A Critique of Coldplay & Rihanna's 'Princess of China'

The music video for Princess of China was published on June 2, 2012. Prior to watching the music video, the music and the lyrics portrayed the song as a typical break-up song with the addition of metaphorical features. The video producers had other ideas; they believed that due to the time signature and the structure of the song, it wouldn’t fit into the format of a regular music video. As a result, the video was given some sort of narrative structure based around the idea of a kung-fu movie. After all, the song is called Princess of China.

The video consisted of scenes with Coldplay’s Chris Martin and Rihanna herself who was portrayed as the ‘princess of china’. It was a series of striking vignettes loosely tied to an assassins-in-love-and-in-peril concept. They mixed together "action and kung fu" traits in a playful manner, the same structure and basis of a Chinese kung-fu movie. The video separates itself from other videos by Rihanna and Coldplay. Everything seemed logical until Chris Martin was involved in a sparring scene wearing a ninja costume a minute into the video. He also holds a Katana; which is a renowned Japanese sword. Referring back to the context of the video and song, the whole set were to consist if Chinese influences. On the other hand, Rihanna was often portrayed in multiple scenes of herself doing the Gold Finger-nail dance that was originated from Thailand throughout the video. This again falsely represents the social group therefore marginalizing it.

The significance of this video in China was also very important. Most were not concerned of the fact that the video portrays the country with heavily stylized Asian stereotypes, some of which aren't even about China but they were mostly concerned about their “princess” and how the western world portrayed their views.

The racial implications put upon Rihanna were surprisingly direct. Comments like

“This Princess of China is a little dark-skinned” –Daniel Lin

and "When I return, will I be so tan that I will be as black as the Princess of China?"-Kensou Lee

Comments like these were just a few from many similar ones.

Despite the Song title, the music video did not have to be based upon the idea of a Chinese movie.

"Once upon a time somebody ran
Somebody ran away saying fast as they can
About to go, I got to go"
The girl 'said' that as she left him or she is leaving him.

"Once upon a time, we fell apart
You're holding in your hands the two halves of my heart"
He talks about how they broke up, and how she broke his heart.

"Once upon a time, we were burning bright"
She talks about how they once loved each other very much and had that 'spark' in their relationship.

"Now we all ever seem to do is fight
On and on, and on and on and on"
And now all they do is fight.

The lyrics provided enough detail to convey greater meaning behind the published music video. If the lyrics were given more significance, the video could’ve been given a better theme and be based on the idea of a break-up with more meaningful collection of scenes rather than using Asian stereotypes to catch attention.