Music Video: Theory
Music Video theory - Childish Gambino blog task
1) How does the This Is America video meet the key conventions of a music video? Look back at last week's introduction to music video if you're not sure.
'This Is America' meets key conventions of a music video. This is because this music video contains the key conventions of a music video: Movement, narrative, band/artist and intertextuality. There is lots of movement in this music video in terms of the people in the video moving and dancing. As the camera moves further away whilst Childish Gambino walks towards it, groups of people stand behind him to dance. This compliments the rhythm of the song. Rapid editing also compliments the dance routine. This is evident through the transition of the first scene to the one of the gospel choir. The camera follows the subject wherever he goes. This also creates tension and quite literally puts the audience in his shoes so we see exactly what he does. The narrative behind 'This Is America' focuses heavily on guns and violence in America and the fact that we deal with them and consume them as part of entertainment on one hand, and on the other hand, it is a part of our national conversation. The artist is featured performing their music in the form of lip-syncing. Here Childish Gambino is acting (i.e. dancing) whilst also 'performing' (i.e. singing).
2) What comment is the video making on American culture, racism and gun violence?
The song addresses the wider issue of gun violence in the United States, the high rate of mass shootings in the United States, along with longstanding racism and discrimination against African Americans.
3) Write an analysis of the video applying the theories we have learned: Gilroy, Hall, Rose and Dyson. Write a short paragraph for each theory.
Gilroy-Gilroy suggests that black music articulates diasporic experiences of resistance to white capitalist culture. Gilroy is particularly interested in the idea of black diasporic identity – the feeling of never quite belonging or being accepted in western societies even to this day. This notion of never quite belonging or being accepted in western societies even to this day is evident in 'This Is America'. We see this in the last scene where Childish Gambino is running away from the police. This suggests that Black people are usually labelled as being involved in criminal behaviour and are also usually running away from something. They are seen as the culprits in terms of gun violence and crime and this is what this song beautifully captures.
Hall-Stuart Hall suggests that audiences often blur race and class which leads to people associating particular races with certain social classes. He suggests that western cultures are still white dominated and that ethnic minorities in the media are misinterpreted due to underlying racist tendencies. BAME people are often represented as ‘the other’. Applying this to 'This Is America', it seems to be saying that America uses entertainment provided by its black celebrities as a distraction from the death and violence it forces on its black citizens. Black performers are still made to feel like minstrels when they go out to perform their "black" music.
Dyson-Dyson suggests that political hip hop in the 1990s didn’t get the credit (or commercial success) it deserved and this led to the rap music of today – which can be flashy, sexualised and glamorising criminal behaviour. Dyson states: “Hip hop music is important precisely because it sheds light on contemporary politics, history and race. At its best, hip hop gives voice to marginal black youth we are not used to hearing from on such critics. Sadly, the enlightened aspects of hip hop are overlooked by critics who are out to satisfy a grudge against black youth culture…” Michael Eric Dyson, Know What I Mean (2007)
Now read this Guardian feature on This Is America - including the comments below.
4) What are the three interpretations suggested in the article?
He is playing Jim Crow.
He is duping us with dance.
He is taking on the police.
5) What alternative interpretations of the video are offered in the comments 'below the line'? Choose two and explain what the comments are suggesting.
"It's just music"- one person commented that he/she "does not buy into this emotive, overly-analytical gushing over popular music." This suggests that there may not be an ulterior message/moral behind the song besides the fact that it is popular music.
However,
Another person commented: "This certainly is the case here, it's outstanding to me. People tend to make decisions based on emotions not fact so music is the perfect medium to highlight the wrongs in society." This suggests that a music is the perfect outlet for Childish Gambino to get his message across.
Extension task:
Media Magazine - This Is America: Music, Politics and Protest
Read This Is America: Music, Politics and Protest in MM65 (p14). You can find this in our Media Magazine archive. Answer the following questions:
1) The article offers an excellent textual analysis of the opening of the video. What are some of the suggested meanings and references the writer discusses? Can you link this analysis to any of the theorists we have studied?
The video for ‘This is America’ begins with a sequence so tonally jarring that it is still
shocking the second, third and 10th time you watch it. In a vast warehouse, we hear an African choir chant what sounds like a joyous refrain as a barefoot man plays a finger-picking melody on an acoustic guitar. As the camera pans, we see a topless figure – Donald Glover aka Childish Gambino – standing in the middle of the warehouse. He jerks his body in time to the beat. As he turns and starts to dance towards us, his movements become more exaggerated: his body rolls, he grimaces, pops one eye wide open, and
stops behind the seated man, who is now hooded and without his guitar. The topless dancer pulls a gun from thin air, aims for the head, and shoots. As the dead body falls, a rumbling hip-hop rhythm kicks in and Glover turns to the camera, casually saying: ‘This is America’.
