M.I.A.'s "Born Free" Video: More Faddish Political Pastiche

So on the plus side, we’re living in a new golden age of the music video! It makes sense, because we all decided about four (six?) years ago that TV was the new cinema. (Then “The Sopranos” ended, but.) So I guess music videos are the new TV? This is a great thing, overall! Fun for everyone. Erykah Badu’s “Window Seat” on the heels of Lady Gaga’s “Telephone”…. They’re all political, or politically-tinged, or exploitatively political. (“Window Seat,” at least, was rooted pretty well in history and allegory; “Telephone” was mostly about play… mostly.) But this new thing from M.I.A.? This just reads like pornography to me. And uber-violence. Or maybe I’m missing something about the non-story of a goon squad chasing down a bunch of redheads. IS IT ABOUT NEOCOLONIALISM? Or, I guess, the OLD-FASHIONED ORIGINAL BRAND™ of colonialism? It’s about as politically coherent as an ad for Axe Body Spray.