Taylor Swift‘s video for “Wildest Dreams” has received lots of negative commentary based on the idea that it encourages racism. Swift didn’t respond to the critique, but director – Joseph Kahn – made a public statement on the 2nd of September regarding the backlash. He explained the video’s intended focus, why people of colour didn’t get much screen time, and the fact that three people working on the video (including himself) are people of colour.
“‘Wildest Dreams’ is a song about a relationship that was doomed, and the music video concept was that they were having a love affair on location away from their normal lives. This is not a video about colonialism but a love story on the set of a period film crew in Africa, 1950”, Kahn explains. “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”. He also reminded everyone of the message at the end of the video: that all of the proceeds go to the African Parks Foundation charity. Watch the video for “Wildest Dreams” below.
#Peace.Love.WildestDreams
