Erykah Badu video stirs anger over use of JFK assassination site

It may be nearly 47 years since President John F Kennedy was assassinated on Dealy Plaza in Dallas but the memory of that day remains raw for many Americans. So when R&B singer Erykah Badu made a music video showing her following the same route as JFK before collapsing at the very spot the president was shot, controversy was bound to be stirred.

On the video, for Badu's track Window Seat, the singer drives to the Plaza in scenes consciously aping the famous grainy Zapruder movie footage of the assasination, and begins with familiar radio commentary of Kennedy's fateful visit and Badu wearing a scarf in the style of Jacqueline Kennedy.

She then walks down the route that Kennedy took, while shedding her clothes (with the video pixilating her genitalia). By the time Badu arrives at the point where Kennedy and Texas governor John Connally were struck by Lee Harvey Oswald's bullets, she is naked and – after what sounds like a shot being fired – falls abruptly to the ground as if struck. The video then shows a blue graphic that appears to seep from Badu's head.

Badu claims to have shot the video "guerrilla style" and that the people at the site were tourists. But their lack of reaction to seeing a naked woman collapsing on the street in front of them suggests otherwise. Badu, a native of Dallas, posted on Twitter saying: "the people caught in the shot were trying hard to ignore me. LOL cept one guy grabbing clothes".

Badu said she shot the video in one take at 3.30pm on 13 March, with a hidden cameraman following her. But others suggest that modern editing capabilities means that she could easily have shot the video in studio and superimposed it on background footage of Dallas street scenes.

In Dallas, some were upset at the video's use of the iconic Kennedy setting. Ron Rice, who gives "JFK walking tours" in Dealey Plaza, told the Dallas Morning News that he thought Badu's actions were irresponsible. "It's against the law, and she should be locked up," he said. "If I did that I would already be in jail."

A representative for Dallas city council said that the controversy over Badu's video was "a trivial issue that comes at a time when the city is facing so many more important issues." Other residents were less bothered by it. "More people are writing about this than will buy her CD," suggested one.

Badu told the Dallas Morning News she chose Dealey Plaza as the backdrop because "the grassy knoll was the most monumental place in Dallas," and she compared the criticism she expected to receive to Kennedy's murder:

"I tied it in a way that compared the assassination to the character assassination one would go through after showing his or her self completely. That's exactly the action I wanted to display."