Childish Gambino - This is America

[mackerelmint]

No interest in seeing it, if it's a political song. I've never much cared for Don Glover's musical career in the first place.

I've never understood why some people are so easily impressed when an artist depicts a reality at all accurately. Maybe I'm just like Ron Swanson who can't fathom why anyone would put pictures of nature on their walls when they could just go outside and stand in it, I dunno.

[Dok]

LOL. Thanks so much for your valuable contribution to the thread. Really trenchant insights.

"I'm not going to engage with this in any way, but I definitely want you to know what I think about it, not having experienced it whatsoever."

P.S. The video is the political part. But maybe you don't like politics in your visual art, either. I'm sure we'll find out.

[Larry Mal]

"I wouldn't enjoy that kind of music."

[burpgun]

Stripping politics out of popular music seems pointless. I mean, yeah, there's ample space for non political music or music with no lyrics at all. But vast swaths of rock music are enmeshed with politics and their broader cultural moments. All this guitar music we celebrate here is borne out of a political shift in the culture, after all.

On a more micro level, a not insignificant attraction to Fugazi was that as good as their music was, they stood for something and lived it. Part of U2's problem is that they, or at least Bono, stand up for things that their business practices run against. Just like it's hard to listen to Michael Jackson or Rick James and think about their personal lives, there's a lot of music that depends on its political and cultural leanings to fully make sense.

"This is America" is a really interesting song musically. But in a time where d-bags like Kanye are going MAGA and spewing historical ignorance, Donald Glover has made a song and video that says something about the black experience in 2018. At least it did to the middle aged white man. The song and the video are true art, and they aim to say something. Can't see how that's bad.

[mackerelmint]

LOL. Thanks so much for your valuable contribution to the thread. Really trenchant insights.

"I'm not going to engage with this in any way, but I definitely want you to know what I think about it, not having experienced it whatsoever."

P.S. The video is the political part. But maybe you don't like politics in your visual art, either. I'm sure we'll find out.

You're welcome! I'm glad you find it enlightening.

But seriously, there was this time my parents called me closed minded and berated me because when given a chance to eat muktuk, I took a hard pass. They partook and were instantly disgusted, because of course they were. It was a chunk of raw whale fat, all oily and fishy smelling. I knew I wasn't going to enjoy a mouthful of fishy tasting fat. Not engaging with things is fine, and having an opinion of the broader thing it fits into despite not having engaged is also fine, when one has experience with that broader thing.

I probably don't like politics in my visual art, if only because I can't think of a single instance where I've seen it and thought that it was anything but a case of it being transparently laden with symbolism but at the same time not visually engaging at all, because it's too busy with the symbolism for there to be any room left for it to just be enjoyable from the sensory aspect. I'm happy to be shown a piece of political art, I guess I just don't have high hopes based on what I've seen so far. The exception would be communist realism and the ace graphic design of a lot of their naked propaganda. For some reason the Soviets understood that their messages needed to be visually engaging and pleasing, where Americans seem to have missed the memo.

Anyway, here we are talking about the nature of political art of whatever stripe, so it's not like I'm one of those guys chiming in on every squier thread saying "get an AVRI", either.

[Dok]

I'm happy to be shown a piece of political art, I guess I just don't have high hopes based on what I've seen so far.

Except in this particular example, in which you've expressly stated that you will not be being shown this piece of political art. And we've spent far more time on this than it would have taken for you to just watch the thing to begin with. I mean, honestly. What is your goal here? You just want to shit on stuff that you haven't actually experienced, or you just want to make it about you? Either way, great job. I can't wait to hear what you have to say once you actually watch it. Really looking forward to that, now, as I'm sure it will be just as informative and illuminating as the rest of your posts in this thread so far.

[Dok]

"Art should only be about two things: a) whatever I think it should be about and b) nothing."

[mackerelmint]

Stripping politics out of popular music seems pointless. I mean, yeah, there's ample space for non political music or music with no lyrics at all. But vast swaths of rock music are enmeshed with politics and their broader cultural moments. All this guitar music we celebrate here is borne out of a political shift in the culture, after all.

I take issue with this. Is all this guitar music we celebrate here borne of that? Really? I'd say stripping politics out of popular music is never going to actually happen, because there are armies of crushing blowhards with instruments, but I'd also say that we're long, long past the time of the music we celebrate being borne of social shifts with political aspects. RATM was probably the last great hurrah there, and I really can't trace the guitar music I listen to or talk about or celebrate to baby boomer music. Unless you count the idea of being loud, maybe.

Political music has gone electronic, more or less, and it moved that direction in the 80s.

[mackerelmint]

I'm happy to be shown a piece of political art, I guess I just don't have high hopes based on what I've seen so far.

Except in this particular example, in which you've expressly stated that you will not be being shown this piece of political art. And we've spent far more time on this than it would have taken for you to just watch the thing to begin with. I mean, honestly. What is your goal here? You just want to shit on stuff that you haven't actually experienced, or you just want to make it about you? Either way, great job. I can't wait to hear what you have to say once you actually watch it. Really looking forward to that, now, as I'm sure it will be just as informative and illuminating as the rest of your posts in this thread so far.

