Cultural/Political Responses to Music Videos

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I decided to look into the cultural responses to the music video 'Born Free' by MIA

I know that this music video caused a lot of controversy due to it's strong cultural message and so I conducted some research into the messages behind the video and how people reacted to this video. 

The music video above is a violent, short-film style video for the promotion of MIA's single 'Born Free'. The main story line features policemen conducting raids on a run-down  block of flats, looking for young men with ginger hair only. These men are violently captured against their will and put in buses to be taken away. The red-headed men, including young boys are then brought on the buses to a desert, and told to run for their lives into the sunset over bombs that are underground. 

Unsurprisingly, there was a rather shocked response to the out-right violence featured in this video and it was removed from YouTube the same day as it was released, reinstated with an age restriction. However, a few days later it got taken down 'for good' however later re-appeared under the age constraints. The video featured scenes of nudity and brutality. Although the message and general idea behind this story is very relevant and viable, it breached the terms and condition about levels of violence. 

MIA said that it was not an attack on a particular political situation, and the idea of the video relates to a lot of real situations of conflict, war, and ethnic cleansing. It sparked emotions online as it was said to have a lot of political resonances to things like Guantanamo, Iraq, and the Taliban. The video cleverly doesn't feature one ethnic group being rounded up and instead uses hair colour to distinguish between people and decide their fate - which is very relatable, powerful and moving to watch as it highlights the unacceptable and violent behaviour in real life situations that are a reality. 

However, the controversy was that this video was released at the same time the law was proposed in Arizona that the police could detain anyone suspected of being an illegal immigrant. Therefore, not only did the violence cause controversy, this also sparked heat among news organisations and politicians who saw this as a direct response. 

This video caused a lot of shocked responses due to the violence and brutality conveyed by the footage. We therefore need to ensure in our music video that we don't relate any of the material to cultural issues and debates, as the response is questionable. We are confident in our production that it will not cause any offense, however we need to ensure that we do not make any in-deliberate references or gestures to any cultural, political or lifestyle issues in order to be safe. 

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