This is American Media

Childish Gambino's "This is America"

I have now watched Childish Gambino's most recent music video, "This is America," 6 or 7 times. It has become clear to me since my first viewing that it is about the dual roles of gun violence and racism in America's history and culture. I have noticed many references to specific mass shootings and just gun violence in general. For example, in the seconds 2:44-3:01 in the video, it is silent, leading me to think it is 17 seconds of silence in honor of the 17 victims of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting. In addition, Donald Glover shoots at a church choir in a more graphic part of his video, which alludes to the Charleston church shooting in 2015. In the midst of all the violence and bullets flying around them, Glover and several back-up dances maintain a smile and an energetic routine. Other actors are on their phones, seemingly unaware of their surroundings filled with chaos. This reminds me of how people don't really care about mass shootings or they are ignorant to them. Being that all the back-up dances were African-America, it could also mean that black communities, faced with far more gun violence than whites, are simply forced to move on quickly. At one part of the video, a man on a white horse rides through, which made me think of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, a biblical reference.

This video is stacked with references and intertextuality, far too much for me alone to notice and understand. Luckily, the media has done an abundance of analysis of the music video and lyrics of "This is America." Twitter, the youtube comment section, and even news outlets like the Washington Post have thoroughly looked into every scene and aspect on the video. One twitter user compared Glover's movements and dancing to the Jim Cow persona from the 1950s. Many others noticed that the end of Glover's video, featuring him run through the dark, was a reference to "Get Out."

Listening to the song and watching the video has made me realize that Americans in general often use media to ignore the racism and gun violence that plagues our county. Glover sings, "We just wanna party/ Party just for you/ We just want the money/ Money just for you." The money and partying are forms of entertainment in America that distract or even blind us to the suffering around us. In the video, while Glover sings these lines, he is featured dancing with a group of African-American teenagers. They have their backs turned to riots, fire, and people running behind them, using entertainment to remain clueless to chaos and gun violence. This makes me wonder if I use media as a way to distract myself or to become more aware of problems in America.