“This is America” is a song that is a collaboration between Childish Gambino and a director he often works with, Hiro Murai. While the video itself seems ridiculous within the first view, after careful watching, you may notice the many symbolic ideas placed in the video. One of the first and biggest symbols in the video is the outfit Gambino is wearing; civil war pants, no shirt, and a chain wrapped around his neck. This outfit can be most closely compared to what African slaves wore during the slave trades of the fifteenth to the eighteenth century. This could also be considered as three different eras of African-American history; the pants being inspired by black civil war soldiers, the bare chest and torso inspired by when the slaves were sold, and the chain around his neck was inspired by 90’s hip-hop …show more content…
Another large symbol is Gambino’s posing, strange movements, and dramatic facial expressions throughout the video. This was a symbol that was inspired by the minstrel character Jim Crow, the origin of the term used to describe pre-Civil-rights-era segregation laws. A great example of this portrayal is when Gambino shoots the guitarist with the bag on his head. While it isn’t clearly explained as to why the guitarist has a bag on his head, I think it is to hide the man’s dying face, as this can usually become pretty gruesome to look at, especially with a shot to the back of the head. Another large symbol is throughout the video, when Gambino’s character periodically murders innocent performers in the video; especially the choir. This may be in reference to the 2015 Charleston Church massacre, when the attendees of a prayer service were murdered by a white supremacist by the name of Dylann Roof. The video ends with Gambino being chased down a dark hallway by a mob of strangers, terror clearly written all over his face. This is a reference to the
It was hard to find symbolism in this film since their culture was very colonialized. It seemed as though the culture was so European/American that the culture was gone. Even though it was hard, I was still able to find some cultural symbolisms.
One symbol appears throughout chapter three, the turtle. It is a symbol for the migrants and how some people will go out of their way to knock them down, “the driver saw the turtle and swerved to hit it” simply because they want to, they want to feel like they are powerful (Steinbeck 22). However, some of the people go out of their way to avoid hurting the migrants, “she saw the turtle and swung to the right, off the highway, the wheels screamed and a cloud of dust boiled up” because they know that it would be immoral to hurt something, although they have more power (Steinbeck 22). Another example of a symbol is Rose of Sharon’s pregnancy, it holds new life for the family, except when the baby is born it is “a blue shriveled little mummy” that “‘Never breathed’ said Mrs. Wainwright softly. ‘Never was alive.’” symbolizing how the Joads never really had a chance (Steinbeck 603). They believe in their hearts that they persevere throughout their trials, but in the end they realized their certain doom as soon as they left for California, maybe even
The third symbol is Bobby spray painting the wall. Bobby paints a self-portrait of a “Pale Ghost Boy” referring to himself and he is also holding a faceless baby in a carrier. The faceless baby could represent feather lack of identity because he’s new to the world. And Bobby painting himself as “pale” and “ghostly” because he could be scared and could feel like no one supported him. This symbol is important because it shows how he isn’t fully mature because he is spray painting but it shows how lonely he feels being a single parent taking care of Feather.
A noticeable symbol in the piece is how the roles are reversed the Aboriginal man being the minority and the European culture being much more prominent in Australia in the 1980s. This shows how time has affected the culture and the journey of the Aboriginal culture has resulted in a loss of tradition and loss of ancestral history. Another noticeable symbol is that the Aboriginal man is in a white suit, this could mean a number of things the assimilation process, the change in culture to fit into modern society or just a wardrobe choice. If the suit does have a purpose it is showing how he has taken on white culture but the picture of an Indigenous man pasted over his own face could represent that even though he has lost his culture he still at heart is tied to his ancestral past. Another is the men and woman in the background on the hill in The Conciliation are now grey statues.
