M.I.A. Video Banned

The video for M.I.A.'s latest single "Born Free" has been banned from youtube for it's violent and shocking content. Created by controverstial music director Romain-Gavras, at 9 minutes long the video makes for gruesome viewing. The concept of the song is to question the truth of our freedom in democracies such as the U.S. Who is really 'Born Free' with such heavey military and government control at work?

The video focus's on an out of control army rounding up those who are different, in this case people with red hair, and sending them off to a military camp to be brutally murdered. My own take on this is that the video is a reference to America's war's in Vietnam and Iraq and the little justification for such actions.

M.I.A, Born Free from ROMAIN-GAVRAS on Vimeo.

Anyone familar with Romain's work will already be aware of his ability to shock and horrify fans, he was the director for electro act Justice's "Stress" video (below), in which a gang of thugs set about carrying out random acts of law-breaking and thievery.

Jus†ice, Stress from ROMAIN-GAVRAS on Vimeo.

A lot of people argue on wheter or not these videos promote violence, personally i feel the director is using his artistic vision to create thought provoking pieces which don't hide from any uncomfortable truths about the world around us.