What is Donald Glover Trying To Tell Us With The New Trailer For Atlanta Season 3?
Donald Glover is at it again and what 'it' is will send a shiver up your spine. A cryptically off putting trailer for the third season of Atlanta was released on Halloween, fitting the creepy tone of the teaser spot.
Collider reported about how at 8pm Halloween night until 3am this morning, a site called Gigla.com allowed access to what could quite possibly be the most interesting ad spots for a comedy ever conceived. In the trailer, a cacophonous chant of "It's after the end of the world. Don't you know that yet?" from musical artist Sun Ra's song of the same title sets the stage for a broodingly dark montage of shadowy city streets, abandoned theaters, statues and art installations shot from disturbing angles, run down apartments juxtaposed with high end abodes, culminated with Brian Tyree Henry's character Paper Boi staring emotionlessly at the camera in a posh dining room, where two well dress servants face the walls behind him. His shirt reads FAKE in barely visible yellow lettering. This begs the question, what are they trying to tell us with all of this madness?
This wouldn't be the first time the shows star and creator Donald Glover has shed his comedic persona we have grown to know from Community to show a more polarizing version of his art. Just three years ago, his video for This is America showed us a more serious side in his critique of how America treats the Black community and its culture with vitriol and violence. In the video, Childish Gambino, Glover's music persona, dances through scenes of both jovial school kids and balances it with graphic gun violence against Black performers in the background. The end of the video finds Childish Gambino running from an angry mob. Many were knee jerk in their reaction, lambasting the video as disturbing without asking what he was trying to convey.
But that is why Glover has been so successful. He runs the gamut of comedian, musical artist, and social satirist. At the heart of Atlanta, for all of its moments of real life comedy, the show is a biting look at culture, aging, and what it means to make in a business that can chew you up and spit you out as quickly as fall in love with you.
The Season 3 trailer is another arrow in that quiver of questioning societal norms, what got us here, and how to draw a crowd by being vague with a purpose. Even if you weren't watching the show before, this might just convince the uninitiated through sheer curiosity.
