The plot of Fritz Lang’s enigmatic 1927 silent film Metropolis revolves around a group of powerful elites determined to maintain their hold over the masses. To do so, they set out to invent artificial crises with the intention to set the everyday folk against each other and thus distract them from the real crisis of the elite’s inordinate and corrupt power. In an attempt to mask their efforts, they craftily pluck a girl from among the masses—one of “their own kind”—to do their dirty work of fomenting this false antagonism and drag her people into chaos and disorder.

　　Plenty of doomsday prophets and conspiracy theorists have used Lang’s film to fuel their apocalyptic read on current events. As much as the musings of those prone to magical thinking ought to be heeded with caution, there are often hints of truth—at least in a symbolic or metaphorical sense—within such hyperbolic narratives. In his recent book We Have Never Been Woke, sociologist Musa al-Gharbi warns that much of today’s “culture war” polemics—whether left-wing calls to #resisthate or right-wing disillusionment with hypocritical, “elitist” PC rules—distract from bread-and-butter issues that actually impact everyday folk, and thus further entrench the status quo. This mode of political rhetoric is propagated by “symbolic capitalists”—a term he borrows from Pierre Bordieu—whose commitment to the underdogs is ultimately performative and self-serving.

　　Al-Gharbi’s work sheds light on the slew of celebrities endorsing politicians under the guise of “giving a voice to the people”—from the likes of Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, Bad Bunny, and Charlie XCX endorsing Kamala Harris, and Hulk Hogan, Jason Aldean, Amber Rose, and Fat Joe endorsing Donald Trump in the latest election. Bad Bunny’s career is particularly emblematic of the fixation with surface-level “symbolic” activism.

　　In a chapter for a forthcoming volume on the oeuvre of Bad Bunny, I wrote that the 30-year-old Puerto Rican singer is “a master of the spectacle.” His penchant for attention-grabbing promotional tactics, avant-garde fashion, enigmatic usage of social media, scandalous performances, and outlandish lyrics and music videos embodies theorist Guy Debord’s claim that we are living in an age dominated by sensational public spectacles.

　　Bad Bunny’s endorsement of Harris following comedian Tony Hinchliffe’s off-color “joke” about Puerto Rico at a Trump convention—in the form of a highly-curated video montage of vistas of the island—is only one of many political statements he’s made. From speaking out on trans rights and homophobia, to making a statement about Puerto Rico’s gubernatorial elections last week, Bad Bunny’s received praise for using his celebrity for good.

　　While I’m sure celebrities who make political statements have good intentions, I feel compelled to question the irony of elite figures—especially ones like Bad Bunny whose careers are steeped in our culture of sensational “spectacles”—taking the moral high ground and speaking out on behalf of the people. Beyond the surface, celebs who make political “statements,” seem to be mouthpieces not for “the people,” but for a highly-concentrated matrix of power in which they are deeply entrenched.

　　That those who enjoy Bad Bunny’s music would take political advice from him unveils the totalizing power such spectacular public figures exercise over the public.

　　When someone known for their decadent music and bourgeois lifestyle like Bad Bunny makes such statements about who to vote for and exhorts people to take to the streets to protest, I wonder whether such sensational forms of activism are more likely to yield concrete, grassroots political action or mere symbolic activism that will only serve to foment frustration and social division and thus further weaken the people’s agency, on top of “neutralizing” their concerns by absorbing them into a purely symbolic globalized political discourse.

　　There is something eerily manipulative about a person or outlet that people turn to for entertainment—especially ones backed by corporate money—presuming to speak not only on behalf of the people, but as authorities on political matters. It’s perturbing that a comedy show like SNL, for instance, takes the liberty to step outside the bounds of its intended purpose (to entertain) and hand its viewers political messaging instead. It reveals that sometimes the “cult of celebrity” literally implies that these public figures assume a quasi-deific power, swaying the public’s opinion not so much because of their qualifications but because of their status alone. While of course celebrities can “use their platform for good,” they can just as easily use it to further ends that do not favor the good of those who hang on to their every word. That those who enjoy Bad Bunny’s music would take political advice from him unveils the totalizing, god-like power such spectacular public figures exercise over the public.

　　To that effect, sensational moments like Hinchliffe’s vulgar (and rather unimaginative) comments which generate a slew of public statements “#resisting hate” are part of a seemingly continuous cycle of scandals and outrage that pervade the news cycle. Despite the highly moralistic and alarmist language in which such discourse is encoded, in effect, it does little—if anything—to bring attention to pragmatic issues and inspire grassroots action. Though Metropolis may be a work of fiction, the highly performative nature of these cycles and the division they engender feels uncannily manufactured. And even if they aren’t, they do little to bolster the agency of everyday people against those who determine the status quo.

　　When it comes to Puerto Rico in particular, there is nothing symbolic about the political corruption and a lack of adequate representation and resources its people have had to deal with. One should hope that celebrities’ gestures of solidarity will go beyond symbolism, too, encouraging the island’s youth to “get their hands dirty” and play an active role in proposing concrete measures to bring about lasting change. But those who applaud the “noble” efforts of figures like Bad Bunny whose career is enshrouded in a spectacular aura concocted by corporate elites are, at best, naive.

　　While countless celebrities will continue to engage in symbolic advocacy that does little to afford their fans more agency, we’d do well to look at celebrities like Ms. Lauryn Hill, J. Cole, and Puerto Rico’s own Tego Calderon whose form of political engagement banks less on the sheer power of their status nor on pushing political sentiments that are abstract and divisive, but rather—in a subtle manner—center the concerns and voices of the people themselves.