The Super Bowl is a significant sporting event in America. It is the final game of the United States National Football League. The winning team determines the season’s champion and is crowned the ‘World Champions’. During the Super Bowl, there is a tradition of an entertainment performance midway through the game, during which a famous artist performs some of their hit songs.
Grammy and Pulitzer Prize-winning rapper Kendrick Lamar gave this year’s Super Bowl Halftime performance. He performed multiple of his most famous songs and featured SZA in their song ‘All the Stars,’ which was included in the Black Panther movie. Though the overall performance was undeniably a great way to engage the crowd while being exciting and entertaining, Kendrick Lamar’s performance has generated conversations about racism and equality in American society through powerful symbolic messages embedded throughout the entire halftime show.
The performance opens with critically acclaimed actor Samuel L. Jackson, who states, ‘Salutations, it’s your Uncle Sam, and this is the great American game’. Immediately, Jackson is dressed as Uncle Sam, known to be the notorious personification of the United States, usually associated with a figure with long white hair and chin whiskers and dressed in a tailed coat, tall hat, and striped trousers. Jackson appears multiple times throughout the performance, playing the part of a narrator. Later on, after Lamar plays two of his songs, ‘Humble’ and ‘Squabble Up, he appears again saying ‘No no no, too loud, too, reckless, too ghetto, Mr Lamar do you know how to play the game? Then tighten up!’.
The microaggressions ‘too loud, too reckless, too ghetto’ are typically associated with black people, often by white people who view them with the stereotype of being overly emotional or dangerous or associating black culture in itself as something ‘ghetto’. Through this, Jacksons’ take on Uncle Sam, who criticises Lamar’s performance, may symbolise how American society looks down upon black people, which is culturally relevant to the re-election of Trump, who is believed by a proportion of society to be racist. Jackson also tells the scorekeeper to ‘deduce one life’, which is a reference to the way that black people in America are the victims of police brutality in comparison to white people.
While teasing his performance of the song ‘Not Like Us’ for which he won 5 Grammys, Lamar says, ‘40 acres and a mule, this is bigger than the music. For many, this reference was not recognised, but it was the promise made to former slaves after the Civil War to give the former slaves land and a mule as reparations. It was broken after 6 months and resulted in only some land being provided and no mule, but after a while, it was demanded back. Many have commended Kendrick for this and for giving a chance for society to become more educated about black history, which is often forgotten or dismissed. During ‘Humble’, the dancers surrounding Kendrick are arranged in order of the American flag according to the colour of their outfits. The dancers begin to march militantly down the stairs, and scatter after the sound of gunshots is mimicked, which symbolises gun violence in the US and how it disrupts the natural order of life in America due to the constant fear.
It’s indisputable that Kendrick Lamar’s performance was not only entertaining but also carried a powerful message. It will be remembered historically along with other famous Half-time performances as it continues to be a conversation on social media globally.
By Shannon
Winchmore School Newsroom