2) What does the writer suggest are the main political themes in the video - and why is the message unclear?
The video’s political themes are clear: it interrogates and criticises American gun culture and racism past and present. But its ‘message’ is not so easily unlocked. In fact, it is deliberately problematic: the video’s entirely black cast means that its ‘crimes’ are all
perpetrated by black people; while the dancing – which references styles such as the Gwara Gwara, a South African dance popularised by Rihanna – can be read both as a celebration of black culture and, as Aida Amoaka writes on the Atlantic website, as a ‘denunciation of the distractions that keep many Americans from noticing how the world around them is falling apart’.
3) What meanings and suggestions does the writer highlight in Beyonce's video for Formation?
Beyoncé’s ‘Formation’, juxtaposes imagery referencing the New Orleans floods, the antebellum South, and modern police brutality. It even has its own Easter eggs: for example, a fleeting shot of graffiti reading ‘Stop shooting us’, a message associated
with Black Lives Matter. Beyoncé and her director Melina Matsoukas leave it to the viewer
to connect the dots, though the video’s more conventional aspects– the highly choreographed dance routines and direct-to-camera singing from its star – mean there is less potential for the sort of discomfort so fruitfully employed by Glover.
4) What is notable about Glover's comedy drama TV show Atlanta?
The show was notable for its refusal to ‘translate’ the black experience for a white audience. Both ‘This is America’ and ‘Formation’ were praised for their undiluted blackness, which in a culture of white hegemony is seen as a powerful political statement in itself.
5) What examples does the writer provide of hip hop as a political genre? What theorist can we link this to?
Hip-hop has been an inherently political form since its inception as far back as 1971, when Gil Scott-Heron’s spoken- word song ‘The Revolution Will Not Be Televised’ used the vocabulary of white mass media to satirise its grip on America. The video for NWA’s
‘Fuck tha Police’ (1988), with its images of police harassment, was a prescient comment on a situation that would reach a tipping point with the beating of Rodney King in 1991 and the ensuing Los Angeles riots. The extended version of Public Enemy’s ‘Fight the Power’ video (1989), directed by Spike Lee, juxtaposes clips from the 1963 civil rights march on Washington (at which Martin Luther King Jr delivered the famous ‘I have a dream’ speech) with a present-day political rally in Brooklyn to end racial violence.
1) How does the This Is America video meet the key conventions of a music video? Look back at last week's introduction to music video if you're not sure.
'This Is America' meets key conventions of a music video. This is because this music video contains the key conventions of a music video: Movement, narrative, band/artist and intertextuality. There is lots of movement in this music video in terms of the people in the video moving and dancing. As the camera moves further away whilst Childish Gambino walks towards it, groups of people stand behind him to dance. This compliments the rhythm of the song. Rapid editing also compliments the dance routine. This is evident through the transition of the first scene to the one of the gospel choir. The camera follows the subject wherever he goes. This also creates tension and quite literally puts the audience in his shoes so we see exactly what he does. The narrative behind 'This Is America' focuses heavily on guns and violence in America and the fact that we deal with them and consume them as part of entertainment on one hand, and on the other hand, it is a part of our national conversation. The artist is featured performing their music in the form of lip-syncing. Here Childish Gambino is acting (i.e. dancing) whilst also 'performing' (i.e. singing).
2) What comment is the video making on American culture, racism and gun violence?
The song addresses the wider issue of gun violence in the United States, the high rate of mass shootings in the United States, along with longstanding racism and discrimination against African Americans.
3) Write an analysis of the video applying the theories we have learned: Gilroy, Hall, Rose and Dyson. Write a short paragraph for each theory.
Gilroy-Gilroy suggests that black music articulates diasporic experiences of resistance to white capitalist culture. Gilroy is particularly interested in the idea of black diasporic identity – the feeling of never quite belonging or being accepted in western societies even to this day. This notion of never quite belonging or being accepted in western societies even to this day is evident in 'This Is America'. We see this in the last scene where Childish Gambino is running away from the police. This suggests that Black people are usually labelled as being involved in criminal behaviour and are also usually running away from something. They are seen as the culprits in terms of gun violence and crime and this is what this song beautifully captures.
Hall-Stuart Hall suggests that audiences often blur race and class which leads to people associating particular races with certain social classes. He suggests that western cultures are still white dominated and that ethnic minorities in the media are misinterpreted due to underlying racist tendencies. BAME people are often represented as ‘the other’. Applying this to 'This Is America', it seems to be saying that America uses entertainment provided by its black celebrities as a distraction from the death and violence it forces on its black citizens. Black performers are still made to feel like minstrels when they go out to perform their "black" music.
