Someone must have spread the word among the left-of-center crowd that pop singer Taylor Swift is a (sniff) capitalist. How else might one explain the silly reaction to her latest video, as documented by National Review Online?
People are criticizing Taylor Swift for her new music video — not because it’s annoying, but because they think it “presents a glamorous version of the white colonial fantasy of Africa.”
The video for her new single, “Wildest Dreams,” is meant to be 1950s-themed love story that uses Africa as a backdrop — but some are saying that the very fact that it takes place in Africa and features mainly white people means it’s actually a racist abomination.
“We are shocked to think that in 2015, Taylor Swift, her record label and her video production group would think it was OK to film a video that presents a glamorous version of the white colonial fantasy in Africa,” NPR’s Viviane Rutabingwa declared in a piece titled “Taylor Swift Is Dreaming of a Very White Africa.”
“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, dehumanized and traumatized millions of Africans,” Rutabingwa continued. “That is beyond problematic.”
Lauren Duca of the Huffington Post had a similar take, saying the video “sure felt a lot like some harkening back to white colonialism.”