Analysis Essay on Rae Alexandra
📌Category: | Events, Life, Literature, Writers |
📌Words: | 1115 |
📌Pages: | 5 |
📌Published: | 11 June 2021 |
There is nothing more American than an annual football event, where the entire country comes together to view one of the most-watched television events in the world: the Super Bowl. One aspect of the event, the halftime show, is unlike any other live performance in American television. The article “The Weird and (Not Very) Wonderful History of the Super Bowl Halftime Show” by Rae Alexandra discusses how the show’s history has impacted pop culture, especially in recent years. Amongst these impacts was also the effect on internet culture, discussed in this secondary article called “How Janet Jackson’s Super Bowl ‘Wardrobe Malfunction’ Helped Start YouTube” by Hugh McIntyre. These articles will be examined on their ability to maintain interest to the current-day audience, whether or not they rule their own biases out, and how clear they make the connection between the show and pop culture.
In Alexandra’s article, she discusses this history of the halftime show, focusing on how it was not always a significant event, and instead was a performance that consisted of college marching bands and D-list celebrities. She highlights the significance of Michael Jackson’s 1993 performance, and how the standards for a high-budget show, featuring chart-topping singers, were set from that point. Alexandra also mentioned the influence and popularity of the show, with almost 150 million viewers solely in the US. This influence is further discussed in McIntyre’s article, where he says the Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction led to one of the most controversial live television moments of all time, and how it led to the creation of the popular video streaming service YouTube.
Both of these articles explain and delve into the topic well, and connect it to current events despite the history of the show going back to the 1960s. Alexandra’s topic captures the reader’s attention right away by mentioning iconic performances, such as Michael Jackson’s, or how performances have united the country, such as U2’s performance after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. She uses these well-known events as a hook before moving toward the lesser known history of the show, which could shock the reader as Alexandra shows a stark contrast from the current day shows to the boring, lackluster performances of the 20th century. This contrast could drive further interest in the reader, as seeing something known so well around the world in such a different light can be striking. Alexandra has an interesting take on the previous strange performances as, somehow, entertaining because of how bad they are. This can actually make the reader want to research the topic more and find more documentation of older performances, solely to see how terrible they actually were. One of her final points addresses the reader, stating how if future halftime shows don’t leave the reader pleased, they should remember how different and forgettable the event used to be, leaving the reader more appreciative of the event. McIntryre’s article also maintains reader interest quite well, but he takes a different approach than Alexandra. He plays on the drama and controversy surrounding a certain show instead, discussing how the show resulted in a ruined career and the birth of a new social media site. These two outcomes from a show seem bizarre, and this alone can make the reader want to learn more about the event, even though it occurred in 2004. His discussion on the controversy and lasting impact of this certain performance is dramatic and intense, yet still staying true to the facts on what happened with Janet Jackson’s career.
Since this is a subject of pop culture, opinionated/persuasive statements and personal biases are inevitable. Opinions can be used to persuade the reader to take a side in a controversy. Because of this, both of these articles falter at times for this criterion. McIntyre’s article, when discussing how Janet Jackson’s career was affected by the 2004 controversy, expressed disappointment in the situation as if he wished it never happened. His last sentence states that Janet was one of the best stars before this event. Although many will agree with this statement, it shows bias toward her side in the controversy, instead of going further into detail in the damage her career faced. Alexandra’s article also shows a bias, but not toward any particular person. Her bias shows a distaste for halftime shows that occurred before 1993, and a few instances of criticism for recent shows that did not please her as much as the others. The latter doesn’t affect the views of the reader much, but her narrative of how “horrible” the show was before Michael Jackson changed the standards are extremely apparent. Of course, this narrative does make the subject more interesting to the reader, but in the sense that the era of marching bands and historical reenactments was something to laugh at. Her interpretation of the history of the show was that it was never done right before 1993, where she could have instead viewed it as a process of evolution from marching band to chart-topping performer.
The connection between the show and pop-culture is a necessary point to make when discussing the show’s impact. Both of these articles elaborate on this fairly well, especially with their statistics on the shows and examples that are still well known within the online community. Alexandra’s article points out the millions of annual viewers for this event, and she references the well-known performances and how fondly they are remembered by the general public. She lists off the memes and odd moments in these performances, and how long they have lasted in discussion on the internet. McIntyre’s article actually uses this connection to pop culture as its main focus. Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunction happened at a time where the internet was a completely different place than it is currently, but the effects of the incident are still being felt today. He shows how the enormous popularity of the incident in 2004 led to the founder of YouTube creating a site that was bought by Google, and how many people now use the website as their main source of entertainment, news, or music. This site has created sources of income for thousands of people, as well as many influencers and celebrities. He also mentions the loss of a portion of pop culture by pointing out how successful Janet was before this incident, giving examples of how her album sales decreased significantly after the controversy.
Alexandra and McIntyre both provided compelling perspectives on the halftime show. They provided credible and relevant arguments, and they also clearly showed their connection to how pop and internet culture have developed into what it is today. Alexandra gave an informative, yet interesting account of the show, and McIntyre discusses how one of the most popular video sharing sites was a result of a controversial halftime show. These two articles showed how influential the show is, despite their biases being exposed at times. Pop culture is expected to have biases, and it’s difficult when writing an informative article to rule this out. Both of these articles were not able to do this, unfortunately. Despite this, Alexandra and McIntyre both prove that the halftime show is one of the most significant American events, and its impact will sweep pop and internet culture for years to come.