Dyson-Dyson suggests that political hip hop in the 1990s didn’t get the credit (or commercial success) it deserved and this led to the rap music of today – which can be flashy, sexualised and glamorising criminal behaviour. Dyson states: “Hip hop music is important precisely because it sheds light on contemporary politics, history and race. At its best, hip hop gives voice to marginal black youth we are not used to hearing from on such critics. Sadly, the enlightened aspects of hip hop are overlooked by critics who are out to satisfy a grudge against black youth culture…” Michael Eric Dyson, Know What I Mean (2007)
Now read this Guardian feature on This Is America - including the comments below.
4) What are the three interpretations suggested in the article?
He is playing Jim Crow.
He is duping us with dance.
He is taking on the police.
5) What alternative interpretations of the video are offered in the comments 'below the line'? Choose two and explain what the comments are suggesting.
"It's just music"- one person commented that he/she "does not buy into this emotive, overly-analytical gushing over popular music." This suggests that there may not be an ulterior message/moral behind the song besides the fact that it is popular music.
However,
Another person commented: "This certainly is the case here, it's outstanding to me. People tend to make decisions based on emotions not fact so music is the perfect medium to highlight the wrongs in society." This suggests that a music is the perfect outlet for Childish Gambino to get his message across.
Extension task:
Media Magazine - This Is America: Music, Politics and Protest
Read This Is America: Music, Politics and Protest in MM65 (p14). You can find this in our Media Magazine archive. Answer the following questions:
1) The article offers an excellent textual analysis of the opening of the video. What are some of the suggested meanings and references the writer discusses? Can you link this analysis to any of the theorists we have studied?
The video for ‘This is America’ begins with a sequence so tonally jarring that it is still
shocking the second, third and 10th time you watch it. In a vast warehouse, we hear an African choir chant what sounds like a joyous refrain as a barefoot man plays a finger-picking melody on an acoustic guitar. As the camera pans, we see a topless figure – Donald Glover aka Childish Gambino – standing in the middle of the warehouse. He jerks his body in time to the beat. As he turns and starts to dance towards us, his movements become more exaggerated: his body rolls, he grimaces, pops one eye wide open, and
stops behind the seated man, who is now hooded and without his guitar. The topless dancer pulls a gun from thin air, aims for the head, and shoots. As the dead body falls, a rumbling hip-hop rhythm kicks in and Glover turns to the camera, casually saying: ‘This is America’.
2) What does the writer suggest are the main political themes in the video - and why is the message unclear?
The video’s political themes are clear: it interrogates and criticises American gun culture and racism past and present. But its ‘message’ is not so easily unlocked. In fact, it is deliberately problematic: the video’s entirely black cast means that its ‘crimes’ are all
perpetrated by black people; while the dancing – which references styles such as the Gwara Gwara, a South African dance popularised by Rihanna – can be read both as a celebration of black culture and, as Aida Amoaka writes on the Atlantic website, as a ‘denunciation of the distractions that keep many Americans from noticing how the world around them is falling apart’.
3) What meanings and suggestions does the writer highlight in Beyonce's video for Formation?
Beyoncé’s ‘Formation’, juxtaposes imagery referencing the New Orleans floods, the antebellum South, and modern police brutality. It even has its own Easter eggs: for example, a fleeting shot of graffiti reading ‘Stop shooting us’, a message associated
with Black Lives Matter. Beyoncé and her director Melina Matsoukas leave it to the viewer
to connect the dots, though the video’s more conventional aspects– the highly choreographed dance routines and direct-to-camera singing from its star – mean there is less potential for the sort of discomfort so fruitfully employed by Glover.
4) What is notable about Glover's comedy drama TV show Atlanta?
The show was notable for its refusal to ‘translate’ the black experience for a white audience. Both ‘This is America’ and ‘Formation’ were praised for their undiluted blackness, which in a culture of white hegemony is seen as a powerful political statement in itself.
5) What examples does the writer provide of hip hop as a political genre? What theorist can we link this to?
Hip-hop has been an inherently political form since its inception as far back as 1971, when Gil Scott-Heron’s spoken- word song ‘The Revolution Will Not Be Televised’ used the vocabulary of white mass media to satirise its grip on America. The video for NWA’s
‘Fuck tha Police’ (1988), with its images of police harassment, was a prescient comment on a situation that would reach a tipping point with the beating of Rodney King in 1991 and the ensuing Los Angeles riots. The extended version of Public Enemy’s ‘Fight the Power’ video (1989), directed by Spike Lee, juxtaposes clips from the 1963 civil rights march on Washington (at which Martin Luther King Jr delivered the famous ‘I have a dream’ speech) with a present-day political rally in Brooklyn to end racial violence.
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