M.I.A's Born Free: Violence to End Violence?

Since M.I.A. came out with “Born Free” a few days ago, a lot of people on the web have been praising it for its bold political message. The video portrays an English-speaking police state which appears to be carrying out some kind of genocide against red-headed youths. There are several graphically violent shots, including a shocker towards the end, that resulted in the video getting censored on Youtube.
As much as I love M.I.A. for singing about political injustice, subalterns and human rights, however, I wasn’t as impressed as the rest of the internet by the actual implications of making a music video about genocide. I mean, M.I.A.’s audience is a bunch of well-to-do hipster teens who will go crazy when she plays this song at her next concert. They might give her cultural points for making such a video, but everyone who would seek out this video probably already recognizes that “genocide is bad” and “what if we were in their shoes”. Putting the question of M.I.A.’s motivation or intention aside, the actual impact of this video is obviously just that the singer seems that much cooler, that much more “you can’t even get this shit on youtube, because it’s blocked.” Which makes the media’s current framing of the situation, summed up by 12-year-old Ian Hamrick (who gets a bullet to the head in the video) as “showing violence to end violence” a moot point.

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