M.I.A. releases controversial new music video

April 26th, 2010

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M.I.A.’s new video for Born Free has become the most buzzed about music video since Beyonce and Lady Gaga’s Telephone. Like Telephone, Born Free includes sexuality and violence, but on an entirely different scale.

Gone are the cheeky product placements, glittery dance sequences and brightly coloured costumes of Telephone. In its place are brutal beatings, point blank executions and a political message that speaks to wars from the past and present.

The images in Born Free were so alarming and devastating that after watching the video twice I realized that I had barely noticed M.I.A.’s song playing in the background.

For a full review and discussion on Born Free click on the jump.

*Note: This review discusses the graphic violence, sex and nudity of the video that may not be suitable for all readers.

Soldiers in riot gear with American flag patches on their shoulder wreck havoc on a rundown building, breaking down doors to apartment units and beating every tenant they come across. This includes attacking a naked couple having sex in their apartment. The soldiers eventually find their suspect, a young man, who fights with the soldiers as he is dragged out of the building and thrown into an armored truck.

It’s at this point, 3:33 into the nine minute video that the audience is let in on the reason as to why this particular youth has been targeted. Inside the armored truck are approximately twenty young men, all with red hair. We can assume that the men have been targeted by the soldiers because of their hair.

The idea behind arresting men based on their hair colour may seem almost comical at first glance. South Park has written numerous episodes poking fun at red headed or ‘ginger’ people. But, when we look back through history at groups that have been persecuted, it has often been because of their appearances. Hundreds of years of slavery and womens repression has shown that a person’s physical being, including race and gender, often dictates the course their life will take.

In the case of M.I.A.’s controversial video the men are taken to a military zone and instructed to run through a field of land mines. When they refuse, a soldier makes an example of the youngest prisoner in a graphic scene showing a boy being shot in the head. Terrified, the men begin running through the field, some exploding after stepping on land mines. The prisoner that was originally dragged out of his apartment at the beginning of the video is caught by the soldiers and appears to be beaten to death at the end of the video.

The explicit violence, nudity and sex scenes in Born Free left me emotionally disturbed and upset. But, maybe that’s a good thing. M.I.A. is an artist that is no stranger to controversy, especially when it comes to speaking out politically. Influenced by her father’s work as a Tamil soldier and political activist, M.I.A. has often used her music to speak out against war crimes and civil injustices, both through her lyrics and music videos.

Born Free is a superb piece of film making and a blatant example of the fear that has plagued the history of human species since the beginning of time. The focal point of the video, the fear of ‘the other’, is sadly still a reality in 2010. M.I.A.’s video may lose her some fans and commercial success, but it is at the cost of a message that unfortunately still needs to be delivered. The title of the song is a ironic take on the reality of life for many people. Though we should be born free, we so often are not.

Warning: The video for Born Free by M.I.A. contains extremely graphic violence, swearing, sex and nudity. View at your own risk here.

Tags: beyonce, Born Free, lady gaga, m.i.a., South Park, Telephone