What question did this study set out to answer?

The essay investigates how misogynoir influences perceptions of Black women's performances compared to those of Black men.

January 23, 2026

A Revolution (Un)Televised: On Misogynoir and the Limits of Our Imaginations

Key Points

The essay investigates how misogynoir influences perceptions of Black women's performances compared to those of Black men.
Analyzes Kendrick Lamar's Super Bowl performance from February 2025.
Compares Lamar's performance with Beyonce's earlier appearance at the same venue.
Utilizes the framework of misogynoir to explore societal perceptions.
Identifies failure to categorize Black performances under the same frameworks due to gender biases.
Illustrates how revolutionary acts are often associated with cisgender Black men.
Highlights the erasure of Black women's contributions in the cultural narrative.

Abstract

Abstract: This essay explores the radical potential of Black performance in the mainstream public through the lens of Kendrick Lamar's February 2025 performance at the Super Bowl. By comparing this performance to Beyonce's appearance at the same venue nearly a decade earlier, I argue that the failure to categorize the two events under the same logics—both rooted in capitalism, consumption, branding, and the symbolic—we also fail to reckon with the ways revolutionary acts are too often affixed to the bodies of cisgender, heteronormative Black men. Using the theoretical framework of misogynoir, a term coined by Black Feminist Moya Bailey, I illustrate the ways that, even in hypervisible positions, many Black women's radical worldmaking efforts are misperceived, erased, and overlooked.

اسأل الذكاء الاصطناعي

Bookmark