Nicole Arbour applies lipgloss and explains a joke about the Taliban while mimicking a scene where Childish Gambino lights a joint and possibly honors the victims of the Parkland shooting. • YouTuber Nicole Arbour made a 'Women's Edit' of Childish Gambino's 'This is America' music video.
• Arbour claims she wanted to make a version addressing 'women's issues' instead of those facing black Americans. • People don't like how Arbour's video strips meaning from Donald Glover's original. • Arbour said the backlash is funny to her. Following the success of Childish Gambino's 'This is America' music video, YouTuber and choreographer Nicole Arbour adapted what she calls a 'Women's Edit' of the video. It is.not very good.
The video stars Arbour, a white woman, standing in for Donald Glover's Childish Gambino persona. It's shot in a garage and structured similarly to the original video, but with symbols that supposedly have to do with women's issues instead of issues facing black Americans. The translation doesn't entirely make sense. Instead of shooting a guitar player with a bag over his head, for example, Arbour takes a photo of a black woman who seems to be breastfeeding, who is then pulled away. She sings phrases like 'Get a mammy home' and 'Got rape in my area.' Rather than dancing with children, Arbour dances with scantily clad female dancers — a confusing visual for a video about 'female empowerment.' Why does any of this happen?
It's unclear if Arbour knows herself. She also suggested that the video was meant to be taken ironically, a similar defense to when was criticized in 2015. 'And it's super funny watching people take what couldn't have more on the nose clearly stated sarcasm and irony as an accident,' she wrote on Facebook. 'The assumption of ignorance based on the way I look.
Is a level of irony only God could be writing as a joke. Smart/ spiritual/ conscious people get this. 😉 The rest, I'll happily welcome when they catch up.' Arbour told INSIDER that everyone should make their own version of the video to bring people together.
'I firmly believe the best thing that can happen in America and North America right now is for everyone to create their own version of this video and show what life is like from their side,' she wrote in an email. 'Through this honesty, I believe we can discover a new level of empathy and understanding for each other that will ultimately and finally lead us to healing and unity that is desperately needed in society.
What can we agree on? What do we have in common?
Where are we hurting? Start there, then rebuild.' This post has been updated to include Arbour's comment.