Student Question
Summarize and explain the significance of Gil Scot-Heron's "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised".
Quick answer:
Gill Scott-Heron's poem and song "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" takes a slogan used by the Black Panthers in the 1960s and uses it to construct a detailed protest against the passive, anodyne nature of mainstream American culture.
Gil Scott-Heron's "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" is a poem and a song. It was first recorded in 1970 for Scott-Heron's debut album Small Talk at 125th and Lenox, in which he recites the poem, accompanied by drums. A version accompanied by a full band appeared next year in the album Pieces of a Man (recording attached below).
The first verse states that you will not be able to stay at home and watch the revolution, tuning out from time to time and stopping for commercial breaks, because the revolution will not be televised. This phrase is not only the title, but is repeated over and over again throughout the poem.
The second verse makes a similar point. The revolution will not be a product brought to you by familiar faces from politics and pop culture. In the third and fourth verses, Scott-Heron adds that the revolution will...
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not feature movie stars, nor will it make you thinner or prettier. It will not conform to any of your personal preoccupations, which you have derived from the bland, inactive consumer culture in which you live.
The remaining five verses reiterate these points. The revolution will not be televised because it will not be a media circus, containing all the familiar images you are accustomed to seeing on television. Scott-Heron incorporates the names of popular television shows and product slogans, as well as stock images from news and cinema footage, to emphasize everything that the revolution will not be. The final verse, the tenth, repeats the refrain:
The revolution will not be televised
Will not be televised
Will not be televised
Will not be televised
The revolution will be no re-run, brothers
The revolution will be live
The title is a slogan that was used in the Black Power Movement during the 1960s, and Scott-Heron elaborates on its two central messages. The revolution will not be televised because it will be a live, vibrant event, not a spectator sport. It will also not be televised because it will be a revolution against television, and the anodyne televisual culture the poem describes. The poem has been highly influential in popular culture, and is regularly named as one of the great pieces of political and protest poetry of the twentieth century.
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