Spectacle and performance seem—at first—similar. However, based on my close reading of works that reference these two terms, I find that they have different meanings. The term “performance,” as I discuss here, centers the intentions and actions of performers, whether they are authors like Hurston, community members like the storytellers of Shankleville, nations like Germany, or literal performers like dancers in the BTJ/AZ dance company. Spectacle, on the other hand, focuses on an audience’s perception of a performance. Shea Murphy’s discussion of Bill T. Jones’ fifth Eliza in his performance piece Last Supper at Uncle Tom’s Cabin/The Promised Land places the two terms alongside each other, offering an illustrative example of their difference. Shea Murphy refers to the cross-dressing Eliza’s “hip-swinging act” as “performance,” demonstrating the connection between the actor’s intentionally chosen movements and his public-facing presentation of his identity (Shea Murphy 96). “Performance” thus centers his own choices and actions. In contrast, Shea Murphy discusses his action as “a trickster-ish parody of the gay man as spectacle” to call out audience perception of queerness as a show for them to witness (95, emphasis added). Shea Murphy’s analysis thus separates performance and spectacle, creating space to discuss the terms as distinct concepts.
Ken Gonzales-Day explores lynching as spectacle in the first chapter of his book Searching for California’s Hang Trees. He notes that public executions were outlawed in California in 1872; however, vigilante hangings—or rather, lynchings—continued throughout the 1800s. This intentional “public display” framed lynchings as shows for onlookers to witness, or rather, as “spectacles” (Gonzales-Day 54). Even when lynchings were privately held, their spectacular element continued via lynching postcards (56).
Throughout his discussion of lynchings and lynching postcards, Gonzales-Day employs “spectacle” to reference white communities’ collective witness of lynched bodies. He also highlights spectacle’s dependence on media like photographs. “The photographic flash,” he contends, made lynchings particularly spectacular by allowing lynched bodies to be viewed and viewed again as static objects without “humanity” (60). That camerawork encouraged its audience to think of lynching not as murder, but merely as an event to witness—as spectacle (53). It thus reinforced power structures wherein white “vigilantes” could enforce “lynch law” without consequences (50, 41).
Like Gonzales-Day, Mat Johnson and Warren Pleece explore lynching as spectacular in their graphic novel Incognegro. Incognegro opens with lynching perpetuators paying Zane, the graphic novel’s protagonist, to take photos of them in front of the Black person they have murdered. These characters understand lynching as a public event to be viewed and shared, or rather, as spectacle (Johnson and Pleece 9). Their understanding of lynching as spectacle becomes even more explicit in Pleece’s opening illustration, wherein an entire white community gathers to witness a hanging Black body (7). The community’s confidence that they can murder a Black man without consequences encourages them to conduct and photograph the lynching in the first place. However, their confidence also allows Zane to collect their personal information as he takes their photographs, then prosecute them for their crimes (9). A parallel situation arises later in the novel, when white vigilantes treat Carl’s lynching as a spectacle because they know that they will not face legal repercussions for murdering him (108). However, their relaxed security while they gather for the spectacle allows Zane to sneak into jail and rescue his brother Alonzo (113-123). Johnson and Pleece’s understanding of spectacle thus departs from Gonzales-Day’s assertion that treating lynching as spectacle reduces perception of white vigilantes’ criminality. Instead, lynching spectacles reinforce one of the graphic novel’s themes: whiteness’ self-confidence is incredibly dangerous to Black people but also creates opportunities for subversion and resistance.
A Non-Scholar’s Perspective: Kendrick Lamar
Kendrick Lamar’s halftime performance at the 2025 Super Bowl also introduces subversion through spectacle. Traditionally, the Super Bowl halftime show acts as a spectacle by providing scripted entertainment for the American public, but that spectacular element is not all fun and games. Instead, national emphasis on the Super Bowl—and, by extension, its halftime show—is problematic because it engages the nation’s attention at the expense of other, pressing social and political issues (Bory). Lamar highlights this spectacular aspect and its complex implications by framing his performance within the announcements of “Uncle Sam” (Bory; Lamar 0:0:23). Uncle Sam proclaims his enthusiasm for “the great American game” and subsequently insists that Lamar play by the rules rather than continue his “too loud, too reckless, too ghetto” performance (Lamar 0:0:23; 0:02:52). By supporting the status quo rather than Lamar’s lyric- and performance-grounded recognition of injustices, Uncle Sam parallels minstrel shows’ “Uncle Tom” caricature, which was designed to depicted Black people as contented participants in racist social hierarchies (Lamar; Riggs). This character-to-character resonance suggests a broader similarity between the American spectacle of the SuperBowl and America’s history of of minimizing issues of racism and oppression. Throughout his performance, Lamar pushes back against both issues by explicitly contradicting and disobeying Uncle Sam. Then, at the end of the show, Lamar demands that viewers “turn this TV off” and stop engaging with the spectacle of the Super Bowl (Lamar). Yet of course, he makes this demand through the Super Bowl’s halftime show, a spectacle in and of itself (Bory). By employing the tools of spectacular entertainment to call attention to spectacle’s oppressive uses, Lamar’s performance, like Johnson and Pleece’s graphic novel, undermines those oppressive uses from within their own structure.
