Director denies Taylor Swift’s Wildest Dreams video is racist

The director of Taylor Swift’s latest music video has defended the singer after she was accused of creating an African colonial fantasy in the video. The video has been viewed more than 15 million times, but some have criticised the scarcity of black people and said it portrays a stereotyped colonial-era view of Africa. Joseph Kahn said the video for Wildest Dreams does include 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.

Video directo Joseph Kahn

“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 screen time is Taylor and [actor] Scott [Eastwood].” Kahn, who also directed Swift’s Blank Space and Bad Blood videos, is Asian. The video, which was filmed in Ethiopia, also features a number of African animals including lions, giraffes and zebra. 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.

The reality is not only were there people of colour in the video, but the key creatives who worked on this video are people of colour. We cast and edited this video.

Joseph Kahn

Entertainment Swift Wildest Dreams