I couldn't help but notice a trend in social media throughout the Halftime performance of this year's Super Bowl. As we all know, Beyonce Knowles was this year's superstar performer. Beyonce, who's recognition for her incredible voice is only rivaled by the attention devoted to staring at her famous body, put on a fantastic performance in a less than modest outfit. This outfit only encouraged the remarks that inevitably followed. Twitter was bombarded with "Damn, those legs.." and "What I would give.." with almost no mention of her actual performance.
Then came out the rest of Destiny's Child, and the tone and content of my Twitter newsfeed shifted from focusing on Beyonce's looks to excitement about the reunion, and how "Destiny's Child's Still Got It!" The rest of the tweets that I saw about the halftime performance focused exclusively on the performance itself and its musical and entertainment value.
After 10 minutes or so of Beyonce being visually picked apart on stage alone, the addition of two more main performers in the spotlight caused the performance to be considered more than her looks. I wonder if one woman on stage just seems more vulnerable and easier to objectify than 3 women on stage. She becomes part of a group, part of something that is seen as more competent and worthy of musical respect than just one scantily clad female on stage.
Maybe this has some relation to sport. We make a huge fuss about Danica Patrick's sexuality and looks, because she is one woman alone. If she was in an all-women's division of Nascar, would she still be seen as sexy and worthy of all this attention?
I like your take on the halftime show this year and how social media dicussed every aspect of Beyonce's performance. I was updating my Twitter feed about every five minutes because I wanted to see what people were discussing the most and you and I must of had the same discussions. I watched the Super Bowl with my roommate and he seemed to follow along with looks rather than talent relating to Beyonce and Destiny's Child by saying typical men gestures. To answer your final question, I definitely believe if she was apart of an all-female Nascar division she would still be among the one with the most attention. I think she would be as one of the best as well as her image making her image that much better. I also think all the females would be just as sexualized as Danica if there was such a division.
ReplyDelete- Jeff Kravetz
This is a very good interpretation of this year’s half time show. Along with this class and all of my other classes we talked about how social media was blown up by Beyonce performance. I noticed on my social media feeds that 90% of people were talking about Beyonce’s looks and appearance rather than her performance. The funny thing I noticed though was more females were complementing Beyonce's looks rather than males. I think it is a good that you brought this up. I really like your blog entry and your points that you make.
ReplyDelete-John Ruppert
This is a very good explanation and it really opened my eyes. I never thought that whether someone was a solo performer, or in a group, should make a difference i social media. In fact, after doing some research it did make a difference. I was with a lot of people during the halftime show and a lot of the girls were complementing on Beyonce's looks just like John said. This surprised me because girls usually never compliment another celebrity's looks like they did Beyonce's. Once the other two members of Destiny's child came on, everyone was complementing the performance rather than the looks. I did not think twice about this when it happened but after reading this blog I completely agree with what was written.
ReplyDelete-Tad Margolies
This is a very interesting blog post and I like how you focused it on the halftime performance this year featuring Beyonce. I myself was refreshing my twitter feed every few minutes to see what all my followers were either posting or re-tweeting about Beyonce. I agree that she is an excellent singer but I really just disproved of the outfit she wore on national television where there were all sorts of age watching the performance. A lot of my twitter feed was filled with what she looked like, stating how she looked like she never had a baby and the way that she can dance. It would have been nice to see more tweets or comments about her performance than her appearance.
ReplyDelete--Lindsey Landversicht
I like how you went about this blog post when it comes to Beyonce. When you think into it like that, it does seem like people do feel that women are more vulnerable when they are alone on stage. It is crazy how the twitter feed changed that drastically once Destiny's Child was reunited on stage. However, I feel that all female actresses bring the comments upon themselves because of the way they dress. Clearly it is up to them what they want people to think about when they are on stage, but sometimes it is better to avoid the sexual comments. I also like the question at the end, because that is truly something to think about when it comes to Danica Patrick.
ReplyDeleteDan Pesato