1) How does the This Is America video meet the key conventions of a music video?
Performance and lip syncing are the main elements in the music video. Cars are also a part of the video towards the end, but the reason is different.
2) What comment is the video making on American culture, racism and gun violence?
Pop culture takes a centre stage of public consciousness, where no one notices the tragedies that happen in America as pop culture distracts the American people. Young people dancing with Donald Glover in the video with all the violence happening around them, marking the distraction pop culture gives every day to citizens. They are oblivious to the obvious inequality happening around them. But as the artist is in power, which exemplifies those in power – could be the mass media – and how they keep us oblivious by distracting us. We get our news from them; the focal point of the whole music video could be that mainstream outlets distract us from stories that cause political backlash in America, as some outlets lean to one side of the political spectrum.
The performance of Donald Glover is a caricature of Jim Crow, an anti-black imagery meant for entertainment in the in 19-20th century. The music video highlights the problems African American face in America such as racism but also gun violence. The use of Jim Crow highlights that people want entertainment from black people in America, but as soon as issues arise they ignore them.
Donald Glover using Jim Crow and taking that imagery – means he’s taking ownership as a symbol to stop the violence. The entertainment aspect is being thrown out of the window as they want the problems they face in America to be taken more seriously by outlining the history of racism in the narrative in the video.
The message at the end of the video with the artists standing and dancing on cars may mean that things haven’t changed – issues that have happened in the past are still happening – pop culture distraction is a distraction to what’s happening in the world. People see these events as one tragedy after another, the message the music video might try to bring is that this problem is systemic and institutional.
Violence is unnoticeable in the video as people are distracted by the performance – someone thrown off a balcony – hard to see as so many other things are going on and distractions in America that prevent people from noticing it. It might be a nod to mainstream media, and how they distract us with one story so we don’t see another story.
‘This a celly, that’s a tool’ – cellphone, as soon as something happens we have to record it, instead of intervening to help. But the main point, is that maybe he’s telling us that recording these events on our phones is the only way we can show that this happened, the evidence of racism and police brutality in America. And the amount of videos that have surfaced representing these events shows the extent of how issues go unnoticed daily.
Horsemen of the Apocalypse – hooded figure riding horse and chased by a cop car. Reference to the bible where death rides on a pale horse with hell following behind. Symbolism here is that the horse is trying to run away from all the trouble – symbolises trouble black people face in America, and they have to ‘run’ from this trouble to survive, they’re desperate.
After every shooting the gun is carefully put in a red cloth, gun is more important than the people, the red represents the blood. Nod to American politics, how the American people call for Congress to pass stricter gun laws. There is an intertextual reference to the Charleston church shooting in June 2015, where a white supremacist killed nine African Americans at the church during a prayer service. It’s a nod to how this shooting was covered as a gun crime and not a hate crime at first. This links back to how mainstream media covers one part of the story and not the full thing.
The ending portrays meaning of those who are threatened are trying to run away from these problems to survive, but they are living in it and can’t get out. The fear on Glover’s face symbolises the fear that African Americans face every day when they may never find any vindication.
3) Write an analysis of the video applying the theories we have learned: Gilroy, Hall, Rose and Dyson.
Gilroy: Gilroy points to the salve trade as having a big influence of the culture in modern America. The Jim Crow dance plays a huge role as it is featured throughout the whole video as Glover bases his performance on this identity. This links to diaspora as Glover uses this dance to take back the identity of the 'innate humour in the black man (Hall 1995)'.
Hall: Traditional Hip Hop videos feature people growing up in poor neighbourhoods. The stereotypes are that African Americans are from a poorer neighbourhood and from a lower social class. The video underlines the racist tendencies of police brutality, which normally the media covers with some racial bias, especially in America where news outlets are more free to have a racial bias than the UK where the media is regulated to be fair(excluding newspapers). The video applies the clown/entertainer aspect as Glover uses the Jim Crow caricature as his performance - which as said before was used to entertain people.
Rose: African Americans may have felt diaspora as they don't know what role they should play in society and may have been confused as to how they should change the stereotypes in society due to the history of the 'entertainer(Hall)' they played in society. Glover using the performance may be a sign of him taking they caricature and owning it, not allowing society or history to determine how they should be looked at by others. By using Hip Hop as an origin story of racism in modern day America, shows the influence of what original Hip Hop was - to show the hardships people faced growing up in their areas such as crime. Also
Dyson: the scene of him dancing on top of the car, tells modern artists to not be taken advantage of by the capitalist culture of Hip Hop evolving into a money grab just like all other music was. It proves that the political Hip Hops style in the 90s wasn't given the 'commercial success it deserves' as it was a new genre that criticised the political stance of America and the state of the music industry for not given African Americans the recognition of the music they had and the popularity they were curating.
Read this Guardian feature on This Is America - including the comments below.
4) What are the three interpretations suggested in the article?
The performance of Glover was that of the 'racial caricature Jim Crow'. The lyrics of 'get you money, black man', takes it upon himself to acknowledge if he has to take on stereotypical back roles to earn money (comedian, rapper, soul singer). Him killing the choir with the lyrics shows he's tired of the pressure to accumulate wealth and stay uplifted in a time where gun violence is prominent. His performance also distracts us from the things happening in the background which is the message hes's trying to come across with in the video. Phones can be used as a tool for documentation of gun crime.
5) What alternative interpretations of the video are offered in the comments 'below the line'?
The video gives a picture of acceptance of violence and murder in America. It also shows what life is like as a black man, telling us what life on the street is like. Being a rapper and the valued of being a rapper is stereotypical. The gun being treated with more care than the human body as it was dragged off. It is a suggestion that gun rights are taken more seriously than human rights.
