The Super Bowl Halftime Show
Photo credit: Sports Illustrated
The Super Bowl halftime show has become a visible and representative battleground, a historic stage upon which American ideals, injustices and cultural ideologies are exercised and contested.
In this book project in progress, we argue that the halftime show -- historically constructed as an entertainment spectacle -- alerts us to larger cultural collisions, injustices and structures of power that at once reconfigure and reconstruct popular notions of American identity and the role and place of artists and athletes.
Considered one of the most coveted stages in the world, the opportunity to perform at the halftime show, while unpaid, positions artists among a select and elite roster of musical acts and promises a key boost in post-performance artist sales. Through a close reading of the first sixty years of Super Bowl halftime shows, we explore the historical collisions between sports, music, activism and performance at the halftime show and trace the evolution of the show itself as it has evolved–from its former tradition of featuring local marching bands and drill teams to today’s highly-anticipated selections of global mainstream artists and pop stars.