Protest goes Pop - from Little Mix to Beyonce

The New Statesman writes on pop and fashion's taste for protest - in symbols, at least, at the moment, looking at Beyonce and Little Mix (above), among others. Here's the closing paragraph:

The fear is that when protests become trendy, they co-opt genuine movements for capitalist aims (the Pepsi ad is a case in point). But music videos, which aren’t quite adverts but also aren’t quite straightforward works of art isolated from a capitalist system, are trickier to ethically pin down. I’m sure there’s plenty that could be seen as problematic at work in all three of these videos, but if a young girl watches a fun, exciting, sexy video like Little Mix’s “Power” and is introduced to wider concepts of feminism, then I’m all for it. Even if I won’t be holding a “Make Fashion Not War” sign any time soon.

We also note the #shevotes campaign, which virally exploded in the last two weeks of the recent UK general election, and which equally mobilised pop culture and fashion to its end