NPR’s “It’s Been a Minute” Returns After Brief Hiatus

In the wake of Beyoncé’s Christmas Day NFL halftime performance in Houston, a cultural debate has emerged about the intersection of art, politics, and propaganda in popular entertainment. The 12-minute spectacle, which drew more than 27 million U.S. viewers, has become the focal point of discussions about how we interpret political imagery in mainstream culture.

The performance featured Beyoncé showcasing her “Cowboy Carter” album with elements of Black Southern rodeo culture, including horses, line dances, and rodeo queens. It also prominently displayed American flags and other symbols of Americana. This imagery prompted a viral TikTok post claiming Beyoncé was “America’s best propagandist,” igniting weeks of online debate.

“All art is political,” argues Dr. Daphne A. Brooks, a music and Black feminism scholar, who takes issue with labeling the performance as propaganda. “Propaganda feels like a flattening out of the ways in which we think about art and cultural performance in this day and age,” she explains, referencing cultural theorist Stuart Hall’s assertion that culture is “not a zero-sum game.”

Dr. Nicholas Cull, a historian specializing in propaganda, similarly finds the term inadequate for describing Beyoncé’s work. “There’s enough real political propaganda in the world attempting to manipulate people into doing things politically, voting one way, invading a particular country, that I’m fully occupied looking into that rather than looking at artists who have a political agenda coming out in their performance,” Cull notes.

The controversy reveals broader anxieties in the current media landscape. In an era of algorithm concerns, disinformation fears, and the upcoming return of a previous administration, public sensitivity to manipulation is heightened. Brooks points to “the extent to which publics are feeling manipulated, feeling vulnerable to the kinds of messages that are generated in a variety of different institutions.”

Cull identifies a dual usage of the term propaganda in the online discourse – one referring simply to political persuasion and another carrying a negative moral judgment about manipulative speech. He traces this ambiguity to the word’s origins in the Catholic Church, noting it has carried negative connotations for some “almost from the moment of its birth.”

Beyoncé’s engagement with the American flag isn’t happening in isolation. Brooks highlights nuances within the performance, including lyrics from “Ya Ya” which contains the pointed line, “whole lot of red in that white and blue,” suggesting critical engagement with American history rather than blind patriotism.

This isn’t the first time Beyoncé has blended politics with performance. Her previous work has included supporting Democratic candidates, wearing Black Panther-inspired costumes at the 2016 Super Bowl, and visual statements like posing atop a sinking New Orleans police car in “Formation.” Her relationship with the NFL itself, alongside husband Jay-Z, came after the league faced criticism over its handling of Colin Kaepernick’s protests.

Both scholars emphasize the importance of critical media literacy when consuming political imagery. “The first thing everyone has to ask themselves when consuming media is, why are they telling me this?” Cull suggests. “People don’t look for the motive behind the message.”

Cull challenges the common understanding of propaganda as an idea transmitted from one mind to another. “The most effective propaganda is when a communicator recognizes what’s already in my head and then affirms it with their messaging,” he explains. “Maybe what Beyoncé is doing that is like a propagandist is connecting to these images that are important to people because they’re images of America, images of Texas, images of rodeo culture, and she’s putting herself in there.”

Brooks encourages audiences to examine the narratives within performances: “What is the story that’s being told? What are the aesthetics that are gripping you? What kind of spectacle is holding your attention? And then what do you think of that narrative?”

The debate surrounding Beyoncé’s performance reflects recurring cycles of propaganda concerns in American history. As Cull notes, similar panics emerged after the American Revolution, World War I, and during the McCarthy era – perhaps an inherent function of democratic society where “forming people’s ideas is going to be inherently controversial.”