The piece of art I chose for my art criticism paper, is “This is America” by Donald Glover aka Childish Gambino. It is a music video portraying the central message of gun violence and race in America. In the music video, Gambino’s dance moves are poses from Jim Crow pictures. All of the dancers in the video were black. Gambino also only had grey pants on and is shirtless, representing his humanity. Throughout the video there are men in rags getting shot by a gun. Showing how different black people are treated than machines which are used to kill them. Also touching with past history of segregation. Capitalism can also be tied to his video based on the red cloths he chose to interpret into his video. This red rag was the rag used to lightly wrap the gun, while the man in the white rag was dragged away. There is a lot of imagery and metaphors inside Gambino’s music video. It’s video was released in 2018, with an explanation from Donald. His explanation was “ I just wanted to make a good song. Something to play of Fourth of July”. His explanation is ironic because the Fourth of July is an American holiday to represent independence and freedom.
In my essay I will provide all or hopefully key imagery examples and metaphors Donald included in his video. As well as go deeper into Jim Crow laws, segregation, violence, race, police brutality and gun violence in the USA towards black Americans.
As you’ve stated, there is a lot to unpack from Donald Glover’s music video, “This is America.” It’s great you were able to extract so many powerful themes and details from this video. Along with your plan of going ‘deeper into Jim Crow Laws, segregation, … and gun violence in the USA towards Black Americans,” I think you have a great amount of material at your disposal for an engaging and interesting essay.
This is a great start. I feel that this is a good topic you can expand on in your essay. As you mentioned, you could talk about segregation and Jim Crow Laws and explain how much hasn’t really changed. You can also say how African Americans are still racialized today.
The art piece you chose has a lot, especially symbolic moments and items, that will help strengthen your essay. The topics you chose to focus on are very aligned with what the video was depicting so I am interested in which symbolism and moments you will highlight to describe the connections and importance. Your research paper seems really interesting and I can’t wait to see how it turns out!
I said the same thing to Rafael above you, who chose the same artifact: I would suggest using your paper as an investigation of what policing has become (or has always been) in America. What is policing? Who do police actually “protect and serve?” How is their function of surveilling and punish Black and other nonwhite people allowed to proliferate so freely? You can examine these and other questions in your paper, and use Childish Gambino as some evidence.