Taylor Swift’s latest music video is being battered by critics who claim it is racist and pandering to ‘rich white fantasies’ from a colonial era.
The video for Wildest Dreams, which was revealed during the MTV VMA Awards coverage on Sunday, has a mainly white cast and revolves around two 1950s-era movie stars – played by Swift and Gran Torino actor Scott Eastwood – filming in Africa.
There are only two black actors, who play soldiers, and they appear in the background. The mock film crew are white.
Director Joseph Khan insists the video is a ‘love story’ and has no political agenda. But music fans have rushed to Twitter to describe it as ‘colonial garbage’.
One fan wrote: ‘Even the most casual observer would have noticed that – for a clip that’s set in Africa – it’s about as white as a Sunday morning farmer’s market. The video wants to have its old-school Hollywood romance but ends up eating some old-school Hollywood racism, too.’