say that the problem lies in its reappropriation of another equally important debate, the ambient racism in the United States. ” You could have raised your own point about an important issue without diverting a different conversation.”.

Piggybacking off of something created to express the truth of the black experience in this country, is like “All Lives Matter”-ing our art. You could have made your own point in an important issue WITHOUT hijacking a different conversation from a POC

— India Fields (@IndiaNDA) May 15, 2018

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