It doesn’t happen very often, but Taylor Swift finds herself at the center of a scandal.
Not long after the singer debuted her latest Internet sensation, an NPR article claimed that her "Wildest Dreams" video is racially insensitive.
"Taylor Swift is dressed as a colonial-era woman on African soil. With just a few exceptions, the cast in the video – the actors playing her boyfriend and a movie director and his staff – all appear to be white," states the piece.
It adds:
"We are shocked to think that in 2015, Taylor Swift, her record label and her video production group would think it was OK to film a video that presents a glamorous version of the white colonial fantasy of Africa."
Swift is yet to comment on this charge… but Joseph Kahn has A LOT to say about the criticism.
First, the video was edited by an African-American man and produced by an African-American woman, the director says.
He goes on to defend Swift as follows:
"’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 far 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."
The video was filmed Africa and it depicts Swift alongside Scott Eastwood, who plays her boyfriend in an homage to old Hollywood.
And Kahn also took to Twitter to make an important point last night:
"I absolutely love that Taylor donated all her video proceeds to African parks Foundation. She’s lost a lot of money doing that. Good soul."
Case closed? It’s been an eventful week for the singer in any case; Swift farted on camera at the VMAs while introducing the video, too.
That really got folks talking!
