【1995 Archives】

It's fair to say that Donald Glover's summer 2018 Childish Gambino jam995 Archives "This Is America," shook the internet.

The music video was packed with symbolism and it arrived like a crash of lightning, electrifying an audience hungry for a better understanding of the song's intent. Now, in Glover's new film Guava Island, a "This Is America" performance woven directly into the text helps us fine-tune that understanding.

The original music video that premiered in May 2018 was widely read as a commentary on systemic racism in the United States. The music's shifting moods -- alternating between an African folk-inspired melody and a pulsing trap beat -- were accompanied by imagery that leapt from joyful singing and dancing to scenes of violence and back again.

Many saw that central dichotomy as a comment specifically on the experience of living as a black person in the United States. The song's lyrics explore that tension as well, with the chorus delivering a growling warning of "This is America / Don't catch you slippin' up" while Gambino later sings the cheery refrain, "Get your money, black man."

Now we have Guava Island, an hour-long fable set on the titular tropical paradise island that doubles as a sweatshop for a wealthy local family's rare silk export. Glover is Deni, one of the island's many unwilling silk workers who also happens to moonlight as a singer and performer.

The film is notably directed by Hiro Murai and written by Stephen Glover, Donald's brother. This trio is also a key creative force behind some of the most successful episode of the the FX series, Atlanta.

In an early scene, Deni reports to his job -- at what looks like a factory that produces shotgun shells -- and gets into an argument with one of his co-workers. The other man talks about how he wants to leave the island, because in America "people are their own bosses." So he wants to bribe his way off the island, settle in the U.S., and start a business.

Deni scoffs at this plan. "This is America. Guava's no different than any other country," he says. "America is a concept. Anywhere where, in order to get rich you have to make someone else richer, is America."

Their back-and-forth leads directly into Deni getting up on a wooden box and singing the opening "We just want to party" lines from "This Is America." But this time, everything's different. The melody is slightly different. The song's slickly produced beats are replaced by the rhythmic whirs of factory machines. The dancers, the supporting cast, are all factory workers.

The shift in context makes all the difference. Deni is specificallynotin America, nor is he a United States citizen in Guava Island. He's standing on the manufacturing floor of a bullet factory in a foreign country with an (as far as we're shown in the movie) all-black population. His job -- everyone's job, really -- is provided by a wealthy local family that we're led to understand demands total subservience in exchange for life's essentials.

Guava Islandis broadly about Deni's point that "America is a concept." The people who live on the island are trapped into the same kind of system, even if they lack the luxuries -- what Deni would probably refer to as the illusion of freedom -- that people in the U.S. take for granted.

That's why Deni argues against leaving for America's supposedly greener pasture. He'd rather see his community fight for that freedom in their own home. As he says earlier in the "This Is America" scene, before breaking into song: "[W]e live in paradise, but none of us have the time or means to actually live here."

The movie's remixed "This Is America" drives that point home. It wasn't ever about a specific place. It's really about this universal reality that oppression is a product of systems built to enrich a few on the backs of the many. That's as true in Guava Island as it is in the United States.

Guava Islandis now streaming for all Amazon Prime Video subscribers.

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