Abstract
How does social critique work in popular culture? The critical capacity of popular culture has both been categorically denied and emphatically affirmed. In the spirit of the pragmatic sociology of critique, this chapter makes no such assumptions but instead asks how social critique in popular culture actually works. To this end, we analyse Beyonce Knowles’ Formation (2016). We argue that the success of social critique in popular culture depends on whether it adheres to specific rules of legitimate representation. According to our analysis, legitimate representation requires a dialectic of both distinction and identification between the critic and the victims of the denounced injustice. We illustrate how Formation invests in this dialectic by means of various manoeuvres and systematic switching between different orders of worth. In doing so, Formation cautiously pre-empts potential counter-critiques—which ultimately limits its critical capacity.
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