This is America questions
Music Video: theory
There are a range of important theories we need to learn as part of our Music Video unit.
Both our Music Video Close-Study Products contain representations of black Americans. We therefore need to study a range of theories that address the representation of black or minority ethnic people in the media.
Notes from the lesson
Paul Gilroy: The Black Atlantic
Both our Music Video Close-Study Products contain representations of black Americans. We therefore need to study a range of theories that address the representation of black or minority ethnic people in the media.
Notes from the lesson
Paul Gilroy: The Black Atlantic
Paul Gilroy is a key theorist in A Level Media and has written about race in both the UK and USA.
In The Black Atlantic (1993), Gilroy explores influences on black culture. One review states: “Gilroy’s ‘black Atlantic’ delineates a distinctively modern, cultural-political space that is not specifically African, American, Caribbean, or British, but is, rather, a hybrid mix of all of these at once.”
In The Black Atlantic (1993), Gilroy explores influences on black culture. One review states: “Gilroy’s ‘black Atlantic’ delineates a distinctively modern, cultural-political space that is not specifically African, American, Caribbean, or British, but is, rather, a hybrid mix of all of these at once.”
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.
For example, Gilroy points to the slave trade as having a huge cultural influence on modern America – as highlighted by Common’s Letter to the Free.
Diaspora: A term that originates from the Greek word meaning “dispersion,” diaspora refers to the community of people that migrated from their homeland. [Source: facinghistory.org]
Gilroy on black music
Gilroy suggests that black music articulates diasporic experiences of resistance to white capitalist culture.
When writing about British diasporic identities, Gilroy discusses how many black Britons do not feel like they totally belong in Britain but are regarded as ‘English’ when they return to the country of their parents’ birth e.g. the Caribbean or Africa. This can create a sense of never truly belonging anywhere.
Additional theories on race representations and music
Stuart Hall: race representations in media
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’.
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’.
Hall outlined three black characterisations in American media:
· The Slave figure: “the faithful fieldhand… attached and devoted to ‘his’ master.” (Hall 1995)
· The Native: primitive, cheating, savage, barbarian, criminal.
· The Clown/Entertainer: a performer – “implying an ‘innate’ humour in the black man.” (Hall 1995)
Tricia Rose: Black Noise (1994)
Tricia Rose was one of the first academics to study the cultural impact of the hip hop genre in her influential book Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America (1994).
Rose suggested that hip hop initially gave audiences an insight into the lives of young, black, urban Americans and also gave them a voice (including empowering female artists). However, Rose has since criticised commercial hip hop and suggests black culture has been appropriated and exploited by capitalism.
Tricia Rose was one of the first academics to study the cultural impact of the hip hop genre in her influential book Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America (1994).
Rose suggested that hip hop initially gave audiences an insight into the lives of young, black, urban Americans and also gave them a voice (including empowering female artists). However, Rose has since criticised commercial hip hop and suggests black culture has been appropriated and exploited by capitalism.
Michael Eric Dyson: Know What I Mean (2007)
Georgetown University Professor of Sociology Michael Eric Dyson has passionately defended both hip hop and black culture – Jay-Z describes him as “the hip hop intellectual”.
https://youtu.be/q6rBbT2UktU
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.
https://youtu.be/q6rBbT2UktU
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)
Hip hop debate - full video
This appears to be the full Google debate on hip hop if you want to watch more from where those extracts came from.
Blog tasks
Hip hop debate - full video
This appears to be the full Google debate on hip hop if you want to watch more from where those extracts came from.
Blog tasks
Childish Gambino, the musical stage name of writer and performer Donald Glover, has just released a critique of American culture and Donald Trump with This Is America.
Racking up 10m views in 24 hours and already dubbed ‘genius’ and ‘a masterpiece’, the music video is a satirical comment on American culture, racism and gun violence.
1) How does the This Is America video meet the key conventions of a music video?
This music video meets the conventions of a music video as it has a narrativetive which is what the american culture think of the black community. It also lets the audience relate to the same things as in the video as they may be surrounded by this in their own lives.
2) What comment is the video making on American culture, racism and gun violence?
It is trying to say that hey are always blamed for things such as gun violence and racism. it also shows the way that the american culture sees them wither or not they are famous or not.
3) Write an analysis of the video applying the theories we have learned: Gilroy, Hall, Rose and Dyson.
Gilroy
It shows that the american culture sees that they will never quite be accepted into society.
Hall
It that they are treated like criminals, an entertainer and are not teated equally.
Rose
It shows that when they entertain that they are just trying to show a isight of their way to escape the world of crime when they dance.
Dyson
It shows that the music they produced may be classed as criminal behaviour as the hip hop in the 1990s was miss judged.
Read this Guardian feature on This Is America - including the comments below.
4) What are the three interpretations suggested in the article?
4) What are the three interpretations suggested in the article?
He's taking on the police
The line “this a celly / that’s a tool” has a powerful double meaning. Fans have pointed out that on the one hand it refers to the case of Stephon Clark, shot dead just weeks ago by Sacramento police, who assumed he was armed, but only had an iPhone on him. Glover distils the distorting way black men are seen by police with “tool”, meaning gun. In the video, the camera pans up to black men filming the chaos on their phones. As other commenters on Genius have pointed out, Glover could also be saying that phones can be actual tools for documentation.
He's playing Jim Crow
In the opening scenes, Glover uses grotesque smiles and exaggerated poses, with some on Twitter suggesting this is an invocation of the racial caricature Jim Crow. Another suggested Glover was accusing black performers – even himself – of “coonery”, or saying they are still made to feel like minstrels when they go out to perform their “black” music. One of the lyrics is “Grandma told me: get your money, black man”. Commenters on the lyric annotation site Genius have asked whether Glover feels that he has to take on stereotypically black performance roles (rapper, soul singer, comedian) to be able to earn money. His gunning down of the gospel choir singing the lyric suggests that he’s tired of the pressure to accumulate wealth, to be performatively black, and stay spiritually uplifted in an age of gun violence.
He's duping us with dance
A little like that video where you’re told to follow a basketball being passed around, and you miss the moonwalking bear in the background, Glover and co’s moves – doing YouTube dance crazes such as the hopping, kicking “shoot” – mask the riots happening behind them. The video’s choreographer, Sherrie Silver, retweeted a comment, perhaps in agreement, from someone who argued: “Childish Gambino’s dance moves distracted all of us from the craziness that was happening in the background of the video & that’s exactly the point he’s trying to make.”
5) What alternative interpretations of the video are offered in the comments 'below the line'
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