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Taylor Swift’s “Wildest Dreams” video Faces Online Storm; Music Video Director
Posted On Sep 05 2015
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Tag: Africa, album, James Kassaga Arinaitwe, Los Angeles, Microsoft Theater, Minaj, music, story, Sunday, Taylor, Taylor Swift, video
As Minaj sang the lyrics, Swift appeared on a high rise. It created online backlash and was condemned by media outlets.
But the video’s director, Joseph Kahn, insisted that it is about a romance and a love story, and that it was never meant to be a commentary on the state of the political or social dynamics of the era.
The 2015 VMAs will air Sunday at 9 p.m. on MTV, with a pre-show beginning at 8 p.m. Held at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles, the show will air live on the East Coast, with a three-hour delay on the West Coast.
The video, which is set in colonial-era Africa and features Swift as a 1950s movie star, was shot in Botswana and South Africa. Black actors are seen in some of the clips from a distance. However, since the story is centered to Taylor and Scott, they were not given much screen time.
“Let’s not forget, Taylor has chosen to donate all of her proceeds from this video to the African Parks Foundation to preserve the endangered animals of the continent and support the economies of local African people”. NPR’s article, “Taylor Swift is Dreaming of A Very White Africa”, written by African-born writers Vivian Rutabingwa and James Kassaga Arinaitwe, has gone viral.
The director of Taylor Swift“s “Wildest Dreams’ music video has defended his work against accusations of racism”.
After collecting best hip-hop video for Anaconda, Minaj told the audience: “And now back to this b– that had a lot to say about me a lot in the press”.
Last year’s Video of the Year award went to this year’s host, Miley Cyrus, for “Wrecking Ball”. Earl Sweatshirt charged her of ‘perpetuating black stereotypes’.
“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”, Kahn said in a statement released on Wednesday.
The song is the fifth single from her best-selling 1989 album.
It’s no secret the MTV Video Music Awards are in love with their own bombastic sense of drama.
