Sep 13, 2023

music video solidarity

In the push for tenure I have been silent on this blog, but I still think daily about how we tell stories in ways that build more mutual solidarity. I was surprised by how powerful the imagery of a bombed village in Ukraine was in this music video below, and appreciate that the rock group Imagine Dragons used their platform to get more people to hear this story, but the contrast to the lyrics in the song were just bizarre for me. And I was struck that they used a 14 year old. How hard was it for him to shoot this footage of him in his old home, his old school? It certainly makes it much more powerful for viewers than if they had used his parents. So many hard choices when we tell stories across differences so as to build connection.