Formation – Music Video
This music video really is a great example of Beyonce as the role model/idol that she is. I couldn’t help but be fascinated the entire time about how beautiful and powerful she is as she moves. Her music video was only filled with African American actors which only added to the power/strength of the video and with lyrics like “I might just be a black bill gates in the making” just further go on to empower the black community which has been silenced for decades. I was also interested with the scenes of Beyonce sitting on the New Orleans cop car surrounded by water which connects back to the Hurricane Katrina disaster in Louisiana. This was a situation where black neighborhoods were left to fight and fend for themselves as they were not provided the right/enough resources before or after the hurricane unlike many white communities.
This is America – Music Video
I remember when this music video was first released and the conversation it sparked. The scene that stood out to me the most was where the choir was singing happily one second and then getting shot down the next. This is obviously very difficult to watch, but sadly is the case as countless African Americans are wrongly killed and then do not receive the necessary/proper justice afterwards. But what further makes this scene and scenes similar to it stand out is the way that Childish Gambino dances freely afterwards which shows how these horrendous and wrong deaths of African Americans have been desensitized in society and particularly in the media.
The scene with the choir singing happily and then being shot also stuck out to me. I think it shows how innocent people are treated. While it was obviously hard to watch, it was a scene that I think is important, because it is a real life event that happens more than we talk about.
What makes the choir scene so powerful is that it is not an isolated incident either in the video nor in real life. Earlier in the video, Childish Gambino also shoots the guitar player while cheerfully dancing. We are seeing what feels like everyday in the news violence against the African-American community. Childish Gambino emphasizes how desensitized the world is becoming to this violence when he calms kills the choir and the guitar player.
You make a great point about Childish Gambino’s aloof dancing being symbolic of our desensitization to police brutality and racism in America. I never even thought about that before but it makes a lot of sense.