Race row over Taylor’s African video with just two black faces
IT is supposed to be a homage to the golden age of film.
But Taylor Swift’s latest music video, Wildest Dreams, in which she plays a 1950s-era Hollywood star on set in Africa, appears to be missing a vital ingredient.
While there are lions, giraffes and other animals in the four-minute film, there are no black actors in main roles. Critics have accused the 25-year-old US pop star of portraying a ‘white colonial fantasy’ Africa. It is not the first time she has been at the centre of a race row.
Last year the film for Miss Swift’s hit Shake It Off was said to perpetuate racial stereotypes because the only black people in it were cast as urban dancers.
Social media users criticised the Wildest Dreams video, in which the only black faces to appear are two soldiers standing in the back- ground of one shot, as ‘colonial garbage’ and ‘offensive’, accusing it of ‘whitewashing’ Africa.
One wrote that it portrayed ‘rich white fantasies of Africa in the 1950s’. Another added: ‘Yes, cheers to colonialism. Those were epic times for us Africans.’
America’s National Public Radio carried an article on its website by two authors of African descent which said the video ‘ presents a glamorous version of the white colonial fantasy of Africa’. They added: ‘She packages our continent as the backdrop for her romantic songs devoid of any African person or storyline, and she sets the video in a time when the people depicted by Swift and her co- stars killed, dehumanised and traumatised millions of Africans.’
While Miss Swift, who is dating British DJ and producer Calvin Harris, has so far remained silent, the video’s director Joseph Kahn defended his work. He said: ‘We collectively decided it would have been historically inaccurate to load the crew with more black actors as the video would have been accused of rewriting history.’
Fans also defended Miss Swift. One tweeted: ‘If you think Taylor is “racist” for not having black people in Wildest Dreams, you’re reaching so hard and looking for any reason to hate her.’
Another added: ‘How is the Wildest Dreams video racist? The shots are all in the safari part of Africa where only animals roam.’