Performance and lip syncing are the main elements in the music video. Cars are also a part of the video towards the end, but the reason is different.
2) What comment is the video making on American culture, racism and gun violence?
Pop culture takes a centre stage of public consciousness, where no one notices the tragedies that happen in America as pop culture distracts the American people. Young people dancing with Donald Glover in the video with all the violence happening around them, marking the distraction pop culture gives every day to citizens. They are oblivious to the obvious inequality happening around them. But as the artist is in power, which exemplifies those in power – could be the mass media – and how they keep us oblivious by distracting us. We get our news from them; the focal point of the whole music video could be that mainstream outlets distract us from stories that cause political backlash in America, as some outlets lean to one side of the political spectrum.
The performance of Donald Glover is a caricature of Jim Crow, an anti-black imagery meant for entertainment in the in 19-20th century. The music video highlights the problems African American face in America such as racism but also gun violence. The use of Jim Crow highlights that people want entertainment from black people in America, but as soon as issues arise they ignore them.
Donald Glover using Jim Crow and taking that imagery – means he’s taking ownership as a symbol to stop the violence. The entertainment aspect is being thrown out of the window as they want the problems they face in America to be taken more seriously by outlining the history of racism in the narrative in the video.
The message at the end of the video with the artists standing and dancing on cars may mean that things haven’t changed – issues that have happened in the past are still happening – pop culture distraction is a distraction to what’s happening in the world. People see these events as one tragedy after another, the message the music video might try to bring is that this problem is systemic and institutional.
Violence is unnoticeable in the video as people are distracted by the performance – someone thrown off a balcony – hard to see as so many other things are going on and distractions in America that prevent people from noticing it. It might be a nod to mainstream media, and how they distract us with one story so we don’t see another story.
‘This a celly, that’s a tool’ – cellphone, as soon as something happens we have to record it, instead of intervening to help. But the main point, is that maybe he’s telling us that recording these events on our phones is the only way we can show that this happened, the evidence of racism and police brutality in America. And the amount of videos that have surfaced representing these events shows the extent of how issues go unnoticed daily.
Horsemen of the Apocalypse – hooded figure riding horse and chased by a cop car. Reference to the bible where death rides on a pale horse with hell following behind. Symbolism here is that the horse is trying to run away from all the trouble – symbolises trouble black people face in America, and they have to ‘run’ from this trouble to survive, they’re desperate.
After every shooting the gun is carefully put in a red cloth, gun is more important than the people, the red represents the blood. Nod to American politics, how the American people call for Congress to pass stricter gun laws. There is an intertextual reference to the Charleston church shooting in June 2015, where a white supremacist killed nine African Americans at the church during a prayer service. It’s a nod to how this shooting was covered as a gun crime and not a hate crime at first. This links back to how mainstream media covers one part of the story and not the full thing.
The ending portrays meaning of those who are threatened are trying to run away from these problems to survive, but they are living in it and can’t get out. The fear on Glover’s face symbolises the fear that African Americans face every day when they may never find any vindication.
3) Write an analysis of the video applying the theories we have learned: Gilroy, Hall, Rose and Dyson.
Gilroy: Gilroy points to the salve trade as having a big influence of the culture in modern America. The Jim Crow dance plays a huge role as it is featured throughout the whole video as Glover bases his performance on this identity. This links to diaspora as Glover uses this dance to take back the identity of the 'innate humour in the black man (Hall 1995)'.
Hall: Traditional Hip Hop videos feature people growing up in poor neighbourhoods. The stereotypes are that African Americans are from a poorer neighbourhood and from a lower social class. The video underlines the racist tendencies of police brutality, which normally the media covers with some racial bias, especially in America where news outlets are more free to have a racial bias than the UK where the media is regulated to be fair(excluding newspapers). The video applies the clown/entertainer aspect as Glover uses the Jim Crow caricature as his performance - which as said before was used to entertain people.
Rose: African Americans may have felt diaspora as they don't know what role they should play in society and may have been confused as to how they should change the stereotypes in society due to the history of the 'entertainer(Hall)' they played in society. Glover using the performance may be a sign of him taking they caricature and owning it, not allowing society or history to determine how they should be looked at by others. By using Hip Hop as an origin story of racism in modern day America, shows the influence of what original Hip Hop was - to show the hardships people faced growing up in their areas such as crime. Also
Dyson: the scene of him dancing on top of the car, tells modern artists to not be taken advantage of by the capitalist culture of Hip Hop evolving into a money grab just like all other music was. It proves that the political Hip Hops style in the 90s wasn't given the 'commercial success it deserves' as it was a new genre that criticised the political stance of America and the state of the music industry for not given African Americans the recognition of the music they had and the popularity they were curating.
Read this Guardian feature on This Is America - including the comments below.
4) What are the three interpretations suggested in the article?
The performance of Glover was that of the 'racial caricature Jim Crow'. The lyrics of 'get you money, black man', takes it upon himself to acknowledge if he has to take on stereotypical back roles to earn money (comedian, rapper, soul singer). Him killing the choir with the lyrics shows he's tired of the pressure to accumulate wealth and stay uplifted in a time where gun violence is prominent. His performance also distracts us from the things happening in the background which is the message hes's trying to come across with in the video. Phones can be used as a tool for documentation of gun crime.
5) What alternative interpretations of the video are offered in the comments 'below the line'?
The video gives a picture of acceptance of violence and murder in America. It also shows what life is like as a black man, telling us what life on the street is like. Being a rapper and the valued of being a rapper is stereotypical. The gun being treated with more care than the human body as it was dragged off. It is a suggestion that gun rights are taken more seriously than human rights.
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