Director Defends Taylor Swift's Music Video of Whitewashing
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS SEPT. 2, 2015, 6:07 P.M. E.D.T.
NEW YORK — The director of Taylor Swift's new music video is defending the singer after some claimed she whitewashed her video based in Africa.
Joseph Kahn said that the video for "Wildest Dreams" includes black people and was produced by a black woman and edited by a black man.
"This is not a video about colonialism but a love story on the set of a period film crew in Africa, 1950," Khan said in a statement Wednesday. "There are black Africans in the video in a number of shots, but I rarely cut to crew faces outside of the director as the vast majority of screentime is Taylor and (actor) Scott (Eastwood)."
Kahn, who directed Swift's "Blank Space" and "Bad Blood," is Asian.
"Wildest Dreams" portrays Swift as an actress who falls in love with her co-star on the set. Black actors are seen in some of the clips from a distance.
"The reality is not only were there people of color in the video, but the key creatives who worked on this video are people of color. ...We cast and edited this video. 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," Khan said.
Joseph Kahn - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Music video career
In 1999, Kahn started his own production company with
Chris Lee, SuperMega Media, which is housed under HSI Productions. Kahn has worked with diverse artists such as
Shakira,
Aaliyah,
Dr. Dre,
Snoop Dogg,
DMX,
Backstreet Boys,
Mariah Carey,
Jordin Sparks,
Christina Aguilera,
50 Cent,
Britney Spears,
Destiny's Child,
Kelly Clarkson,
Taylor Swift,
Muse,
Ciara,
Monica,
Courtney Love,
Rob Zombie,
U2,
The Chemical Brothers,
Blink 182,
Chris Brown,
Eminem,
TLC,
Ashlee Simpson,
Moby,
Kesha,
George Michael,
Korn,
The Black Eyed Peas,
Janet Jackson,
Lady Gaga,
BoA,
Gwen Stefani,
Brandy,
AKB48, p*ssycat Dolls,
Sun Ho,
Kylie Minogue,
Maroon 5,
Katy Perry, and many more.
Kahn has collected multiple Music Video Production awards. He has won several
MTV Video Music Awards with nominations for
Best Video of the Year for
Brandy &
Monica "The Boy is Mine",
Britney Spears "
Toxic",
Chris Brown "Forever", p*ssycat Dolls "When I Grow Up",
Eminem "We Made You",
Britney Spears "Womanizer", and
Eminem "Love the Way You Lie." In 2002 he won his first
Grammy for
Eminem's "Without Me" video which also won the MTV VMA's
Best Video of the Year, as well as
Best Direction. His video for
Katy Perry "Waking Up In Vegas" won the MVPA 2009 Best Video of the Year. In 2015, Kahn directed MVT's choices for video of the year, best pop video, best female video, and best pop collaboration, all by
Taylor Swift.
"This video is set in the past by a crew set in the present and we are all proud of our work," he added.
Swift is donating all of the proceeds from the "Wildest Dreams" video to the African Parks Foundation. The song is the fifth single from her best-selling "1989" album.
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