Ethan Syster
Sep 9, 2018 · 2 min read

This analysis of the pop culture staple ‘This is America’ effectively highlights a few examples of what makes Gambino’s song such a central issue for discussion on a variety of social platforms. However, looking beyond the song one can begin to see that our social and popular culture is evolving to address issues of social justice in a different manner. Previously, many forms of popular culture had a central mission: to please the masses. Yet this is changing; popular media now seeks to create controversial discussion by bringing up issues that cause heated debates and passionate responses from opposing viewpoints. In addition to the example of ‘This is America’ there is the recent Nike ad featuring Colin Kapernick, and the racial theme addressed in Jordan Peele’s Get Out. These examples shows a pattern of media that as you say “make you do a double take” to understand their true message surrounding social issues. Many people argue that these forms of popular culture are using media as a platform for drawing awareness to social issues. One must ask though, are these producers of popular culture using their platforms to draw awareness to social justice issues, or are they rather using controversial issues to draw attention to their product? By including these issues in their products, Childish Gambino, Nike, and Jordan Peele create a dialogue that surrounds social justice issues already being discussed. Additionally, the attention created by these different pieces of media addressing social issues is rarely beneficial. ‘This is America’ resulted in Twitter disputes and memes. The Nike ad brought about “boycotts” that included destroying Nike products. Following Get Out there were a few articles and reviews that noted its racial undertones, but not much else. In all three of these examples, there was little to no improvement in the social justice issues they supposedly are bringing awareness to. I would propose that rather than attempting to draw attention to a social issue that lacks attention, these producers of popular culture content are attempting to draw attention to their songs, products, and movies by including in them social justice issues that already receive a lot of controversial attention.