“Public discourse says not only: ‘Let a public exist,’ but: ‘Let it have this character, speak this way, see the world in this way.’” (Warner, 82)
Gil Scott Heron’s “The Revolution will not be Televised”, recorded in 1970, cites the popular slogan of the 60’s Black Power movement. It’s iconic tagline and call to action became an anthem for revolutionary counterpublics addressing more than just race, and continues to be used to criticize the consumerism of traditional media. Through its wry and mocking portrayal of white-dominated television, the piece facilitated the emergence of its black counterpublic into the rhetoric of a broader, “stronger” public.
The initial audience of Heron’s work was small and exclusive to the black community. He uses the term “brother” to refer to his audience, alluding to it’s black and close-knit nature. This is further solidified by the phrase near the end of the text “The revolution will not be right back / after a message about a white tornado, white lightning, or white people”. Here he clearly defines that his audience is not “white people”. Distinctions like these allow Heron to define his audience from the television “public”. Unlike the tv audience, his public is clearly black, and clearly not included in the standard rhetorical imaginings of public television.
Secondarily, he defines his public as anti-consumerism and anti-establishment. References to Xerox, and shows in “four parts without commercial interruption”, mock the shallow and marketing-oriented nature of popular media. Repeated use of the phrase “revolution” as well as the single stand-out line in the song which states, “the revolution will put you in the driver’s seat” appeal to those listeners who see revolution and control as positive things. Later, he uses this to bridge the gap between his black (revolutionary, anti-consumer) counterpublic and broader counterpublics.
As an element of the counterpublic the piece draws attention to the gap of imagining of a presumably “comprehensive” media. Heron consistently contrasts the shallow nature of news commentary with the continued ideographic image of “the revolution”, solidifying his criticism. Repetition of the phrase “There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down brothers in the instant replay,” compared to the benign images of “Jackie Onassis blowing her nose” or scenes from soap operas clearly highlight the need for change. From this Heron establishes that the disconnect between television and the black public is not only an irony to be satirized but also a problem of discrimination and mis-representation.
The goal of the piece is not only to mock what was broadly considered “public” rhetoric and how it misrepresented the black public, but also to incite action from the audience. Implicit in the phrase, “the revolution will not be televised” is the notion that the public can not wait for “The Revolution™” to be publicized to begin it. One can imagine Heron writing a line like “Organizers will not meet in the Civic Center to discuss an outline of the event”. Instead, he highlights his audience’s collective imagining of revolution to remind them that inherent in the black public’s image of revolution should be the understanding that it will not happen if dependant on such conventional, white, means. His scathing review of what forms public media for his black audience reminds them that they can not rely on it to represent their interests, revolutionary or otherwise.
Heron relies a lot on public imaginings of big ideographs like Revolution, and The News to illustrate the criticism he is making of convention, and to raise the action he looks for. Ansen cites a writer, Castoriadis, to “describe how imagining institutes society”. Castoriadis “maintains that some imagined concepts--he references terms such as “citizen,” “justice,” “money,” and others--serve a central role in structuring societies” (Ansen, 350). Here, “the revolution” and “the news” are similarly important imagined concepts for Heron’s public. His use of “the revolution” relies on existing collective imaginings of revolution. He utilizes the patriotic and romanticized connotations of revolution in American culture, particularly youth culture, to make the goal of his piece (action) more attractive to its audience. This approach is later abandoned when discussing “the news” where he instead wishes to modify current collective imagining. The news as Heron illustrates it is not just a single channel, it does not even reference only television, but the broader institution of media which proclaims to be “public” for everyone and yet clearly does not include Roy Wilkins, Whitney Young, or the rest of the affected black community. He uses these illustrations to shift how his black counterpublic imagines the news. Ansen discusses this effect, describing how “...the “collective” modifying [the] collective imagining suggests that social dialogue enables the formation of opinions that did not exist prior to discursive engagement” (Ansen, 349). Heron’s piece intends to do just that, to take the existing imaginations of The News which his public has and to shape it in such a way that it re-enforces the necessity of his call for action.
This modification of the collective imagining is not limited to Heron’s original black counterpublic, it’s purpose is best served by reaching, and modifying the rhetoric of a broader public. Surrounded by the uproar of student protests across the country, including the events at Kent State, his message addresses not only the black public but youthful revolutionaries of all races. It is not hard to see the interpretation of Heron’s text which satires any older consumerist establishment of public discourse. The fact that it does this is what makes the song still relevant and still inspiring to contemporary counterpublics (of any race). Although it mainly addresses a black counterpublic, the call to action can be applied to a much broader audience. Satire makes the criticism more accessible. Allowing the original “weak” public to begin to transition into the larger, stronger (better able to affect change), broader revolutionary public. It is no longer the young black revolutionary counterpublic, it is simply the young revolutionary counterpublic.
If you want to make comments on specific wording or phrases *cough* professor *cough* I slightly prefer them to be on the google doc, which you can find here.
