JamalSpunky
Well-Known Member
How many of you have seen this music video for the artist Chet Faker?
I don't know how I missed it all this time (came out four years ago), but ever since discovering it a few weeks back I've become somewhat enamored of it. It is very striking. It is also very sexy and arousing without being trashy like rap videos full of video hoes shaking their asses. And though I doubt this was the intention, this video comes across as a celebration of white womanhood and their beauty/style. The actual artist, Chet Faker, isn't even shown until the last few moments and that was a good call IMO.
The video was done by Hiro Murai. If you don't recognize that name then you should know he has been a close collaborator with Donald Glover for years and has directed the vast majority of the episodes of "Atlanta", making him just as important in the artistic value of the series as Glover himself. He also directed Glover's "This Is America" video. He's a major, major talent who should be breaking into movies pretty soon.
I envy his talent but even more than that I envy the freedom he, as an Asian, has more so than black dudes. Let me explain. Chet Faker is a white guy making music for a mostly white audience (despite its R&B influences). So it makes sense that Murai didn't include non-white women as his roller skate girls. The fact that he was born in Japan may mean he is not even as attuned to particular racial dynamics and politics anyway. But if a black male had come up with the same idea for the same artist he might have felt compelled to make one skater black, perhaps two of them, perhaps all three. And not because those black skaters would have been any better but because he would have felt the pull, the responsibility of representation. And it may not have been external pressure to make him go that route, it could have been a self-imposed pressure that came about because of years of conditioning within the black community. Regardless of the reasons why, if a black director had done this video with the exact same models as Murai used, I bet you that at least half of the commentary by black viewers, after learning of the director's identity, would not have been about the artistry of such fine craftwork but about how the dude was a coon for not using black women. And that's why I write that black men seem to have less freedom artistically than their non-white male counterparts. Feel free to disagree.
Oh, which chick is more smoking in the video? The blonde at the center and the girl in green are in a dead-heat tie as far as I'm concerned.
I don't know how I missed it all this time (came out four years ago), but ever since discovering it a few weeks back I've become somewhat enamored of it. It is very striking. It is also very sexy and arousing without being trashy like rap videos full of video hoes shaking their asses. And though I doubt this was the intention, this video comes across as a celebration of white womanhood and their beauty/style. The actual artist, Chet Faker, isn't even shown until the last few moments and that was a good call IMO.
The video was done by Hiro Murai. If you don't recognize that name then you should know he has been a close collaborator with Donald Glover for years and has directed the vast majority of the episodes of "Atlanta", making him just as important in the artistic value of the series as Glover himself. He also directed Glover's "This Is America" video. He's a major, major talent who should be breaking into movies pretty soon.
I envy his talent but even more than that I envy the freedom he, as an Asian, has more so than black dudes. Let me explain. Chet Faker is a white guy making music for a mostly white audience (despite its R&B influences). So it makes sense that Murai didn't include non-white women as his roller skate girls. The fact that he was born in Japan may mean he is not even as attuned to particular racial dynamics and politics anyway. But if a black male had come up with the same idea for the same artist he might have felt compelled to make one skater black, perhaps two of them, perhaps all three. And not because those black skaters would have been any better but because he would have felt the pull, the responsibility of representation. And it may not have been external pressure to make him go that route, it could have been a self-imposed pressure that came about because of years of conditioning within the black community. Regardless of the reasons why, if a black director had done this video with the exact same models as Murai used, I bet you that at least half of the commentary by black viewers, after learning of the director's identity, would not have been about the artistry of such fine craftwork but about how the dude was a coon for not using black women. And that's why I write that black men seem to have less freedom artistically than their non-white male counterparts. Feel free to disagree.
Oh, which chick is more smoking in the video? The blonde at the center and the girl in green are in a dead-heat tie as far as I'm concerned.
Chit!
