Pop Culture and Social Justice

If art imitates life, then we can get a pretty accurate look at the confluence of contemporary issues through the kaleidoscope that is popular culture.

This year, marquee cultural events Super Bowl 50 and the 58th Annual Grammy Awards featured performances that fine-tuned reflections of social justice. From global superstar Beyonce to breakout Broadway hit Hamilton, pop culture continues to reframe the narrative and offers opportune moments to advance social justice.

“Social justice” is something we constantly integrate into public health. Defined by the United Nations as “an underlying principle for peaceful and prosperous coexistence within and among nations,” we “advance social justice when we remove barriers that people face because of gender, age, race, ethnicity, religion, culture or disability.” This definition is in line with the Mailman School’s Public Health Oath, which begins by declaring: Health is a human right.

In 2007, the UN decreed February 20th to be an annual World Day of Social Justice. As we observe another World Day of Social Justice, it’s a chance for us to move beyond theoretical classroom discussion and into critical engagement. One way to do that is by thinking about how pop culture frames social justice and diffuses it into our everyday lives.

With her Super Bowl halftime show, just 24 hours after the surprise release of latest single “Formation,” Beyonce showed solidarity with the #BlackLivesMatter movement in her performance, complete with an homage to the Black Panther Party on its 50th anniversary. There have been a flurry of reactions on the merits of Beyonce’s activism—dissenters have gone as far as protesting her show for being “anti-police”—but it is undeniable that she made a statement with her performance, unapologetically putting blackness on center stage for millions of viewers.

#BlackLivesMatter, racial inequality, the prison-industrial complex, and black identity also took the stage with Kendrick Lamar at the Grammys. Lamar performed three songs from his album To Pimp A Butterfly, which won this year’s Grammy for Best Rap Album. “This is a political message, but before that it’s a therapeutic message, one about psychology and behavior,” writes Spencer Kornhaber in The Atlantic. “Lamar doesn’t say that through ‘heart, honor, and respect’ alone injustice will be solved. He’s calling for a ‘conversation for the entire nation,’ illuminated by a fire that has been roaring for longer than America has existed.”

The Grammys also highlighted incarceration from a global perspective, with Malawi’s first Grammy nomination going to an unexpected group—inmates from Malawi’s Zomba Central Prison. The group’s album was in the running for the best world music award, giving a voice to an historically voiceless population. Though they didn’t win, their nomination illuminates life behind bars in another country and shows how music can play a role in mitigating the effects of incarceration. The album’s producer, Ian Brennan, is a violence prevention specialist, and taught conflict resolution workshops to inmates and guards while working on the group’s record. “Music and other forms of art are by far the most effective kind of social work that exists,” said Brennan, who has also worked on projects with survivors of the American-Vietnam war and people grappling with the cycle of addiction and recovery.

Social justice themes prevailed further at the Grammys with the airing of a performance of the buzzy Broadway show Hamilton. The hit musical resurrects a mostly forgotten chapter of American history, reclaiming the story of an American Founding Father from textbook depictions by putting a hip-hop spin on it. In creator Lin-Manuel Miranda’s reimagination of Alexander Hamilton’s history, he supplants the white ruling majority with a racially and ethnically diverse cast, reflecting an upending of social hierarchy and dismantling systems of power and oppression. It’s an especially crucial statement today, as disparities in health outcomes and lifespans continue to grow in the U.S. among the poor and racially marginalized due to entrenched social and political systems that disenfranchise rather than empower. Tickets to Hamilton on Broadway are at record-high prices, so for many, the Grammy performance—and forthcoming PBS special—democratize the show and its message, allowing it to spread and inspire.

A combined estimated 136.8 million viewers tuned in for this year’s Super Bowl and Grammy Awards. If trends followed last year, approximately 65 million unique users discussed the Super Bowl in 265 million Facebook posts. And Google noted that people searched “Who is Alexander Hamilton?” four times more than average during the broadcast of the Grammys. It’s further proof that pop culture can be more than just entertainment—it can be a vehicle for social justice, and where we find the “public” in “public health.” 

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