During this past weekend's VMAs, a lot of unfortunate moments happened. Even the night's darling, Taylor Swift found herself in some murky territory with her "Wildest Dreams" video. The video, set in 1950s Africa, has some critics claiming that it romanticizes what was, in fact, an often violent period of colonialism. In a perfect storm of unfortunate details, the video also featured only white people.
Today, the video's director, Joseph Kahn issued a statement on the controversy. As Billboard reports, Kahn said of the video's casting that "we collectively decided it would have been historically inaccurate to load the crew with more black actors as the video would have been accused of rewriting history. This video is set in the past by a crew set in the present." Watch the video above, and read why this year's VMAs were annoyingly problematic.
