MIA Born Free Video Controversy – M.I.A. is fired up over her new controversial video for her latest single “Born Free” which has stirred quite the uproar online. Video sharing site YouTube pulled the “Born Free” video from its site early Tuesday morning for its graphic content, after the singer used her Twitter page to blame her record label, which she later retracted that accusation.
M.I.A. tweeted, “BOOOOOOOOO” and provided a link to the “Born Free” short film by director Romain Gavras – depicting a child being shot in the head and a young man being blown up by a land mine – on her own website.
For those who haven’t seen the clip, M.I.A. doesn’t appear in the docudrama-style depiction of American military forces rounding in an unnamed city, taking them to the desert and executing them. Much-discussed reference point include the Peter Watkins 1971 countercultural film “Punishment Park” and, because the raided people have red hair, the South Park episode “Ginger Kids,” which satirized the idea of targeted minority groups by putting redheads in the victim role. Meanwhile, Gavras will soon release his directorial debut, “Redheads,” which takes the plot of the M.I.A. video feature-length and promises to be both ultra-violent and free of Kenny jokes.
Using the classic boasting style of rappers and Jamaican dance-hall influences, the transitional hip-hop star belts the words, “I was booorrnn FREE!” in the main hook of the brash single – taking a phrase most famously associated with lions, the kings of the jungle, in the 1966 environmentalist film of that title, and offers it up to those people historically pegged as not quite tamed: immigrants, people of color, refugees.
“Got myself an interview tomorrow/ I got myself a jacket for a dolla,” she says in the song. She then turns the scrutiny on herself, “Don’t wanna talk about money, ‘cos I got it/Don’t wanna talk about hoochies, ‘cos I been it,” she snarls in what’s becoming the song’s most quoted verse. “And I don’t wanna be fake, but you can do it.”
