Review of Childish Gambino’s ‘This is America’

IN CONVERSATION WITH LEANA BOVEN

Donald Glover, also known by his alias Childish Gambino, created a truly original piece of work with his newly released music video ‘This is America.’ Although many praise his work, negative criticism has also been expressed at Glover. Where does this critique come from? And what is the importance of this music video in contemporary times? These topics will be discussed in this latest edition of ‘In Conversation With’.

ADDRESSING SOCIETAL ISSUES WITH VIOLENT IMAGERIES

Donald Glover, known for his role in Community and his widely praised television show Atlanta, surprised and shocked many with his video clip ‘This is America’ which is clearly aimed at being a social commentary. The video shows the power and status of guns in the United States and how these weapons are a racist tool used by white supremacists. They are treated with respect in this video: they are wrapped in blankets and passed around carefully. It is a powerful rally cry against gun violence, with references made to the Charleston Church shooting and the excessive killing of unarmed and innocent Black people by police officers. With his dance moves Glover distracts the audience from what is happening in the background. Glover, while singing ‘we just want to party’ and ‘we just want the money,’ could be seen as symbolizing the entertainment industry and its promotion of materialism and capitalism which distracts its audiences from repression and violence inflicted upon Black communities. One notices after watching the video clip a few more times that riots take place in the back, that black people are chased, and that a black man falls to death from a balcony onto a car.

This is America (Childish Gambino, 2018).

While some consider Glover’s video a form of social critique, Glover uses Black pain for mainstream cultural shock value, resulting in a video clip that seems to be made for white viewers who are consuming black on black violence and extremely graphic deaths of black people. Shocking images and violence are visible throughout the whole clip while these images are traumatizing, especially for Black people for whom violence is a part of everyday life.

A TRUE PICTURE OF THE UNITED STATES

In an opinion piece for the CNN, Issac Bailey writes:

What Gambino put together is a true picture of America, where so many of us get to dance and sing and laugh and create. All the while others are largely ignored and trapped in the background, struggling and sometimes dying in a sea of ugliness that many of us would rather not acknowledge, knowing it would ruin the pretty pictures we’d rather focus on. By the end, Gambino’s carefree dancing becomes a full sprint from the madness. He couldn’t escape the reckoning. Neither can America.

It looks like ‘This is America’ has been released at the right time. With Beyoncé’s Lemonade and movies like Get Out and Black Panther this kind of societal critique is increasingly vocalized in mainstream media, where more space is taken up and reclaimed by Black people. More Black representation leads to a sense of identification and has many positive effects. When it comes to representation one can think here about Kendrick Lamar’s widely acclaimed album DAMN. and video clip ‘Element’ as well. ‘Element’ has been described by some as a piece of art made for Black audiences presenting Black imagery of culture and spirituality, whereas ‘This is America’ is doing the opposite. A few weeks after the release of ‘This is America’ it has already been turned into a meme production factory and has been appropriated by white people, which is very disrespectful and goes beyond the message of the video. This shows how not everyone gets or wants to understand the message of the video.

It is clear that ‘This is America’ started a discussion about what kind of imagery is ethically justifiable when it comes to showing violence inflicted upon Black people. Glover has started many discussions on social media around the normalization of the use of Black pain for commercial ends. This video raises a question about whether such imagery should ever be repeated, even if it is with the intention of critique.