M.I.A. makes her stance utterly clear with 'Born Free'

Her tweet was more immature than it was constructive, but the transnational hip-hop star's decision to team with Gavras & release a video that clearly connected to the history of political filmmaking is no rash impulse. With "Born Free," M.I.A. lets her growing cult of fans know that he's no purpose of softening her message to court the mainstream.

M.I.A. protested in the all-caps mode she favors when the rattling, violent video for her brash new single "Born Free" was pulled from YouTube early Tuesday morning. After using Twitter to blame her record label & then retracting that accusation -- YouTube itself removed the short film by Italian director Romain Gavras for its graphic content, which included a kid being shot in the head & a young man being blown up by a land mine -- he basically declared, "BOOOOOOOOO" & provided a link to the "Born Free" video on her own web-site.

In fact, Gavras will soon release his directorial debut, "Redheads," which takes the plot of the M.I.A. video feature-length & promises to be both ultra-violent & free of Kenny jokes. His work with the filmmaking collective Kourtrajme, which he co-founded, & on videos for other artists (most notably the Italian electronic duo Justice, whose song "Stress" became the backdrop to Gavras' blunt depiction of Paris gang violence) lands smack in the midst of what is long been fruitful ground for political filmmakers, including Gavras' own father, Constantinos "Costa" Gavras: the killing field where dramas of racial prejudice, institutional control & minority resistance are enacted.

For those who haven't seen the clip, it is a docudrama-style depiction of American military forces rounding up members of a targeted minority in an unnamed city, taking them to the desert & executing them. Much-discussed reference points include the Peter Watkins 1971 countercultural film "Punishment Park" &, because the raided people have red hair, the South Park episode "Ginger Babies," which satirized the idea of targeted minority groups by putting redheads in the victim role.