Music video analysis

Music videos are still used by artists today for several reasons. One of the main reasons being to uphold their ‘star image,’ and sell the artist further. The 2018 music video ‘this is America,’ was performed by Childish Gambino as the main focus of the video showing the reality of America nowadays. 

His video touches on controversial subjects such as gun violence, gun control, racism, cultural appropriation and many other subjects which he shows through semiotics and intertextuality. These controversial topics take up part of Gambino’s star image. 

As him and his manager have painted Gambino to be someone who speaks out and spreads awareness about important social issues, while not being afraid to expose the government and show that not everything is a positive as it seems. People are immediately drawn to this as the rebellious nature makes people feel like he is speaking the truth and gives his listeners a sense of freedom.

Gun control is a major controversial theme shown in this video. One view that Gambino brings up is the fact that people in the South place a higher importance on guns than they do the people who are killed by them. This is shown for example, in the first 30 seconds of the video. Gambino shoots a masked man tied to a chair with the gun and walks away like nothing happened, which could demonstrate the lack of empathy people have for the senseless murders happening to minorities as a result of their ethnicity and race.

Also, whilst Childish Gambino is walking away he places the gun gently in a red cloth whilst the dead body is violently dragged away. The red is referring to red America aka the South, and the contrast between the body being dragged and the gun being placed really emphasises what the states seem to value more; have access to guns.

Along with clear themes like gun control, there are also deeper moments of intertextuality throughout the music video, all having the similar theme of racism and violence. There is a moment in the video before the repetition of the chorus, where Gambino enters the shot through a door and dances towards the camera. In the background, there is a Gospel choir singing wearing black robes and red scarves. His facial expressions suddenly change from happy to what looks like ‘disconnected,’ and angry. 

He is thrown a gun and it graphically shows him shooting the gospel choir of all African Americans. This imagery can be directly related to the mass shooting of an all-black church by a white supremacist in 2015 in South Carolina, Charleston. This horrific event made millions question whether the gun laws put in place in America were actually beneficial and questioned whether the laws actually kept the citizens of America safe. It also raises awareness about how this was a hate crime, and yet the gunman was not handled as brutally as some African Americans are, even when they haven’t done anything wrong.

Gambino shortly follows the shooting of the gospel singers with the phrase, ‘this is America,’ implying that stuff like this is the reality of America. Shootings have become a regular thing seen in the news, and even though it has caused so much uproar, there has been very little change to prevent this from happening, especially seeing as this was a hate crime.

This links to near the end of the clip, where Gambino mimes holding a gun and points it out In front of him. This is the only part of the music video where everyone runs away from him, even the school children which have been dancing with him throughout. This symbolises the topic of the police and media seeing a black man who is weapon less as more threatening than an actual armed gunman. 

Soon after this shot, there is a panning shot, showing a police car and people carrying bats and running out of shot. This could link to the LA riots that took place in the 90s, after four police officers had beaten a man to death and none of them were sentenced. 

As a consequence, a whole set of riots broke out over LA, demanding justice. In fact, throughout the whole video, there seems to be rioting and chaos behind Gambino for example people fighting, running with weapons and vandalising cars. This links in with another theme in the music video, which is the unfair justice system, including the police force and how they uphold racism. 

Finally, in the very last tracking shot of the video, Childish Gambino looks like he is running for his life from a group of people who are chasing, all of which are white. This imagery could hint to the award-winning film made by Jordan peel, ‘get out.’ This movie is centred around a white family meeting their daughter’s boyfriend, who is black. However, this film takes many dark turns and is heavily focused on systemic racism and microaggressions towards black people which is fitting for this video as it is what Gambino is trying to spread awareness about, which his star image is partly based on.

There are also semiotics used in this video. One of these is the symbol of a masked figure riding a white horse across the screen. This symbol is relating to Christianity, and how it symbolises ‘judgement day,’ in which all of the human race will be brought forward and judged on how good of a person they are, and as a result, are sent to heaven or hell. 

This implies that judgement day is near, and makes us question about whether we would, in our current state, be accepted into heaven, or put into hell. Finally, Gambino uses exaggerated facial expressions and accentuated poses throughout the video. 

This is especially prominent in the beginning of the video.  These actions can be associated with mimicking a fictional character called ‘Jim Crow,’ who was made by white people to project stereotypes of African Americans, and keep them oppressed, e.g through this character they try to show why African Americans cannot be equal to white people even though none of the argument is logical and paints a false image of the race to the rest of the US through the media.