The Difficulty in Defining Donald Glover’s ‘This is America’

It’s powerful, problematic, and its motives are unclear

Donald Glover (aka Childish Gambino) posing as if firing a gun in the music video for “This is America”.

I woke up on Sunday morning to see #ThisIsAmerica trending, and clicked through to find Childish Gambino’s new music video on YouTube. The first viewing reinforced my thoughts on Donald Glover (aka Childish Gambino): He’s carving out a unique place for himself in American popular culture — a place that’s difficult to define because it’s somewhere between commercial success and subversion. This is America is an indictment of a gun-crazed, violent society. It’s also a commentary on Black American entertainers’ role in perpetuating, glamorizing, and covering for the sins of their nation.

This is America is a musical — the song and the visuals can’t really be separated. Director Hiro Murai understands the language of cinema, and this short film is carefully crafted.

Donald Glover (aka Childish Gambino) aiming a gun at the head of a seated, handcuffed, hooded man in the music video for “This is America” (left). An old Jim Crow poster image (right). Credit: Sheridan LIbraries/Levy/Gado via Getty

The action doesn’t really start until Glover takes a highly stylized pose that evokes (how deliberately, I don’t know) the posture seen in old Jim Crow posters and shoots a handcuffed, hooded prisoner in the back of the head. A boy takes the gun from him to dispose of it, and…