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New Childish Gambino Single 'This Is America'

Started by Golden E. Pump, May 07, 2018, 11:51:09 PM

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holyzombiejesus

Quote from: newbridge on May 09, 2018, 12:57:46 AM
Seems quite clearly to be critiquing the two things you have accused it of (commercialization and faux "wokeness"), all while being in the grand tradition of artists who cynically acknowledge the futility of popular culture to actually effect political change.

How does it do those things? Not particularly challenging your comment but I just watched it on my phone in the disabled toilets at work and it just seemed a bit slight. Certainly not "very funny" (shootings aside), as someone pointed out

phantom_power

Part of it is the dancing to distract from the rioting going on in the warehouse. The different dances have deeper meanings or connotations. There is other stuff as well

holyzombiejesus

Quote from: phantom_power on May 09, 2018, 02:06:36 PM
Part of it is the dancing to distract from the rioting going on in the warehouse.

I got that, just don't see what that has to do with "commercialization and faux "wokeness", all while being in the grand tradition of artists who cynically acknowledge the futility of popular culture to actually effect political change."

popcorn

#63
The video is obviously fake.

newbridge

It's satirizing the two poles of the music industry (or specifically the role of black artists in the music industry), the minstrel tokenism (dancing black children, gospel choirs) and the performative violence/hedonism of dangerous black men, which are commercialized and sold to largely white audiences. I think the subtext is also that this commodification of "blackness" ultimately does nothing to change underlying issues.

White audiences want Donald Glover to either be the dancing token black friend, or the street tough rioter, and think that in doing so they are actually in touch with what it actually means to be black in America.

sevendaughters

Quote from: newbridge on May 09, 2018, 04:29:58 PM
It's satirizing the two poles of the music industry (or specifically the role of black artists in the music industry), the minstrel tokenism (dancing black children, gospel choirs) and the performative violence/hedonism of dangerous black men, which are commercialized and sold to largely white audiences. I think the subtext is also that this commodification of "blackness" ultimately does nothing to change underlying issues.

White audiences want Donald Glover to either be the dancing token black friend, or the street tough rioter, and think that in doing so they are actually in touch with what it actually means to be black in America.

i understand this viewpoint but i disagree, for one because it relies heavily on the video to support it, and secondly particularly because there is a specific reference to actual riots and people who suffered at the hands of police brutality ("This a celly / That's a tool"). that seems to offer a more earnest reading that undercuts any satirical intent.


sevendaughters

Quote from: sweeper on May 09, 2018, 04:53:29 PM
Why can't satire be earnest?

i suppose it can but it's usually not precisely because it understands the mechanisms and modes of power and through impart distance to apply a certain kind of outside critique; perhaps why Peter Cook is good and The Canary is bad. i do hope some of the people who said they liked it completely unquestioningly get hauled over the coals soon.

sweeper

To be honest, I think you've set up a false opposition.

sevendaughters

Quote from: sweeper on May 09, 2018, 05:23:08 PM
To be honest, I think you've set up a false opposition.

respectfully disagree! just don't like the song and think that it is trying very hard to be important rather than satirical. that it became so hyped so quickly combined with serious thinkpieces and twitterstorms parsing the serious historical references in the video support this. this is not just 'some song', it is an important statement song by a celebrity that just cracked 50m youtube views. satire just doesn't have that kind of range. maybe i've under-credited certain aspects of it but i've also put my own flaws on the table here. too much of me in this thread now, goodnight!

phantom_power

I think you are blaming the song for the reaction a bit, which isn't really fair.

I am not sure the song is satirical, not in the Peter Cook sense at least. It is more on a par with something like Public Enemy I would say, but less polemic and more...not sure what word I am reaching for. Knowing?

sevendaughters

Quote from: phantom_power on May 09, 2018, 05:59:18 PM
I think you are blaming the song for the reaction a bit, which isn't really fair.

I am not sure the song is satirical, not in the Peter Cook sense at least. It is more on a par with something like Public Enemy I would say, but less polemic and more...not sure what word I am reaching for. Knowing?

knowing, yes! knowing of itself as an important statement, aimed toward a certain kind of response and cross-section of the discourse. this isn't some inscrutable piece. this is highly-crafted social media fodder.

phantom_power

That's not what I meant by knowing really. Or rather, that is a harsh interpretation of it. I meant more knowing in the sense of aware enough not to be too polemic and drifting into hectoring, which PE were a bit guilty of.

I have no doubt that Glover thinks it is an important statement. I am not however sure why that is a bad thing

rue the polywhirl

I reckon it's fair to blame the song for the reaction if the reaction is phoney, in-crowdy and not genuine and drummed up by an in-crowdy, ungenuine media (who the songwriter seeks to court) in order to inflate the profile of the song far beyond its merit, for mutual backslapping and for profit.

newbridge

Again, think you completely missed the (cynical, misanthropic) point Glover is making, but whatever.

I understand the contrarian impulse to hate anything that's popular, it just seems weird in the context of something that is itself very contrarian.

sevendaughters

Quote from: newbridge on May 09, 2018, 06:22:06 PM
I understand the contrarian impulse to hate anything that's popular, it just seems weird in the context of something that is itself very contrarian.

that's not why I dislike it - it's not a very strong song, and i largely don't sit around watching videos. and i'm in the minority here, so who gives a fuck what i think?

sweeper

Quote from: sevendaughters on May 09, 2018, 06:03:53 PM
knowing, yes! knowing of itself as an important statement, aimed toward a certain kind of response and cross-section of the discourse. this isn't some inscrutable piece. this is highly-crafted social media fodder.