Another prevalent symbol to me is the idea of sin. In The Ministers Black Veil Hooper just suddenly one day shows up to church wearing a veil. At first the people are sort of angered by it. People soon start to flock to his congregation to view the spectacle, and go so far as to test their '"'courage'"' by seeing who will go and talk to him. I think that the veil could represent sin. In The Ministers Black Veil Hooper was either trying to hide his sin from the people so that they could not judge him, which is god"'"s job, or maybe he was trying to protecting his self from the sins of the people. In the end of The Ministers Black Veil Hooper dies, and sees his congregation all wearing black veils, which would probably hint that maybe it represented the sin in all of us. In The Birthmark Georgiana"'"s birthmark could represent, as some religions believe, the original sin which is bestowed on all by the '"'hand'"' of god. But, unlike Hooper, Georgiana could not help her markings.
One of the symbols that is given is a fence. A fence is something that surrounds for example your home and additional things that need to be secure. In Fences, the fence is a symbol because they want the fence to be built because they want to keep the love ones inside the gate along with, keeping the enemies out. The second symbol I found was baseball. In the book baseball does not refer to the sport with a ball and a bat, what it symbolises is when Troy found out that black people were being discriminated which is mention plenty of times when Cory talks to him about him signing the paper to let him be recruited. The purpose of themes and symbolism in play’s is to keep the focus of the play and helps you gather information to answer your own answers at the end. While symbolisms makes you think a little more to get the hint they are trying to give
The symbol feet represent political action simply for how they were demonstrated amongst this graphic memoir. The cinematic techniques shown provide the whole meaning of the book series and its title. Feet are used throughout the book, showing that the people who marched to influence desegregation. The sign saying counter closed is an object that expresses a discriminative feeling. Simply for putting these signs when African Americans sat down to be served, immediately the servers told them they were not to be served. Bar stools or lunch counter are also symbols with a substantial meaning of segregation. At diners usually customers are treated first come first serve. But when it came to African Americans, they were asked to leave even if they sat down on the bar stools. Lewis and his companions express the feeling of humiliation. Buses also objects with symbolic meaning of seclusion. In every public transportation provided, races were always divided. Either if it was the bus to bring people from town to town, or children who went to school. The court house is also a meaningful object with a feeling of isolation. In the south, court houses gave no justice to ones who were anything other than white. If any black person was convicted of a crime, they were considered guilty no matter
... song entitled “Formation”. The filming took place in Los Angeles, but features references to Hurricane Katrina, with Beyoncé on top of a police car in a flooded street and later cuts to a man holding a newspaper with Martin Luther King Jr.’s face on it with the title “The Truth”. Later a young hooded boy dances in front of a line of police officers with their hands up before the video cuts to a graffitied wall with the words “stop shooting us “ tagged on it, at the end of the video the police car sunk with her on top. Not only did this song, bring awareness to the 10th anniversary of hurricane Katrina it also brought awareness to police brutality, racism, and the “black lives matter movement”. I stand with Lil Wayne, Beyoncé, the people of New Orleans and the countless others who are pushing for a change in the way minorities and the lower class citizen are treated.
“While the rich kids is drivin ' Benz ,I 'm still tryin ' to hold on to my survivin ' friends.” In this quote Tupac had his audience take a second to image a rick kid driving in the hood with a Benz while a poor African Amirian boy is struggling to keep his friends. Tupac uses his lyrics to help paint a picture though his lyrics of the life of a black person which brings us to Imagery. The use of imagery in this song is amazing. Without even watching the music video and just listening to the song I could easily image everything that Tupac was trying to explain. This is what makes Tupac the best rapper still till this day! Another use of imagery is when he said “Dying inside, but outside you 're looking fearless, While tears, is rollin ' down your cheeks”. By this quote we as the audience should realize that there is more to this song that Tupac is trying to explain. In this quote I feel as though he was explaining that as African Americans more so black women tend to always wear this smile on our face no matter the situation when we know something in us is dying or is just not right. For some reason us black women have a habit of hiding our true feeling and situations. Last was the use of symbols which ties in with imagery. “They got money for wars, but can 't feed the poor”. What was Tupac really trying to say? This quote symbolize so much about America as a whole, and how as a nation we spend so much of our money on weapons for warfare but yet there are little kids who go days and weeks without no food. Is that fair? This quote symbolized pain and loss of hope because they (poor people) will never see a happy day. As they say we have to have the poor to have the
Symbolism is strongly represented through Kaplan’s short story. The symbols represented are the ocean, the killing of the doe and the woods. Visiting the ocean for the first time at the Jersey Shore was new for Andy. Since then she had been awfully frightened of the ocean. She believes the ocean to be a huge, vast that constantly moved, keeps shifting
Set in the “not-too-distant future,” GATTACA, directed by Andrew Niccol, shows us a society where DNA determines your status. The film explores the significant idea of discrimination which is shown through Vincent’s character. The director’s use of techniques helped influence my understanding of the consequences of discrimination within society. Society discriminates against “in-valids” because they believe invalids aren’t as good as valids.
