Childish Gambino - This is America

 

Donald Glover

American actor, comedian, writer, director, producer, DJ, singer, songwriter, rapper.

One of his alter egos is rapper Childish Gambino, he has release 4 rap albums.

The voice of Simba in the remake of Lion King.

"This is America" premiered on an edition of "Saturday night live" presented by Glover who then interviewed Childish Gambino then performed as him.

Halls Reception Theory applied to This is America

Hall suggested that producers of media product encode their creations with a preferred meaning. This could be set by the institution or the values, attitudes, and beliefs of the person creating the media.

He argues that audiences are active not passive and that products are polysemic, " Have more than one possible meaning".

10 Shot analysis

1) This shot is a two shot showing Childish Gambino, or Donald Glover, on the left pointing a weapon at the person in the chair. This is an iconic shot that is instantly recognisable as the music video for "This is America". This shot is used to symbolize gun violence in the USA. It is the intro to the main hook of the song which is telling us that the gunshot itself is America.

2) This shot is a wide shot just after the gunshot scene. It shows Childish Gambino placing the firearm he just used to shoot the man on the chair on a red cushion, almost like it is royalty. This shows the USA's attitude towards firearms and their second amendment right to bear arms.

3) This shot is another wide shot which shows Childish Gambino dancing with what appear to  be 4 black school children. I believe school children were chose as backing dancers as a direct reference to the Parkland, Florida school shooting that occurred a month earlier OR as a direct reference to school shootings in the US in general. 

4) This shot is a long shot with Childish Gambino in the foreground and a choir in the background, i think that it is a direct reference to a church shooting that happened in Texas around the same time of the song being released.

5) This is a mid shot with Childish Gambino and a police car in the same shot. The lyrics are "Don't catch you slippin' now". This implies that in the US, the police are very quick to use lethal force against a black person. This line is especially notable in 2020 after the killing of George Floyd, although this won't be what influenced Donald Glover to use this shot.

6) This is a pan shot where the camera is panned up to show these masked people on a balcony looking down on what is going on below. They seem to be recording something with their phones. The shot may imply that these masked people are in power over everyone else.

7) This shot shows Childish Gambino dancing with the school children again while there is carnage going on around him. There is a fire and people running around in the background while in the foreground they are dancing happily. This symbolises how some parts of the US are mayhem while others just have fun and watch it go by, perhaps a reference to the government.

8) This shot is a mid shot from the side which shows Childish Gambino lighting  a cigarette or perhaps some form of drug. At this point in the music video, there is 17 seconds of silience and it is one of the videos many ways of denouncing gun violence in america. The 17 seconds is to represent the 17 lives lost in the Parkland, Florida school shooting in 2017.

 

9) This shot is a long shot where Childish Gambino is dancing on top of a red car in the center. There are two other people in the shot on either side of him who