So I suppose this would have more credibility if he just kept his fucking opinions to himself, rather than using technology and communication to disseminate them to as many people as possible, which has no inherent value?

Golden E. Pump

The fact that this has sparked a heated debate right here on the vanilla suburbs of the internet means it's already effective.

And it's an absolute banger.

rue the polywhirl

Quote from: Golden E. Pump on May 09, 2018, 06:41:31 PM
The fact that this has sparked a heated debate right here on the vanilla suburbs of the internet means it's already effective.

And it's an absolute banger.

Not really proof that it is effective. Otherwise that would mean Count Dankula's hitler dog video and Ant McPartlin's driving is effective if it gets talked about lots. Plus a lot of the debate has been largely prefrabicated from the off. When the Gambino video ends racism is when I'll call it effective. Even if it did solve racism and had a statue built for it I probably wouldn't even call it effective because the song itself really isn't that memorable.

Golden E. Pump

He's not exactly aiming to end racism though, is he?

It's not like he put it out and thought "we'll shit 'em. The KKK will all hand in their membership badges by 12pm tomorrow, I reckon."

I'm not sure you can equate this to either of the examples you make because they weren't trying to provoke debate. This was. And has.

Quote from: momatt on May 08, 2018, 01:56:50 PM
I'm trying to think of someone else who is as amazing as Donald Glover.  Struggling.
He's just fantastic at everything, isn't he.

Not fantastic at not constantly being mixed up with Danny Glover by me.

Golden E. Pump

Quote from: Steve Lampkins on May 09, 2018, 07:44:47 PM
Not fantastic at not constantly being mixed up with Danny Glover by me.

He's too young for that shit.

Mr Banlon


phantom_power

Quote from: rue the polywhirl on May 09, 2018, 06:16:34 PM
I reckon it's fair to blame the song for the reaction if the reaction is phoney, in-crowdy and not genuine and drummed up by an in-crowdy, ungenuine media (who the songwriter seeks to court) in order to inflate the profile of the song far beyond its merit, for mutual backslapping and for profit.

The song is not phoney or in-crowdy (whatever that means). Nor is the video. I doubt Glover predicted the reaction it has received. What is phoney about it exactly? He is making a statement about the state of the country, like many other musicians do, and using the video to emphasise that point.

It is fair enough if you don't like the song and/or video, and if you think the reaction is OTT. I am not sure it is fair to blame Glover for that reaction when it wasn't really courted. There was hardly a Twitter countdown or fanfair or anything  and he has made no statements about the importance or otherwise of the song or video. A lot of this just seems like projection


Howj Begg

Quote from: Steve Lampkins on May 09, 2018, 07:44:47 PM
Not fantastic at not constantly being mixed up with Danny Glover by me.

Was the first joke he made last Saturday on SNL.

Z

I think it's pretty meh but obviously the biggest issue I have with it is that it's getting those same writeups that 3 or 4 things get every year (Master of None and Lemonade immediately spring to mind) about being a huge revelation and somehow a game changer in mainstream art which ring incredibly hollow.

As far as making music that truly empowers people or hits a raw nerve, something like To Pimp a Butterfly on a pure sonic level makes far more of an impact than a Vevo music video ever could. I think Glover himself is plenty aware of that.

sevendaughters

Quote from: sweeper on May 09, 2018, 06:37:04 PM
So I suppose this would have more credibility if he just kept his fucking opinions to himself, rather than using technology and communication to disseminate them to as many people as possible, which has no inherent value?

this is a mildly disingenuous response because clearly there's a machine on his side that ensures his 'use of technology and communication' is different to your average bandcamp band. to me there's inevitably a price to pay for that queue-jump into peoples' consciousness that allows you access to both market and surrounding discourses - that your work might be scrutinised more harshly because it is making a play for my attention that, idk, Native Son or Killer of Sheep did not.

people develop blind spots when acts they like are hyped, and that's cool, we can all conveniently forget that CG was trying to get you to download the Pharos VR app in conjunction with Microsoft because he was trying something different and it was pretty successful. but let's not pretend that the channels we receive things in don't affect our judgment, or that work that embraces specific modern discourses are going to be discussed in the same way as something we find for ourselves and that speaks to a more universal or obscure sensibility. 

rambled there, soz.

sweeper

But so what? If you've got something to say and you use whatever resources at hand to provoke a response from the widest range of people possible then surely that's all to the good, as some of those people may consider things in a way that they haven't before. To my mind, that's a responsible and beneficial use of media reach.

What makes it even better, for me, is that it's deliberately provocative, rather than all Live Aidey.

Basically, I'm saying that broad appeal is good if you use it in an interesting way, like here. Obviously, you can't force people to be interested, but you can at least get their attention. But if you don't believe in the possibilities of subverting mainstream appeal then that's not going to wash, I suppose. It's Albini vs. Sonic Youth all over again.

sevendaughters

yeah for me it takes a rare/generational talent to be able to do that, to transcend those stultifying paradigms, as Z said above I think Kendrick Lamar might be that rare example. maybe in a few years i'll regret this line of critique. i wish everything could be good and i could be fair to everything.