Director defends Taylor Swift's music video of whitewashing
By Associated Press
Sep 2, 2015 3:23 PM CDT
Taylor Swift accepts the award for video of the year for “Bad Blood” at the MTV Video Music Awards at the Microsoft Theater on Sunday, Aug. 30, 2015, in Los Angeles. Pictured from left is Gigi Hadid, Serayah, director Joseph Kahn and Lily Aldridge. (Photo by Matt Sayles/Invision/AP)   (Associated Press)

NEW YORK (AP) — The director of Taylor Swift's new music video is defending the singer after some claimed she whitewashed her video based in Africa.

Joseph Kahn said in a statement Wednesday that the video for "Wildest Dreams" includes black people and was produced by a black woman and edited by a black man.

Kahn, who directed Swift's "Blank Space" and "Bad Blood," is Asian.

"Wildest Dreams" is set in 1950s Africa and portrays Swift as an actress who falls in love with her co-star on the set. Black actors are seen in some of the clips from a distance.

Kahn said: "We collectively decided it would have been historically inaccurate to load the crew with more black actors as the video would have been accused of rewriting history. This video is set in the past by a crew set in the present."

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