6Cultural Analysis
Few songs in recent memory have garnered as much critical response as “This Is America,” a mid‐2018 single by the filmmaker, actor, and musician Donald Glover. The music video for the song is a kaleidoscope of enigmatic images, with early frames of joyous dancing quickly giving way to a shocking scene of violence: Glover shooting a hooded figure in the back of the head at point‐blank range with a handgun. From this point on, the video confronts viewers with an increasingly disturbing set of behaviors, most notably a moment where Glover slaughters an entire church choir with an assault rifle. The lyrics, set to a thunderous backbeat, address the prevalence of guns and materialism within communities of color. Popular online reaction to the viral song and video was swift, but mixed.1 Some lauded the production for drawing attention to issues of racism, police brutality, and mass shootings, and especially to the ways that entertainment venues present these issues with techniques that dull audience outrage. Others accused Glover of producing veritable propaganda against the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms, and of drawing unwarranted attention to negative elements in America rather than accenting positive developments. A few even ...
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