You'll have to watch it more than once to pick up on everything going on, especially in the background. That's one common take in the wake of the newly released "This Is America" music video by actor Donald Glover, though under his musical alias, Childish Gambino. See it for yourself here. Glover premiered the song this weekend while hosting Saturday Night Live and doubling as the musical guest, but it was the video version released afterward that has caused such a ruckus. Some takes on the video, which has gun violence as its major theme:
- Guns: At various, startling points, Glover executes a hooded prisoner and guns down a church choir. Afterward, he places the guns on a red cloth held by someone else. "Murders occur, but the guns are treated more delicately than human lives in the video—a strong statement given the current debate over gun control," writes Lisa Respers France at CNN.
- The dancing: The video features 10 popular dances, both old and new, by the count of Adrienne Gibbs at Forbes. The dancers perform them flawlessly despite the bedlam behind them, opening this up to a few interpretations. "One, they are clueless and dancing," she writes. "Two, they have a clue and dance to keep from crying. Three, they are jamming for the camera or for social media video and know their dancing is a distraction, a salve, or an invisibility cloak." Or maybe all of the above, she adds.
- Those phones: Mashable rounds up other nuggets: No, that's not Trayvon Martin's dad playing guitar, despite speculation on social media; the choir might represent those shot in a South Carolina church; Sza makes a cameo, hinting at a future collaboration; and the scene of young people filming with their phones might be a reference to the fatal police shooting of Stephon Clark, based on the accompanying lyric of "This a celly / That's a tool," writes Martha Tesema.
,
uBlock 
,
and
Ghostery 
)
