This is America breakdown

Music video:

In this breakdown, i am going to talk about most of the hidden meanings in the video 'This is America' and what they mean.

First of all i am going to talk about the way the guns are taken away after all the shootings. After each shooting the guns (pistol and assault rifle) are carefully placed in red cloth and taken away but if you look at the people who got shot then you would see one man get shot and then dragged away and the people in the church are just left there. This suggests that guns are cared more for then the lives of the public and that they are careful by the way they put the guns away but they don't care about people because the way the body got dragged was awful as he got dragged away by his arms and no one else was there to help take him away. Next thing is the guy with the guitar and this is here to present entertainment because at the start he is playing the guitar but then gets shot with a bag over his head and then later on towards the end he is sat there playing guitar with the bag on his head and this is put here to take your mind on the things that are happened in the background to find this video humorous. Also the use of the quite famous dances also get the viewers interested in the video and the use of them also distracts them from what going on in the frame. The viewers would also find all this humorous and entertaining which is part of what Childish Gambino's plan was to make it humorous but also to tell some facts about America. The white horse being rode by a hooded man is a symbol for the apocalypse which could mean that he is saying that America is going to create a apocalypse. All these hidden messages link to ethnicity because Childish Gambino is trying to teach people that this is how black people were treated to be slaves and that the Americans didn't care about the lives of them because of how they got cared away which i already talked about.

The use of props and costumes are a big part of the messages he is trying to teach. For example, the use of the trousers Childish Gambino is wearing are linked to old confederate uniform and this suggests that this is the sort of clothing they would of worn when they were slaves and the use of the double entendra chains he is wearing is a symbol of physical bondage to show that they were caged up or even tied up so they couldn't escape and tied up to get beaten up by their owners. You could also say that the church part where Gambino guns down a handful of people singing is linked to the Cholson church shooting which a white male gunned down a handful of black individuals at a church due to it being racially motivated. The part where Gambino says "this a celly, That's a tool." could mean that the place where this is filmed is like a cell block to keep blacks there or it could mean teh use of mobile phones as tool to document the brutality taking place. Also the use of props such as the old American cars towards the ending gives us the impression that he is talking about the old America and the lack of progression of America to suggest that America hasnt progressed that much since. The final scene has Gambino running away from a group of white males and this could represent that Gambino has broken Americas spell and is running away for his life to escape.

The use of the camera angles shows Gambino and the dancers mostly taking up the whole entire screen to try to get the viewers to keep their eyes on him and not what is going on in  the background of the scenes. For example when they are dancing in one of the scenes, a man gets thrown of the floor above and if you weren't looking for it then you wouldn't of seen it because your eyes would of been locked on Gambino and the dances he is doing.