Music video analysis - This Is America

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I think this video is just so clever and has so many layers to analyse that we as an audience can't even comprehend. I think the contrast in the music and in the video swell is very significant. The music at the beginning is very light and fun with a strong Caribbean influence and then as soon as we see the first gun fired the tone of the song totally changes. I personally feel like here he is saying this is who we are and who were trying to be, we are gentle people but since coming to America you make us out to be criminals and thugs and so we've started to act like it because life is cut throat and we have to survive. 

When Childish Gambino first enters the shot his back is to the audience, he turns around and starts to dance and instantly he uses extreme facial expressions and physical movement. As someone who knows a lot about the black history and the racist context behind American jazz, it was immediately obvious to me that he was playing a character like Jim Crow. The exaggerated facial expressions and hyperbolic movements were very similar to those used by white performers in minstrel shows. They used to adopt characteristics to make fun of black people and their culture, they were portrayed as dumb and animalistic, people to be laughed at. In this video of a minstrel show you can see the similarities in the movement:

However, the specific character of Jim Crow seems to have been embodied by Gambino and the similarities are undeniable, see here an illustration of the character 'Jim Crow' and a still of Gambino in the video...

One of the most interesting aspects of the video, I think, is the school children. They are prominent throughout the video for an important reason. I think for a lot of the video the kids represent the younger generation in todays society and how they're growing up around this violence but it doesn't even phase them, this is how the cycle grows and continues. At times they're dancing and laughing while people riot and kill each other behind them as if it's nothing.

I think what Glover says here is very reminiscent of Tupac's famous 'THUG LIFE' tattoo which is actually an acronym for, 'The Hate U Give Little Infants Fucks Everyone' highlighting this idea that if we keep raising children in this environment of violence they will never know any better and the cycle will continue. 

The children are also in school uniform which isn't common in America unless they go to a private school, this to me, highlights how to be respected as a black person in America you have to have a wealthy education and background or you have a slim chance of doing really well by yourself. This is also echoed by what the children are doing. They are performing viral dance moves with Gambino in the midst of all the chaos. I think this illustrates how in America entertainment and social media is used as a distraction from the deep rooted problems in American society. I also think this is a symbol for the fact that black people deserve a lot more credit than they get for a huge proportion of American culture. Jazz, Hip Hop, Blues dance and music, all created by black people and brought over to America by slaves. People feel comfortable appropriating black culture and style but don't want to respect their roots and acknowledge their suffering. This links back to how black people are not respected unless they're famous or wealthy an even then they still don't get the recognition they deserve for the huge input they have on American society and especially social media.

 

One of the most shocking moments in the video happens at the very start when a black man is playing the guitar on a chair and then has a sack on his head and is shot by Gambino for no reason. This to me screams that black people are killed in America for no reason. This dates back to the Jim Crow laws and the Ku Klux Klan who lynched black Americans and kept slavery alive after the 13th amendment supposedly abolished slavery. This is still current now, racist hate crime against black Americans, even the police killing unarmed, innocent black people for no valid reason. Purchasing a gun in America is shockingly easy and it leads to horrible massacres and murders yet they won't give the guns up. A black person with a gun is a gang member and a criminal but a white person with a gun is just mentally unstable and naive. Something of huge significance here is also how after he shoots the man, he places the gun in someones hands as they hold a red flag. The red flag I think represents republicans and how they are the main culprits who want to keep guns and be allowed to use guns. I feel like this juxtaposition of the gun being taken so gently and the mans body just being dragged along the floor highlights how people prioritise the right to have a gun over peoples safety. The Black Lives Matter-movement is still prevalent today as Black people are still targeted

and killed in racist hate crimes and by the police. An Uproar in the movement was sparked by an incident in may 2020 when a police officer kneeled on Black American citizen George Floyd's neck for 8 minutes and  46 seconds as he told them he can't breathe, consequently he died. This led to huge global protests and a rise in police violence.