This Band Aid stinker is the most colonialist, objectifying, racist, condescending piece of shit ever. I mean, seriously. African people experiencing hunger, starvation and food insecurity are even explicitly referred to as "the other ones," thus distanced and separated from the ostensible audience of the song, which is privileged [non-African] listeners from colonizing countries who have enough to eat. I understand that the song is trying to contrast the want of some people with the plenty of others, but the words that the lyricists use make the people in need sound practically subhuman.

I also really love how an entire continent is portrayed as a miserable monolith. No one’s ever happy — "…the only water flowing / Is a bitter sting of tears" — in part because the weather’s rotten ["that burning sun"] all the time. The entire landmass is apparently omitted from the water cycle, as there are no rivers there…or any precipitation, for that matter. Most tragically of all, everyone on the continent has no idea what date it is because they suffer a grievous calendar shortage.

Of course, the song portrays the solution to this dire lack of date tracking as colonialism: "Let them know it’s Christmas time and / Feed the world." Yeah, have a sudden attack of white guilt and throw food at those ignorant people down there…or at least throw money. Your donations will magically function as a civilizing process that will turn them into devout Christians who can tell time and appropriately worship Our Lord and Savior the Son of God Capitalism.

Holy shit, that’s a wretched song.

This entry was originally posted at http://modernwizard.dreamwidth.org/1430272.html. You can comment here, but I’d prefer it if you’d comment on my DW using OpenID.