The Sound of Victory: Politics of Performance at the Super Bowl Halftime Show
Dr. Courtney Cox (University of Oregon) and Dr. Perry Johnson (University of Southern California)
thesoundofvictory.org
Friday April 25, 2025
Sport, Sound, and the Digital is committed to promoting accessibility in all facets of its activities. Closed Captions are available by clicking the CC icon in the bottom right corner of the video player. Click here to download a full transcript of the webinar.
This webinar explores the cultural and political dynamics of the NFL’s Super Bowl Halftime Show. Dr. Cox and Dr. Johnson’s presentation highlights important historical moments in the cultural history of these Halftime Show performances and traces their connection to broader conceptions of nation, militarization, commercialization, gender, and race – as well as critically examining the complex relationships between American nationalism, football, and popular music.
Note: Videos displayed as part of the live webinar are not included in the posted recording. You can view these videos by following the links below:
- Lady Gaga’s 2017 Super Bowl Halftime Show
- Jennifer Lopez and Shakira’s 2020 Super BowlHalftime Show
- The Netflix documentary Halftime (2022) featuring J’Lo (subscription required)
- Kendrick Lamar’s 2025 Super Bowl Halftime Show
- Al Jazeera interview with Zul-Qurnain Nantambu about his act of protest at the 2025 Halftime Show
- The 1991 “All Kids” Super Bowl Halftime Show featuring a message from President Bush
Speakers
Dr. Courtney Cox is an assistant professor in the Department of Indigenous, Race, and Ethnic Studies at the University of Oregon. She studies how sports intersect with social issues related to identity, labor, technology, and media. Dr. Cox is the author of the book Double Crossover: Gender, Politics, and Performance in Basketball, which considers how Black women and non-binary athletes maneuver through the global sports-media complex.
Dr. Perry Johnson is a lecturer, music scholar, and cultural historian at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California. Perry’s research explores how music and popular culture intersect with American cultural histories with a focus on archives, public scholarship, power, identity, and belonging.
Dr. Cox and Dr. Johnson co-direct the Sound of Victory: an interdisciplinary, multi-platform digital initiative dedicated to investigating the historical relationship between music/sound and sport. The Sound of Victory website includes more details about their academic projects, a historical timeline of the Super Bowl Halftime Show, specially curated music playlists, and a podcast series featuring conversations with distinguished guest about the connections between sports and music. You can find out more by visiting thesoundofvictory.org.
This event was moderated by Dr. Matt Ventresca (Georgia Tech) with opening remarks from Dr. Mary McDonald (Georgia Tech).
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivs 4.0 International License
For more information visit: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/