“Taylor Swift went to Africa to film a music video and there’s only white people in it.”
Myles Tanzer, Fader.
“The image of Africa as a frontier playground is on full display in Swift’s video. Not a single black African person is present, let alone one of specified national origin from among the continent’s 54 countries.
“The video’s narrative of white people finding romance in the hinterlands of a land wracked by colonial violence is not only obliviously ahistorical, but also exhibits tropes that people across the African diaspora have been trying to dispel for years.”
Zak Cheney-Rice, Mic.
“Instead of the cultural appropriation that has become almost status quo in today’s pop music, Swift has opted for the bolder option of actually just embodying the political exploitation of a region and its people. It’s brave, really. Almost as brave as moving sensuously in the vicinity of a real-life lion.”
Lauren Duca, Huffington Post.
Interesting… 😉
Geez, people are not racists just because they love old movies…
“Not a single black African person is present”
and that’s good! 🙂
we don’t need diversity everywhere.
ps: f*ck africa!
Taylor appears to be one of the few Americans with a sense of irony. It looks to me like a subtle commentary on the old Hollywood exploitation of Africa, not a suggestion for the future of Africa.
Yup. And irony is often lost on the folks here at DMN.
oh please, there’s not a hint of intelligent irony in this video
Let’s put it this way: it’s her video and she puts whoever she wants. And all those videos with only black people? And all those videos from Japan? Are they racist too? The world is turning really a boring place.
Why does she have to be so racist?
Did anyone even watch the video to the end? It’s about the Golden age of Hollywood. The characters are in Africa to shoot a movie, not colonize the land. They picked a remote location away from people as the set.
Has anyone seen old movies like Casablanca? There’s nothing exploitive about this.
Surely the implication at 2:40 onwards is that they are not really in Africa at all, but shooting on a studio set in front of a screen.
I feel bad for any idiots who watched the full video… Or really any amount of the video.
Do none of you get that T-swizzle is totally pop garbage and as contrived/un-artistic as justin beiber or miley cyrus?
the words of an extremely qualified anonymous person sitting at their computer
who is this…sounds like very other breathless chicky poo…… McMusic rules america!!!!
BTW, there are a few black people in the video, if only briefly in the background, so the writer, apart from being a humorless twat, is also unobservant.
Wow, what a shock, an American diva is an idiot, and none of her MGMT have any brains either……stop the presses!
Oh, yeah. Taylor Swift is racist. Why? Because she didn’t suck-off that stinking-ass nigger Kanye on stage?
If there is such a thing as “White Privilege” it’s because we have earned it…by not acting like NIGGERS!