When Propaganda Infiltrates Art

A short story of awareness and shadow.

A note to readers: This article discusses sensitive topics surrounding abuse of power. You may wish to read at a time when you feel you can handle this discussion, or pass this piece by.

Let us not confuse this scenario with musicians or artists that are blatantly known for their politics. Attending a Roger Waters or Neil Young/Dave Matthews/Farm Aid concert, you fairly know what you’re signing up for. Here, I’m depicting a much subtler form of propaganda, slipped into a scene where a superstar is drawing in, playing with, and potentially taking advantage of human innocence via unseen, shadowy, slippery forms.

Several weeks ago, I had the opportunity to see a master artist perform live – a singer-songwriter I have loved throughout her career. This was likely to be the last time I’d see her in-person, given her age and the amount of money asked for the tickets. This artist is known for creating beauty in music, a hypnotic landscape of love and magic and romanticism, especially surrounding meaningfulness as a woman both sensitive and strong. I’ve seen her perform a few times in the past decades, and it’s always been about heart – a direct experience of passion in the very best way. An encounter with the muse herself.

At this last show, my husband and I were equally drawn in for the ride, grateful for our floor seats – no binoculars or spyglasses needed to see the detail on the stage. We treated ourselves well, had access to a VIP-style lounge, special wristbands and entry points, the whole nine yards.

Gripping each other tightly through the concert, filled with love for each other and for this great singer’s lifetime body of work, we swooned through the songs. She wrapped us up in a cloak of gossamer silk, of fantasies and dreams. As an audience, we were collectively immersed in a high holy experience, enraptured. Tears dribbled down the corners of my eyes, so touched was I. Imaginary butterflies floated across my mind’s eye. So taken was I with emotion that I caught myself in a rare, inadvertent kumbaya moment: as I held my husband’s hand tightly to my left, I spontaneously squeezed the hand of the stranger/new friend next to me, as he gripped back. We’d been geeking out on our shared fandom before the show began.

The whole arena pulsed as a love bubble – a tunnel of love, of nostalgia, of good mojo, of the effect of seeing a genius maestro sharing his gifts one final hour. You get all the juice of that particular show – yes – but you also get the juice of all performances of yore! Of all times you played those songs in your car, while finishing high school, while making out or making love, while going to university, while making it on your own in a new city, while starting a family – you get the picture. The artist’s ouevre represents part of the soundtrack of your own life movie.

As any die-hard music lover can tell you, when it comes to good live performance, it is intimate. It is visceral. It is church.

So buttered up as we all were – this audience of subjects, primed with beating and bleeding hearts peeled wide open – like fatted calves we lay in wait for the next tune to sear our very souls.

But it wasn’t to be a bolt of love, of beauty, no.

Instead, what we got

                                           was

                                                          WAR.

The artist took a hard left – or right as the case may be – to make a statement with a particular point of view about a particular military campaign on a particular plot of soil on our particular planet.

We went from moonbeams and faerie tale scenes, from etheric goddess light and power, to collective Darkness before we had a chance to breathe, before we knew what hit us.

Ostensibly sang and presented as an homage of support for certain individuals fighting for a cause, clearly taking one stand that is – to some people – the stand that we all should embrace. The raw, openhearted audience of thousands had the felt sense of no alternative but to fall in line, to metaphorically bow in obeisance to the singer’s agenda.

Just a few rows away, an invisible male voice belted out, “I STAND WITH _____!” and the chills went down my spine.

“Zip up your energy field and protect yourself,” I hissed at my husband. We both sat down while the rest of the audience remained obediently standing in what felt like a collective Sieg Heil salute.

Images of flags of foreign nations roared on the screen above the stage. Propaganda assaulted the senses – pictures of battles, of children, of citizens, of warlords, of soldiers – all crashing in on us, the captive audience.

The lyrics amplified the images, coaxing us to have a reaction of support for this military action, for that political agenda. Stunned, I staggered to come back to my own energy field, to cling to my internal plumbline, to stay clear and objective to what was happening.

I carefully looked around at the audience members, using my peripheral vision. It seemed the audience had entered into a dream trance – meekly swaying – paying attention like good boys and good girls, maybe clapping or giving an appropriate “ooooh, ahhh” emotional response to a lyric or garish image flashing on the screen.

As an empath, I was awestruck at the collective nervous system falling in lockstep, to an agreed positioning, with no room for any other point of view to express itself in that captive audience. I smelled my own sweat, as my animal instinct kicked in to sense danger. The full arena of 17,000 zeroed in on a specific political message that was war disguised as morale – I daresay it was frightening.

We stayed seated, practicing invisibility and self-censorship out of necessity. I instinctively went to my breath as an anchor and form of protection. In. Out. In. Out. The rest of the throngs remained standing, in formation, absorbing it all sensorially – eyes, ears, body, brainstem. Every minute or so, I looked up to see more propaganda waving on the screen.

“Holy shit! What was that?” we said in each other’s ear after the song was over and we were gratefully redelivered to a Never Never Land of beautiful music, albeit tainted and scratched. My intense, vulnerable love bubble had been shattered in a monumental, instant comedown. Totally saddened, totally surprised at the artist’s move. I felt nauseous, fragmented, in shock.

It all felt so orchestrated, it seemed as such. The lull, the lullaby, the affect which created a certain feeling of trust, of openness, of susceptibility. Of manipulation bordering on the demonic. Preying on the captive crowd. A pulsing thing that cannot be resisted without incurring potentially further, worse consequences. One can only go along and stealthily endure until it is safe to get away from such a mob. The horrors of herd mentality. Extremely frightening and so clearly obvious it can be missed when evoked, so large it is conjured and cultivated right in front of one’s eyes.

Spooky.

As a former therapist and trauma counselor, I’ve seen and studied firsthand how abuse, especially emotional or sexual, occurs in plain sight. It’s like butter, so subtle and smooth you wouldn’t know it’s happening unless you’re trained to spot it. The victims that are fed on, preyed on, are made extra comfy, relaxed, led into a deep state of trust, even bliss. And then, the act of violation, of perpetration occurs in a flash. The cognitive dissonance is so strong, the confusion so massive that it is quickly filed away as, I must be making this up. I must be misunderstanding. I must be over-sensitive. Surely, he/she/it/they couldn’t have meant any harm. If that’s the case, then WHY DO I FEEL LIKE I’VE JUST BEEN ASSAULTED?

Well.

That’s how it happens.

Manipulation. Hijacking of innocent, essential life force energies. Grooming through taking advantage of our loving natures, of romanticization. The play upon our delicate better natures to advance another’s position.

This is why your body is your biggest ally. Pay attention to that natural alarm bell, that limbic wisdom, the nervous system. Guard your conscience, your consciousness. Be aware of what’s being put in there, and check to see if someone else’s agenda is subtly or not so subtly being inserted.

Stay awake. And remember, you are safe. Nothing is ultimately harmful if it is seen, and named, accurately. The shadow that is named and exposed, if only to our own selves, is no longer capable of holding power over. When we are aware, honest and capable of admitting the truth, we are no longer bound. Our job is to see things as they truly are.

When the false is exposed, it has no power over.

We are free. We are free. We are free.