English
Camerder Musa
Yuan Ding, Ph.D.
ENGL1121
Annotated Bibliography
My research topic is about “This Is America” by Childish Gambino (also known as Donald Glover). The music video is a rollercoaster of events; calm sections are broken up by abrupt violence and chaos. The video focuses on the current and past racial tensions and inequalities that black Americans faced. It includes references to slavery in southern America, Jim Crow, police brutality, targeted terrorism, and other issues. In summary, the music video “This Is America” raises awareness of past and current racial inequalities in America through historical references and distractions; How are historical references significant to current racial tensions? How does the video use distraction to convey its message?
Akingbe, Niyi, and Paul Ayodele Onanuga. “‘Voicing Protest’: Performing Cross-Cultural Revolt in Gambino’s ‘This Is America’ and Falz’s ‘This Is Nigeria.’” Contemporary Music Review, vol. 39, no. 1, Feb. 2020, pp. 6–36. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/07494467.2020.1753473.
In this article by Niyi Akingbe and Paul Ayodele Onanuga, it analyzes the similarities between “This Is America” and “This Is Nigeria.” They assert that these music videos fall under the category of “conscious music,” where the music raises awareness of issues and prompts its listeners to solve them. It deeply analyzes historical references in the lyrics, filming techniques, and music.
Both Akingbe and Onanuga are experienced in English, cultural studies, and literary analysis, as they both have a Ph.D. in those related fields.
This article provides more examples of historical references and possible uses of distraction in the music video. They state that the dancing in the foreground “may be interpreted as mocking the way in which entertainment bellies violence, and now distracts the public from seeing and reacting appropriately to the realities around them” (Akingbe and Onanuga 20).
Osman, Ladan. “Slaying New Black Notions: Childish Gambino’s ‘This Is America.’” World Literature Today, vol. 92, no. 4, July 2018, pp. 40–41. EBSCOhost, doi:10.7588/worllitetoda.92.4.0040.
Ladan Osman denotates the scenes of the music video, and she discusses the cultural significance of those scenes. From as far back as Jim Crow and as recent as a 2015 church shooting, she points out historical references to racial segregation in the past. Some analyses of certain scenes are also present, applying every scene to a wider cultural phenomenon.
Osman has won numerous awards for her works about traumatic experiences of marginalized people, one of which is her book Exiles of Eden, where she created poems about the traumatic experiences of displaced people (won the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award).
This article fits into the subclaim of how the music video uses distraction to convey its message. In reference to the distraction of the dancers (primarily Donald Glover) in the center of chaos, Osman states: “The point is that our inattentiveness is designed to maintain a system which allows some citizens to act as a virus while others become viral in death” (Osman 41).
Prettyman, Michele. “The Persistence of ‘Wild Style’: Hip-Hop and Music Video Culture at the Intersection of Performance and Provocation.” JCMS: Journal of Cinema & Media Studies, vol. 59, no. 2, Winter 2020, pp. 151–157. EBSCOhost, search-ebscohost-com.accarcproxy.mnpals.net/login.aspx?direct=true&db=keh&AN=141941629&site=ehost-live.
This article by Michele Prettyman interprets the historical references of many music videos, such as “This is America,” and it groups them into a hip-hop style called “wild style.” In these wild-style music videos, various gestures and dances performed by characters can be traced back to African American, Caribbean, and Latin heritage. They have meshed into a chaotic or surreal setting, hence the “wild” in wild style.
Through her focus on African American culture and film in her Ph.D., Prettyman is well qualified and experienced in analyzing scenes and connecting them to historical attributes, as she has published many articles in journals about film.
This will add to both of my research questions; Prettyman argues that the music video complicates “the historical relationships of performance, audiences, institutions of media, culture, and entertainment, revealing the peculiar interdependency of these spheres and the legacy and insanity of racial terror” (Prettyman 115). As I interpret it, the music video includes how distractions were historically used to counteract or to cope with racial terror.
Akingbe and Onanuga: http://accarcproxy.mnpals.net/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=keh&AN=143696570&site=ehost-live
Prettyman: