Summary
Childish Gambino shoots the guy wearing the mask, then dances with black students in the warehouse. After that, he shoots the choir, and dances again with the kids.In the end, he runs away from white people runjing after him.
Setting
A warehouse in recent America
Conflict
Black people vs American society
Climax
Childish Gambino lighting the cigarette.
Symbol
1. A guy on a horse - this is a symbol from the Bible. This comes from the revelation, “ And I looked, and behold, a pale horse! And it’s rider’s name was Death, and Hades followed him.And they were given authority over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by wild beasts of the earth.” Which basically means that the horse and the rider is a symbol of death and hell. They run around in the warehouse chasing black people, which represents the brutality towards black people.
2. Shooting the Choir - this is a symbol of the 2015 Charleston shooting. Charleston shooting was an incident that killed nine innocent African American in the church. This was an incident that contained the problem both racism and gun violence which is the theme of this video.
3. Shooting the guy with a mask playing guitar- The guy who gets shot is a symbol of peaceful innocent person. He then gets shot by Gambino, who is mimicking the Jim Crow poster, which was a old racist poster of the law that segregated black people in America.
4. Students dancing behind Gambino- this is a symbol of the school shootings that occurred in America a couple of month ago. The Florida school shooting killed 17 students who were innocent by a mentally unstable student from the school in the past. The kids do not realize the gun violence is actually something that can happen at any time. When Gambino makes a shooting pose, the kids run away, but it was at that moment that everyone knew they were in danger. They kept danceing and were entertained without knowing the possibilities of violence.
5. Cars in the warehouse- the cars were old and used, which implies that the cars were thrown away. In movies, the dumpster where cars and other garbage is thrown away, sometimes have a scene where people punch each other or shoot each other. It is never thought as a clean place that someone would go there for fun. This symbolizes the violence happening in America and that it’s been going on for a long time.
6. Kids recording above him- this shows the technology we have to capture the brutal incidents happening in America, especially shootings and racism in this video. What we couldn’t prove, such as killing innocent black guys, can now be shown to the whole world through media.
7. Gambino running at the end- this symbolizes the black people who were forced to leave their land when the pioneers came to America in 17th century. His face expression shows that he’s running for his life, without the choice to stay where he was.
Irony
Through the video, it looks like the black people are the ones having fun and acting out of common sense, but actually, the black people are treated badly and running away from the white people in the end.
Theme
Don’t judge people by the color of their skin. Also, the gun violence in America should stop immediately since innocent people keep getting hurt. Childish Gambino wants the audience to realize that the recent American society still needs improvement.
(Related to the topic, I watched a movie called “get out” which had a similar message about racism and violence to it. )
