Halftime Collectivism

    

     Popular music as social cement, promoting obedience and cathartic reconciliation was noted by Theodore Adorno in his writing “On Popular Music.”  Two mass behaviors toward music were outlined; an obedience that follows rhythm, sensitized to individualized interruptions and susceptible to authoritarian collectivism, and emotionality that is lured by frustration toward catharsis, reconciling the listener to social dependence.  These two social functions of music are capitalized on in the Superbowl Halftime Show. 

    Since Michael Jackson’s 1993 performance, popular music has been singularly featured at the event, and after the 2019 NFL partnership with Jay-Z’s Roc Nation, the artists’ performances for the halftime show have held a culturally Marxist overtone.  Since 2020, the halftime performers have been latin/Hispanic and black performers, exclusively.  Political predominance has centered the stage, with J.Lo’s imagery of protest against ICE in 2020, Eminem’s knee for BLM in 2022, and Lamar’s “commentary on systemic racism” in 2025.  Cultural Marxism has claimed the halftime show as a site-of-struggle against western hegemony at the Roman-games reincarnation that is America’s sport. 

     “Concentration and control in our culture hide themselves in their very manifestation.  Unhidden they would provoke resistance” (Adorno, pg. 68).  Adorno’s summation of pop music is that it commands its own listening habits, promotes like-dislike behaviors, and is ultimately, a standardized production that presents itself as “natural,” offering pseudo-individualization within cultural mass-production and large-scale economic concentration.  As the quote mentions, this concentration of control attempts to hide through the illusion of choice.  Currently, the illusion of choice seems to be between pop; pre-Roc-Nation halftime show acts like Maroon 5, Justin Timberlake, and Lady Gaga, and pop with cultural Marxist overtones; acts like Kendrick Lamar and this year’s Bad Bunny, who purposefully integrate political messaging into their performances.  Lamar’s main song of last year’s show featured a combative “diss track,” the title featured in the only audible repetition of the song: “they not like us.”  With all the performative cultural messaging, for those without the “inside knowledge” of the track, the assumption of the message would be that it was solely about race. 

    This year, Roc Nation decided to further promote cultural Marxism with Bad Bunny, who has until now refused performances in America as a protest against ICE, will perform only Spanish-language songs, and will “bring a lot of his culture.”  What is unique about this performer is his *actual* affiliation with Marxism via the company that financed his career, Rimas Entertainment, which was co-founded by Rafael Ricardo Jimenez-Dan, a vice minister during the Chavez era in Venezuela (as reported by Armando.info and musicbusinessworldwide.com).  The Chavez era was an authoritarian, Cuban-aligned regime that was hostile to the United States. 

    Now that more folks are primed toward the anti-western, neo-Marxist ‘resistance’ culture that currently flows from the hidden concentrations of control, the new obedience is formed through the illusion of independence and resistance.  For Adorno’s second type of mass behavior, emotional catharsis is now encouraged through the anticipated “party vibes” of Bad Bunny’s performance, where you can Latin-dance away your capitalism-fatigue and frustration. 

Do you think Adorno's two types of behavior toward music in general are accurate?  One as the rhythmically obedient and susceptible to authoritarianism, the other as emotional catharsis of frustration?