Butler on Performative Acts/ Utterances

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCVGpvzcHko

In Bo Burnham’s comedy show “What,” he performs a song called “Repeat Stuff.”   The whole song itself is essentially a giant tweak on a performative act and utterance, but I want to focus particularly on the part where Bo entices his live audience to repeat “repeat stuff” with him and he suddenly stands up and begins engaging in the Nazi march salute.  This salute in it’s original context stands for an allegiance to the Nazi Regime that Hitler created during WWII.  It signifies dedication to their cause of eliminating those who they would consider undesirable and in “purifying” their land.  When Bo does this, he is alluding not only to his live audience blindly following him, but also to the individuals who feed into mainstream music culture and how they are almost hypnotized by an industry that is designed to manipulate their audience to sell more records.  Bo is suggesting with this gesture while saying repeat stuff that that like Hitler’s Nazi supporters, mainstream music listeners are supporting an internally destructive cause.  Bo is mocking/ making fun of how unaware these music listeners are and how they mindlessly give into this industry that is honestly detrimental to young woman who are immersed in a world where they are constantly being torn down from the way they look, to what they watch, to how much they eat.  Their image is the center of everything, but at the same time it is under constant scrutiny, so the music industry feeds on that. It presents a seemingly safe place to satisfy that feeling of wanting to be wanted and serves as an escape for young girls, that in reality is just a way for the industry make more money.  It’s rather disgusting and emotionally and mentally jarring.  Not to say that it is nearly as devastating as the holocaust, but still it is a negative movement that is going on and Bo is addressing it in his act in a comical way because well he is a comedian.