In class last week, we briefly pondered about what the “This” refers to in the titular lyrics “This is America.” One idea was that we might read (Donald Glover as) Childish Gambino as an embodiment of America. The idea interestingly asks us to consider the nature of something like an American body. More pointedly it invites us to examine the relationship between the black body and what we understand America to be. As I mentioned the idea that Childish Gambino embodies America in the video “This is America” is complicated and challenged by the fact that much of Childish Gambino’s performance in the music video also appears in the short musical film Guava Island by Donald Glover’s character Deni on the fictional (Caribbean-esque) island outside of the United States.
In this prompt, I encourage you to use this complication not to dismiss the question but deepen our engagement with both texts; with the effect of Glover’s intertextual in the film and in the music video; and with how such intertextual crossing and re-imagining affects the way we might interpret the cultural, political, and/or aesthetic stakes of black bodies in motion in the music video and/or the film. For this prompt, you might begin with a straight forward compare and contrast examination of the two texts and then hone in on one or two aspects of that compare and contrast examination for further analysis. As you focus your analysis, you want to make sure that you think about the significance of the particular similarities and/or difference you’re focusing in on both in the particular part of the text(s) in which they appear but also in how we understand one of the overarching themes/objectives of the video and/or film.