Published 12:02 IST, January 18th 2020
Eminem's 'Darkness' music video draws fire for depicting Las Vegas shooting
Eminem’s new music video for 'Darkness' has recreated the 2017 Las Vegas shooting from the perspective of the attacker, leaving survivors and experts outraged.
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Eminem released his highly anticipated album, Music to be Murdered By, on Friday, along with a dark music video for single Darkness. chilling music video was seemingly a call to expand gun control. It recreated Las Vegas shooting that took place in 2017 where Stephen Craig Paddock had committed one of deadliest mass shooting when he opened fire on a crowd of approximately 22,000 concertgoers attending Route 91 Harvest Music Festival on Las Vegas Strip from his 32nd-floor hotel room. incident took away 58 lives (excluding Paddock) and nearly 489 were left wounded.
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Eminem, who has also penned lyrics from perspective of shooter, depicts a shooting at a concert in a similar style which closes with actual audiotapes, video foot, and news cover of or recent mass shooting incidents around world.
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Watch triggering music video of Darkness:
A link to Darkness music video on Eminem’s official website also encours fans to contact gun violence prevention organizations such as Sandy Hook Promise, Giffords Law Center and Everytown for Gun Safety.
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Eminem faces backlash from survivors over Darkness music video
While long-time fans of Detroit rapper have praised him for taking up such a bold political subject and delivering a strong statement in his unexpected comeback, for Melissa Williams, a 40-year-old survivor of actual shooting in Las Vegas, music video was thing short of “horrific” and “triggering.” In an interview with Insider, Williams, who runs a n-profit organisation to support fellow Las Vegas survivors, stated that most of survivors were outrd and triggered by graphic details that were portrayed from actual incident, including real, live foot from festival grounds.
Las Vegas shooting that claimed many lives in 2017 is considered worst mass shooting in history of modern America. And while incident took place over two years ago, many of survivors still grapple with physical and mental toll of incident.
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12:02 IST, January 18th 2020