时间：2024-09-23 05:31:25 来源：American news

If there is one piece of pop culture that will define 2018, it's Donald Glover's music video for his song "This Is America."

The video, released as Glover's rapper alter ego Childish Gambino, debuted on Saturday when Donald Glover was doing double duty on SNL, hosting the show andperforming as the show's musical guest. In less than a week since "This Is America" was released, the video has already garnered more than 63 million views and has been analyzed by everyone from Doreen St. Felix at The New Yorkerto Dear White Peoplecreator Justin Simien on Twitter.

SEE ALSO:All the things you might have missed in Donald Glover's 'This Is America' video

The video has been lauded in part because of its densely packed criticism of racism and violence in America. Everything from the dance moves Glover uses to figures in the background all come together to form a resounding condemnation of how black people have been treated in the U.S.

But "This Is America" is not the first time Glover has used music videos to make salient critiques of pop culture and American culture.

Glover began making mixtapes as Childish Gambino in 2008 and his first studio album Campdebuted in 2011. Since then, the rapper has sporadically released music videos, many of which feature strange twists to them. For instance, in "Telegraph Ave," Glover depicts what seems to be a romantic vacation...until the rapper is hit by a car and remerges as a tentacled monster.

But even with those trippy scenarios, Glover's music videos have been filled with themes and ideas that the rapper is highlighting in "This Is America."

Here are three older Donald Glover music videos you should watch to help you understand "This Is America."

"Bonfire"

A big theme explored in "This Is America" is the question of who is seen and what pain is acknowledged. In that video, every time Glover shoots someone, the gun, which is delicately placed on a cloth, is treated with more care than the actual victims, who are dragged away.

But Glover actually broached idea that certain people and certain pain is invisible in 2011 in his music video for his song "Bonfire."

The video is directed like a horror movie. At the start Glover wakes up in a forest with a rope around his neck and he coughs up blood. In the distance he sees a bonfire with campers sitting around it, one person telling a story. As he runs toward the bonfire, he also notices another person in the woods walking towards the group holding a noose and a knife. Donald gets to the campers and tries to warn them but none of them are able to see Glover. The man with the knife then jumps out of the woods and it's revealed that it was all an elaborate ghost story.

At the end of the video, as the camper walks away, Glover falls to the ground, and once again wakes up with a noose around his neck, suggesting that the victim of the story was Glover himself.

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At the time, the video seemed to be about Donald Glover's reputation — everybody is talking about him but nobody can see him. "It’s a bonfire, turn the lights out/ I’m burnin’ everything you muthafuckas talk about," Glover raps. But now the video carries new meaning when watched alongside "This Is America."

"Sweatpants"

One of Glover's breakout songs as Childish Gambino was his 2013 song "Sweatpants." On the surface, the song seems to just be Glover flexin' his wealth and success. "Still spitting that cash flow – DJ Khaled/ I got a penthouse on both coasts – pH balance," he raps. And he ends the song with the refrain "Don't be mad cause I'm doing me better than you doing you."

However, Glover's music video added a new element to the song. In the video, Glover is stuck in a loop: he enters a dinner through the front door, walks past people eating, sits with his friends, gets up to put music on the jukebox, and then walks out the back door where he sees someone puking in the bushes and two people kissing. Then he looks up...only to suddenly be transported to the front door where he enters the loop again.

It's a trippy concept by itself, but as Donald Glover goes through each loop, slowly people in the scene are replaced by versions of Donald Glover, which adds another layer to the video.

"[The video is about] the idea of you doing you so hard that you can't do anything else," Glover explained to Complexin 2014. "I never wanted him to freak out when he saw himself. I wanted him to be like this is what I'm supposed to be but it's scary at the same time. Being you to the utmost is scary because you don't know what you're capable of. You may turn into a version of you might not like."

That idea of a multitude of versions of yourself comes back in the "This Is America." In that video we see scenes of Donald Glover dancing with kids in a carefree, nonchalant manner contrasted with scenes of the rapper perpetuating horrific violence. Details like his clothing, poses the rapper strikes, and more allude to Jim Crow in America. Put together, "This Is America," like "Sweatpants" seems to be highlighting a multitude of selves, but this time instead of showing differing versions of Donald Glover, in "This Is America" we see different versions of the black experience.

"3005"

Donald Glover's video "3005" toned down the level of weird Glover exhibited in past videos, but it still uses some strange elements to highlight an argument.

The video finds Glover at a fair, sitting on a ferris wheel next to a stuffed bear. Throughout the video, two things happen: first, the bear begins to move, blinking and interacting with Glover. Second, the camera rotates, revealing the what's happening in the rest of the fair.

As the ride goes round and round, both of those scenes, the stuffed bear and the fair, begin to fall into chaos — the bear gets increasingly ruined and the environment in the background of the fair burns in flames. However, neither Glover nor the other riders on the ferris wheel seem to notice. At the end of the video, after panning to reveal the blazing landscape, the camera returns to the ferris wheel which is now empty except for the bear, which is in tatters.

In 2015, Vice writer Trey Smith speculated that the video is about the loss of innocence.

"The change from '3005,' a light feel-good song, to the second section of 'Zealots of Stockholm,' a much more dark and menacing track, is representative of how his views of the world have changed. It is no longer the cheerful place he knew it was—now that he’s seen the violence it is capable of in more than one way, he can’t continue to believe any other version of it."

Of course, that's the same transition we see in "This Is America." That video opens with Glover dancing while a man strums the guitar. However, that peaceful scene is quickly shattered when Glover suddenly shoots the guitar player.

The loss of innocence is also echoed with the kids that accompany Glover. Throughout the video, even as Glover commits acts of violence, he is accompanied by children who are either unaware or unconcerned by what Glover has done. That is until he holds up an invisible gun in the middle of the group. Scared, they kids flee and join the scenes of chaos unfolding around them.

Ultimately, "This Is America" is making waves because it seems to be signaling a new era for Glover. "What 'This Is America' suggests is that the next—and apparently last—Childish Gambino record will be far more pointed and political and uncomfortable," writes Rob Harvilla for The Ringer. But look closely and you can see that Glover has quietly been infusing his videos with social commentary all along.

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