SPACES

Idk how you can call like 40 backup dancers dressed like Black Panthers for a viewership of over 100 million a slight aesthetic variation but ok. Idk how you can call the lyrics “I like my Negro nose with Jackson 5 nostrils,” a love song to and from Black women, a slight aesthetic variation but ok!!!

Adorno over here’s just holding pop culture up to standards that make no contextual sense. As if anyone ever claimed a cool music video and halftime show were “revolutionary praxis” rather than just an exciting statement to see in such a mainstream cultural venue. Credit where it’s due, and for heaven’s sake let people take pleasure where they can find it. 

Yes thank you!! that’s what I meant to say :)

I’m expressing somewhat hyperbolic skepticism towards this article’s take, not spewing derision on people who enjoy pop culture (I, after all, did watch and enjoy the game).

Ok but what qualifies as a “political act” then? Does a thing have to achieve the status of revolutionary praxis to qualify as politically salient? The song and it’s presentation in both the video and the halftime show were explicitly political. Having only the title of the article to go on here it seems like an unnecessarily cranky comment. And the bit about “slight aesthetic variation” was excessively dismissive of the symbolic significance of the Black Panther costumes and everything else going on in the video. 

1. the aesthetic choices of the halftime show are not nearly as up-front as the choices in the music video (no trashed cop cars on display during the former), so they should be evaluated separately 2. I'm not obligated to be cheerful towards articles that I think aren't serious 3. Like I said, hyperbole

Idk how you can call like 40 backup dancers dressed like Black Panthers for a viewership of over 100 million a slight aesthetic variation but ok. Idk how you can call the lyrics “I like my Negro nose with Jackson 5 nostrils,” a love song to and from Black women, a slight aesthetic variation but ok!!!

Adorno over here’s just holding pop culture up to standards that make no contextual sense. As if anyone ever claimed a cool music video and halftime show were “revolutionary praxis” rather than just an exciting statement to see in such a mainstream cultural venue. Credit where it’s due, and for heaven’s sake let people take pleasure where they can find it. 

Yes thank you!! that’s what I meant to say :)

I’m expressing somewhat hyperbolic skepticism towards this article’s take, not spewing derision on people who enjoy pop culture (I, after all, did watch and enjoy the game).

I’ve been doing pretty good with a freewriting experiment thanks to @keepingtrackofnothing sharing this cool document she got from her academic writing bootcamp. But then these vaguely annoying people sat down next to me and one of them starting talking about how she is “kind of an activist” and how she “loves to empower people” and how she likes to “skip and sing in the streets because it gives other people permission to be authentic with themselves.” So now I’m listening to Sunn O)))) with my noise cancelling headphones to drown out the chatter. I need the constant drone to effectively destroy other sounds before they reach my brain. 

See also http://musicforprogramming.net/