Decoding Childish Gambino's 'This Is America'

At Vanity Fair, Austin Collins’ review of Childish Gambino’s “This is America” analyzes the artistry and reveals the deeper meaning behind the quick flashes of explicitly consequential imagery. The multi-hyphenated entertainer Donald Glover dropped a bombshell video sparking a flurry of conversation around the topics of American life, gun control, racism, and most importantly, negating the existence of these issues for voguish diversions. America at large would rather be pacified rather than closely examine what we are placating ourselves from.

“A police vehicle burns. Riots begin to rage. Kids, meanwhile, start dancing on cars. People—some of them police—start running in all directions. And Glover himself, or rather the character he’s playing, is either in on it or completely oblivious to it, cooly flexing his dance moves to the camera with a stank face and a Sambo-style grin. It’s a face that seems to demand we overlook the surrounding violence for the immediate pleasures up front, making music of the horror.”

Glover deliberately dances to distract and he succeeds. So many people can't stop talking about his unexpectedly smooth dance moves. He dances so well that his stature in the media has gone from a punkish, indie artist with no political opinions to a creative artist with a political opinion—delivering it all with swag and surprising bravado.

He mixes in trendy dances, from the popular South African gwara gwara to the “shoot” by BlocBoy JB. The dancing is so good that it makes it very difficult to view the chaos and determine why the riot is occurring.

Before Sherrie Silver-choreographed dancing ensues, you can't mistake Glover’s deliberate pose to imitate Jim Crow. Suddenly, the hooded man who was just playing the guitar is now bound and boom—he’s suddenly shoot in the head by Glover who then says, “This is America.”

“It’s a bitter spectacle, biting in all directions. The video, which has gotten 20 million views and counting on YouTube as of this morning, opens with Glover sidling up all smooth to a man with tied hands and a burlap sack over his head—a hostage? a detainee?—and shooting him dead. Later, 10 men and women in choir robes pantomime churchly gospel when, out of nowhere, Glover gets handed a rifle and massacres them all with it. 'This is America,' he raps, walking away.”

Glover’s obviously got the upper hand on insight, however. His incongruously cheerful performance is the sharpest thing here, a compendium of arch, knowing references to everything from Jim Crow to Internet dance trends that kept Rap Genius users busy for the entire weekend.

Some people think that he is perpetrating Black on Black violence. Here is one way to interpret the work. Glover is clearly showing that “This is America,” not himself, and this is art. He shows that we are distracted by song and dance even in the midst of chaos and riots. Donald Glover is showing us the true definition of what it means to be distracted.

While he takes part in the madness himself, he also dances about with an air of frivolity. He too is thoroughly distracted from the riot taking place all around him. Is Glover testing how well we pay attention to our own surroundings by displaying the lack of care for our fellow human? During one of his dance scenes, a man tumbles from the railing on second story of the warehouse. None of the madness stopped, no person came to check and see if this man was okay.

Most interpretations of this work end with a similar question. Why do we care more about the laws and security of guns more than people?