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The “This is America” music video, released by actor Donald Glover – aka Childish Gambino – tackles guns, consumerism and racism as old as slavery. It has been viewed over 70 million times since May 5.
A concentrate of racist, violent, ultra-consumer America. A four-minute video alternating dark rap and playful choirs, written and sung by a dancing and grimacing Donald Glover, staged in a succession of political and cultural references : “This is America” has been seen more than 70 million times since it was posted on Saturday May 5.
The American media have not finished dissecting this video, shot in a hangar, by Hiro Murai’s camera. The 34-year-old actor years, Donald Glover, alias Childish Gambino, his musician name, published it the day after a passage on Saturday Night Live, a very popular show in the United States.
From the first chords, unease sets in, the gaze becomes insistent, and the first shot rings out in the head of a hooded man, playing the guitar. The video is thus punctuated with shocking scenes : Follows the massacre of a gospel choir, reminiscent of the shooting at the Methodist Church in Charleston, South Carolina, on June 17, 2015. The final images are of a manhunt.
The fascination for these images is such that a multitude of articles (New Yorker or Vanity Fair) and videos (see the very didactic one from Time) attempt to decipher the winks one by one. : some see in a galloping white horse in the background, an allegory of the Apocalypse. Others perceive in the final scene a reference to the universe of “Get Out”, a film by Jordan Peele, released in 2017. Still others seek to dissect the choreography of young dancers dressed in clean uniforms, taking up the gestures of the South African Gwara Gwara, a dance recently popularized by Rihanna.
But above all, the reference to “blackface” is obvious, this racist parody of African-American culture popularized by the show “Jumping Jim Crow” in the 30’s : the smiling and leaping face of a black slave, played by a white man, made up and disguised as black. Donald Glover takes up the codes, the rolling eyes, the forced smiles and the gestures of a puppet.
Minstrel shows were the first form of theatrics that was distinctly and originally American. No other place in the world had minstrel shows until us. Childish posing in a distinctly Jim Crow minstrel stance is a grim reminder of how deep our racism goes #ThisIsAmerica pic.twitter.com/s8BxXq0THp
Lemonade Girl🍋 (@Your_raeofsun) May 7, 2018
Fans are delighted that Donald Glover is taking the exact opposite of Kanye West, a rapper born, like him, in the city of Atlanta, and who supports another Donald, the one who presides over the destinies of the United States. Others are offended by a diatribe they consider anti-American.
Whether in the “Atlanta” series, which he created, with this mixture of disturbing humor and politics, whether he is an actor, director, screenwriter, producer, comedian, dancer, rapper or DJ, Donald Glover deploys mad energy to stir the sword where America is hurting.
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