For example, when Joe Louis won the boxing championship: “Champion of the world. A Black boy. Some Black mother’s son. He was the strongest man in the world” (107). Angelou uses logos in this quote to show the audience that Louis is a champion boxer and that he is a hero to the African society. The society is delighted to hear that Louis is declared champion. Also, segregation is seen as a symbol in this chapter. For example, when Angelou talks about slavery before the fight: “This might be the end of the world. If Joe lost we were back in slavery and beyond help” (106). This quote is also conveying logos because Louis is the person who represent the African American community and if her were to lose, its as if they lost everything and would go back as being slaves. This gives the audience facts about that society back in the late
In the video, the roles of society seem to be reversed as compared to what is traditionally viewed. West is referring to the early ages of our country in which the African American race were enslaved to the Caucasians. This is seen in completely opposite light in West’s video, as all of the Caucasians are in reversed roles with the African-Americans. As Kanye West being a popular icon in the music industry, both whites and blacks are a lump sum of his audience which creates for him to have a larger impact of the common thoughts on racism regarding both groups. Most individuals find themselves very moved by the video as it puts them into a slight state of shock seeing this prominence of reverse racism in our culture today. This goes along in turn with the title of the song being “Monster”, as West is depicting the whites as being monsters toward the black race, and him attempting to put a change on that. Through the use of the vivid and extremely graphic images, West’s music video, forces the viewer into thinking about society and the roles that racism has played both hundreds of years ago and today. West uses scenes in which white individuals are portrayed to be dead, or controlled by the African American race. “A white male is being dragged across the floor by an African American, showing the reverse dominancy regarding race, while in the very next scene the whites are
As Kendrick entered the stage shackled to his black comrades with a soulful saxophone playing in the background, it is obvious that the imagery of imprisonment was a commentary on incarceration in America and its similarities with slavery. By amplifying this modern twist on slavery, Kendrick provokes American viewers to reflect on the struggles that black Americans still go through today. At the start of his performance he goes on to rap “I’m African-American — I’m African” as if he was correcting himself. This isn’t surprising as black identity is hard to establish in a country that implicitly detests you, but explicitly fetishizes your culture. Stuart Hall discusses this in his text when he states, “’the primitive is a modern problem, a crisis in cultural identity’…the modernist construction of primitivism, the fetishistic recognition and disavowal of the primitive difference” (Hall 125). There is no wonder why Kendrick, like many African-Americans, finds comfort in placing his identity with the mother land rather than his true country of origin. How can the black multitude stand in solidarity with a country who will continuously praise black culture but refuse to recognize the black struggle? Kendrick Lamar then conjures imagery of Africa, where he danced and rapped in front of a raging bonfire, one of the most powerful imagery included in his entire performance. One can interpret
This is America, a song written and sung by Childish Gambino was released in 2018 with an accompanying music video directed by Hiro Murai. This video follows a group of young African American children as they dance behind Gambino himself while in the background, chaos is breaking out and depictions of political/societal issues are portrayed. The music video is full to the brim with imagery and iconography of historic events, current societal views and a lot of the symbolism used in this video are used in a way to allude to how backwards thinking and out of touch society is today. The first use of symbolism is through Gambino’s costume that he wears for the full duration of the video, specifically, his pants.