Right. Because I don't like his music. I saw about 15 seconds of it much earlier today, it was him dancing around shirtlessly with some backup dancers like it was some kind of bollywood thing, which, whatever. That clearly wasn't the political part.

See, what's funny is that you called it "protest" music and I went "AHH no thanks" and you clarified and I responded explaining that it's just not my thing, since you made the effort. I was just trying to be cordial, honestly, but I know you love to jump in my shit at the slightest opportunity, so I guess what my goal here is, is to just stop taking your bait.

[Dok]

There's no bait in "hey check out this thing", if you decide to check it out and have an opinion about it.

And so now we've gone from:

1). I don't like that
2). Oh, not *that* either
3). Haven't actually seen it
4). I refuse to see it
5). I did see it but only 15 seconds
6). I refuse to contextualize what I did see

It's really astonishing to me that one person could put in that amount of effort to be so... lame.

You made the choice to join the thread and start telling us what you thought about it (this thing that you refuse to actually think about). That is just a fucking weird thing to do. And honestly, if you did engage with it and you didn't like it or whatever, that's really fine with me and understandable. You wouldn't really get any argument from me - you might even notice that I haven't said much other than that it's political and worth a watch. In fact, I would have welcomed that discussion. I even tried to reframe it for you! That's not bait! But I really don't understand why anybody should care what you think about it if you're not going to engage with it. You're going to have to do better than "I'm okay with not experiencing anything new because I once successfully avoided eating gross food". I'll never understand why it's more important to you to have any opinion at all rather than a well-considered one.

Just trying to think of how much music and film and painting and sculpture out there isn't political in some way is sure a fun exercise in slim pickings, though.

[mackerelmint]

The bait is your snark. Which is a shame, because you're writing paragraphs dragging me over the coals for all the time and energy I supposedly put into posting about not watching it, but those posts are really quite brief.

I haven't actually stated a refusal to watch it, either, but a lack of interest. I'm sure it'll happen at some point, which is fine.

Meanwhile, the discussion has opened up a bit, and I'm engaging with that, because I think it's interesting, which is also fine, and which I'd like this thread to be turned back over to, but I can't do that if you don't stop squawping and making it about me, or how much you like to find fault with me instead. Ball's in your court.

[Singlebladepickup]

So those av65 pickups...worth it?

[Dok]

You chose to make this about you and your refusal to engage with it. Why else would you say anything at all? If you were truly going to dismiss something out of hand, why wouldn't you actually just do that instead? What value is added just to say "I don't like this thing that I haven't seen"?

I haven't actually stated a refusal to watch it, either, but a lack of interest.

See, that's a really helpful clarification. You're not interested in watching it, but you are definitely interested in letting everyone know how much you're not interested in it and to what degree and why. And I'm the one making this about you.

I participate in like three threads on this whole board. I started one about something I found interesting and you made sure to wade in just to shit all over it, and somehow I'm the "squawping" one who baited you. And when I initially refused to take yours, and clarified something in a good-faith effort to have a discussion, you doubled down. The person who has like 2000 comments in the politics thread insisting that anything else involving politics isn't worth her time. For pete's sake.

But it's all good. I love having you on record feeling obligated to defend the half-considered nonsense you toss off without thinking all the time.

[countertext]

I can’t tell anymore just how compartmentalized we are as a society, but if it’s as bad as I think it is, and this video catches some eyes and minds that otherwise wouldn’t have thought about the real state of the union, then it’s an important piece of work.

I like it even though it’s a dark statement of our condition.

[Embenny]

I can’t tell anymore just how compartmentalized we are as a society, but if it’s as bad as I think it is, and this video catches some eyes and minds that otherwise wouldn’t have thought about the real state of the union, then it’s an important piece of work.

I like it even though it’s a dark statement of our condition.

It's funny. I could be trite about it and say that this video says nothing that I didn't already know, but the truth is that I'm not American and I'm not one of the people who needed to see this. If it gets a conversation started by the people who have a stake in the outcome, then that's great.

Artistically speaking, it's incredible well done. The choreography is great, the videography is as well, and the whole message of "dancing, singing and popular culture are a distraction from the real issues we are facing as a society" through the contrast of foreground vs background is executed without getting all "art school" heavy-handed or faux-high-concept. The fact that the dancers are untouched by the chaos behind them is a clear analogy for the privilege that money and fame afford members of what is otherwise a highly marginalized group, etc etc.

There's enough here that repeated views yield further details.

It shouldn't be viewed as groundbreaking, because this is the same stuff people have been saying for decades. It's just tastefully executed, and is being picked up by a new generation that needs to hear the message.

Anything that gets a large group of youth talking about these issues is a good thing in my books.

Speaking of books, the number of "the ten INCREDIBLE THINGS you missed in this video" articles popping up makes me very sad. If people picked up books, watched plays, listened to good music, and otherwise had any contact with the arts, a music video with basic concepts of subtext and analogy wouldn't be so mind blowing.