For the second time since releasing her megahit album 1989, Taylor Swift is being accused of including a touch of racism in her music videos. At least, I think it’s the second time, because it’s hard to keep track of which pop stars are being accused of doing or saying really dumb sh*t these days. Unlike the claims of appropriation involving her video for the insanely catchy “Shake It Off,” the latest accusations have T-Swizzle taking us back to the old school, where people in Old Hollywood were unapologetic old fools. Specifically, her video for “Wildest Dreams” has people upset because of its “whitewashing” of Africa and embrace of “white colonialism.”
Naturally, the video’s director, Joseph Kahn*, has issued a statement to defend his work from critics leading the charge against everything “problematic.” He claims that the video does, in fact, include people of color, both in front of and behind the camera, and that people are just being jelly haters, to paraphrase. The likely outcome of the latest Tay-Tay Swizzlezizzle drama in this Era of Problematic Everything (trademark pending) is that the singer will engage in a Twitter feud with another pop star and then settle it in the most beneficial way. Or everyone will just forget about it and 1989 will sell another million copies.
For more, anchors/Swifties Tom Storey and Briana Lane weigh in on today’s episode of The Desk.
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