Not Like Us – Power, Spectacle, and Subversion in Performance

What happens when a halftime show becomes more than just a performance? When an artist refuses to be confined by the expectations of entertainment and instead transforms the moment into an intellectual intervention?

Kendrick Lamar didn’t just perform—he dismantled, reconstructed, and redefined what it means to occupy the world’s biggest stage. From the deliberate subversion of spectacle to the strategic deployment of silence, every movement, every note, and every disruption carried layers of meaning beyond the music itself.

Is entertainment just another apparatus of control?
Can performance be a form of resistance?
What happens when a stage built for nostalgia becomes a battleground for critical thought?

This episode explores how Lamar’s performance can be understood through the lens of Foucault’s power structures, Deleuze’s concept of disruption, and Nietzsche’s eternal recurrence. We break down how his choices—his refusal to conform, his engagement with historical memory, his manipulation of expectation—mirror deeper philosophical inquiries into control, agency, and subversion.

📖 Books for Further Reading

📖 Discipline and Punish – Michel Foucault
🔹 A foundational exploration of how power operates through spectacle and discipline, shaping behavior in ways we don’t even realize.
🔗 Amazon affiliate link

📖 Difference and Repetition – Gilles Deleuze
🔹 A radical rethinking of repetition as a force of disruption rather than monotony, crucial to understanding the strategic subversions at play in artistic performance.
🔗 Amazon affiliate link

📖 The Birth of Tragedy – Friedrich Nietzsche
🔹 Explores the tension between order and chaos in art, mirroring how Lamar balances structured performance with raw improvisational force.
🔗 Amazon affiliate link

📖 The Society of the Spectacle – Guy Debord
🔹 A seminal text analyzing how modern society turns everything into spectacle, echoing the Super Bowl’s transformation of performance into commodified entertainment.
🔗 Amazon affiliate link

📖 Specters of Marx – Jacques Derrida
🔹 A study of absence and presence in cultural memory, resonating with Lamar’s use of silence, symbolism, and historical allusions in his performance.
🔗 Amazon affiliate link

☕ Support The Deeper Thinking Podcast – Buy Me a Coffee!

Love our deep-dive discussions on philosophy, culture, and power? Your support helps us:
✅ Produce more in-depth episodes with expert insights
✅ Cover research & hosting costs to keep content free for all

Every coffee fuels our mission to think deeper, ask better questions, and share knowledge with our community.

➡️ Buy Me a Coffee Here

🔎 Further Research on Perplexity.ai

The Role of Spectacle in Power Structures

Deleuze’s Theories of Subversion in Art

The Philosophy of Absence and Presence

🎧 Listen Now On:
🔹 YouTube
🔹 Spotify
🔹 Apple Podcasts

🔥 Exclusive Offer: Get Surfshark VPN

Our team relies on Surfshark VPN for secure, unrestricted access to global content across laptops, phones, and TV. It enables us to bypass regional restrictions while protecting our online privacy.

➡️ Get Surfshark VPN here and start browsing securely!