TAYLOR SWIFT’S LATEST music video has been accused of glamourising African colonialism.
The video of Wildest Dreams shows Swift on a 1950s film set where she has a relationship with her co-star.
There are some black extras in the background of scenes, but the video does not feature any black characters.
The music video has been viewed over 18 million times on YouTube since being released on Sunday.
It also features wild animals including giraffes, lions and zebras. All proceeds from the video are being donated to the African Parks Foundation of America.
Madeleine Davies from the blog Jezebel, described it as Old Hollywood meets Out of Africa.
It’s all passion and desire while on location (isn’t it funny how wild things get in Africa?), but once back in Hollywood and shooting on a soundstage, our poor lovelorn colonisers just can’t get it together.
While an article on music and lifestyle blog Fader is titled: “Taylor Swift Went to Africa to Film a Music Video and There’s Only White People in it.”
The director of the video Joseph Kahn has defended it, saying, “There is no political agenda in the video.
Our only goal was to tell a tragic love story in classic Hollywood iconography.
Many people have taken to Twitter to express their reactions:
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say