Taylor Swift's new video 'Wildest Dreams' slammed over racist theme
Taylor Swift is once again under fire over the allegedly racist theme of her new music video for "Wildest Dreams."
After Taylor Swift's Wildest Dreams music video premiered during the MTV Video Music Awards on Sunday, it gained criticism for allegedly glorifying white colonialism. Critics also slammed the video for using Africa as the setting for a love story of white people, according to USA Today.
In the video for Wildest Dreams, Swift plays the role of a movie star who falls for her married co-star, who is played by Scott Eastwood. The two characters are shooting a movie in Africa. While the setting shows African animals in the African land, no African people can be seen. Critics say this is inappropriate at this time, the report relays.
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The Daily Dot slammed the video for paying "homage" to white colonialists' love story. While the video clearly aimed to depict an old-school romance, it also included old-school racism. NPR had the similar opinion of the Wildest Dreams video.
"Here are some facts for Swift and her team: Colonialism was neither romantic nor beautiful. It was exploitative and brutal," said NPR. "The legacy of colonialism still lives quite loudly to this day… In a place full of devastation and lawlessness, diseases spread like wildfire, conflict breaks out, and dictators grab power."
This is not the first time that a Taylor Swift music video has gained widespread backlash over alleged racist themes. Last year, she was slammed for donning gold chains and crawling through legs of twerking black women in her video for "Shake it Off."
Meanwhile, Wildest Dreams director Joseph Kahn defended his work and denied that it was racist. He explained that the video depicts a doomed relationship between two individuals not meant to be for each other. He added that it was not about colonialism but about a love affair on a film set in Africa in the year 1950, the International Business Times reports.
The video does not have any political agenda and that their only goal was to convey a "tragic love story" in Hollywood. There were also black actors in the video, but most of the screen-time was focused on the two main characters, Kahn added.
Taylor Swift has not yet issued a comment regarding the alleged racism in her Wildest Dreams video.
