This is America Evaluation

The beginning of this is America starts with a clip of a African American man playing the guitar, Childish Gambino is seen standing in the background of the clip. The music behind this is very uplifting and doesn't follow the generic speed of rap and the video at this point doesn't follow the typical representation of a rap video. Childish Gambino in some ways follows the representations of a rapper with the gold necklaces and shirtless but in general he doesn't fit the typical image as he's wearing no designer brands, smart shoes and smart trousers.

The music then has a sudden change of beat and sounds like a different song which at this point it seems as if childish Gambino personality switches as he pulls out a gun and shoots the guitarist in the head. When the shot returns to the guitarist before he is shot, he suddenly has a bag covering his head and looks very dirty. The very quick removal of the gun into a cloth and the removal of the body I feel represents how easy it is to cover up crimes in America. The video has lots of meaning which can be taken in many different ways but I felt this part of the clip is showing that innocent people are being killed over nothing due to the availability of guns which leads to violence.

The next scene of the school children wearing their uniforms who seem very innocent but not far behind them is another group of school children jumping on top of a car spraying money with a money gun and then slightly behind them is what looks like a riot or a gang fight. I feel that this is representing that for African American kids in America, it is so easy to be pulled into a life of crime and violence and that the three stages of different groups behind each other shows how easy it is to be  pulled into the last group.

The very quick change of scene to a black choir group singing comes on when the beat of the song slows down again and becomes less aggressive. The song then returns to being a quicker beat and more aggressive and at this point childish Gambino pulls out a machine gun and shoots all of the choir. This is a very unusual clip to see in any genre of music video, but as the video came out shortly after a choir shooting in America I feel it has a strong link to that and its addressing the gun problem in America showing the true brutality of it as many rappers will glorify guns in music videos, childish Gambino is identifying this problem and showing how deadly guns are in America.

The next clip brings the school children and this time they are completely surrounded by fighting and rioting and police cars. I feel this is a strong message showing that young black children are constantly surrounded by violence and that it can be so hard to stay out of it.

The scene then follows on to school children filming from above on there phones with masks omn to cover there faces, this could be suggesting that social media is part of the problem and that violence and the "gang life" is glorified by many in America and that this is part of the problem of gun crime.

The last scene is very different as the music then goes back to a slower beat and the guitarist from the beginning is back, but his face is covered here. Childish Gambino then walks past with a large joint in his hand and jumps onto a car. The video then ends with the camera going into the distance with Childish Gambino continue to dance on the car.

I feel that this video has many different themes and that they can be taken in many very different ways. I believe that in general the video is going against the stereotypical rap video and is actually criticising what is going wrong and why its going wrong. The video doesn't follow very many typical stereotypes of a rap video as the guns in the video are almost shown in a negative light as it shows them being used. The location of the video is very different to most rap videos swell staying in one large warehouse with no designer brands in sight.