Essay on Visual (In)Sanity in Childish Gambino's "This Is America"

Introduction

There must be a very special secret behind the way this short seemingly simple video has become a viral one and one of the most haunting and memorable works in the history of the American music. At first sight, it might seem to be a mere dancing composition, but after a closer look new symbols are revealed used to introduce social commentary and the complex interconnectedness of allusions becomes visible and mesmerizes the viewer. The song itself is catchy enough, but it is the video that has made it go global with millions of You-tube views and almost as many written and video responses all over the web. The visual narrative is two-layered: the ultimately "hot" dancing in the foreground contrasts with the explicitly violent events in the background, the tension and the interplay between the two create the semantic versatility of historical, social, political, cultural subtexts behind the attractive picture which constitutes the primary appeal of the video.

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The first seconds of the video introduce the setting, and also outline the main topics dicussed in it: the black joy and the black death. The setting is an empty warehouse building painted in greenish and yellowish shades of grey. At first, it is quite serene. The colours and the monotone repetitiveness of the columns and lamps might be seen as a symbol of bleak and dull everyday. Its unimaginative monotony reinforces the effect that the dancing and the abrupt killing of the guitar player produce upon the audience. The monotony is broken by the electric dance moves and the killing. As the video progresses the colours of the setting shift to a warmer, more dramatic palette in the chorus scene and get darker and gloomier as the mob begins to dominate the background. The fire, presumably from the burning car, lights the ceiling in a rather sinister way reminiscent of the inferno, which goes in line with appearance of the black-clad hooded apocalyptic rider on a white horse at 2.40. At the very end of the video, Childish Gambino is running along a dark corridor into complete darkness which is indicative of Gambino's pessimism. Thus, from serene and monotone, even boring pastel tones the video proceeds to more menacing and aggressive darker colors. The spacious depth of the warehouse is changed for the narrow isolation of the dark corridor which is very likely to turn out to be a blind end as no light is coming from ahead. This change of colours and light dramatically resonates with the action in the video, sets it to advantage and helps create the necessary atmosphere for it.

The main thing in the video that catches the eye of the viewer is the viral dancing of Childish Gambino and the young people in school uniforms: the dancing is obviously used to distract the attention from what is going on in the background, but it also has several symbolic functions of its own. First, it helps introduce the historical allusions, such as, for example, Gambino's outfit with the symbolic golden chains and the trousers reminiscent of the Civil War military uniform and the Jim Crow pose. The singer has no shirt on and this is quite symbolic of the universal naked body that sells best in the world of modern consumerism. Interestingly enough, Gambino's dance itself is a manifesto of modern cultural consumerism. Gambino uses no less than 10 popular dance moves in close succession (Gajanan) which is a cunning imitation of the way modern audience consumes culture in short, bright, visual and catchy chunks without any attempt to go deeper beyond the surface. Even unique cultural practices when replicated and circulated in this way loose authenticity and meaningfulness - lose their "cultural specificity" (Gajanan). Thus, Gambino's dance is both a tribute to the African American culture and a subtle criticism of the way it is often turned into a thoughtless, superficial potpourri. The important moment is that the primary consumers of this simplified mass culture are young Americans embodied by the schoolchildren dancing around Gambino and following his lead. Just like the singer himself, they are not at all shocked by the violence around and after the killing: they go on dancing merrily and smiling happily. It seems, they even help Gambino remove the guns and the bodies which are treated with much less reverence than the weapons. In this ingenious way Gambino is explicating "the cultural violence" that the Time magazine is writing about (Gajanan). The modern media bring up in the audience "an appetite for violence" and as a result the virtual violence and the real violence become confused (Gajanan). The generation of TV viewers that have grown up with this appetite have become "numb to the killings of unarmed men" (Bain) placated by the lulling, stultifying effect of the popular entertainment.

The dancing wouldn't have had this electrifying, thought-provoking effect without the terrible events happening in the background which come in sharp contrast with Gambino's slightly crazy, theatrical grin and the dancers' careless smiles. Watching the video for the first time one can easily miss the man throwing money standing atop one of the cars (1.37), a man falling from the upper floor (2.14), kids immersed in their smartphones and filming the chaos around with their phones (2.35), the rider galloping on a white horse (2.40), etc. The old cars that used to be just a background at the end of the video steal the limelight (3.36). Once the main character has smoked a marijuana joint he climbs one of the old cars and begins dancing on it. This scene is a bright illustration of the drug escapism: the world becomes "normal" again, the dead man lives and keeps playing his guitar, a beautiful woman is sitting on one of the cars and Gambino is on top of the world standing on the roof of an old clunker. Yet, the reality disappoints: the old empty cars with their driver doors open and glimmers flashing are allusive of the case of "Philando Castile who was murdered in his '97 Oldsmobile" and "the long legacy of fatal police shootings" (Kaplan). Thus, it appears that the world that Gambino is on top of is all rotten from inside and being the king of this world is worth nothing. The only way out is to run for your life, which Gambino, supposedly unsuccessfully, does at the very end of the video.

The contrast between the foreground with all the appealing dance moves and happy smiles and the background with the brutality, violence, indifference and death is what makes this video such an unsettling, powerful and mesmerizing sight. Hiro Murai, the director of the video and also Donald Glover's celebrated series "Atlanta," says he likes to play with depth of field, where "there's one thing happening in the foreground and a separate thing that's more subtly in the back" (Coscarelli) to communicate the feeling that "there's more to this world than you're seeing" (qtd. in Coscarelli). The director and the singer have obviously succeeded in this as their work has provoked an avalanche of commentary and a very heated discussion of the social issues touched upon in the video. Their secret weapons are contrast, surprise and provocation. Hiro Murai calls the video packed with "very provocative images" and "cartoony violence" "a total tightrope walk" (qtd. in Coscarelli). Just like a tightrope dancer, Gambino both amazes, scares and entertains the audience which is his ultimate recipe for success.

Conclusion

Thus, this video is, in reality, a deep well of meanings created through the ingenious usage of the visual symbolism which can be decoded at least in three key dimensions - modern cultural consumerism, gun violence, and racism. But all of them are united by one main thing - the shock value which is meant to make the viewer pause and think once again of the future into which modern America is heading.

Works Cited

Bain, Katie. "The Rise of Donald Glover: How He Captured America." The Guardian, 12 May 2018, www.theguardian.com/music/2018/may/12/the-rise-of-donald-glover-childish-gambino.

Childish Gambino. This is America, YouTube, 5 May 2018, www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYOjWnS4cMY.

Coscarelli, Joe. "Hiro Murai on the 'Atlanta' Finale and 'This Is America' Video." The New York Times, 10 May 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/05/10/arts/hiro-murai-atlanta-finale-this-is-america-interview.html.

Gajanan, Mahita. "An Expert's Take on the Symbolism in Childish Gambino's Viral 'This Is America' Video." Time, 7 May 2018, time.com/5267890/childish-gambino-this-is-america-meaning/.

Kaplan, Ilana. "Childish Gambino 'This Is America': All of the Hidden References in Hit Music Video." The Independent, 8 May 2018, www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/childish-gambino-donald-glover-this-is-america-hidden