Professor Nathian Rodriguez’s course, ‘Bad Bunny: Perreo, Performance and Pop Culture Politics’ at SDSU is not new. However, this spring marks the first semester the course was offered to undergraduate students in addition to graduate students.
This is also far from the first time Rodriguez has taught a course centered on a public figure. In previous semesters, he taught a class about late Tejano star Selena Quintanilla, emphasizing the importance of Latino representation in media.
“I [choose] one celebrity, and they’re like, the cultural anchor,” Rodriguez said. “It’s really to help students – to meet them where they are at and help them understand the theoretical book side. And now it’s actually being applied in real time.”
Rodriguez has always been interested in pop culture. Having studied communications, media, public relations and journalism throughout his decorated career, he uses pop culture to teach media literacy to his students.
Rodriguez mentioned that, despite being a Hispanic-Serving Institution, SDSU lacked courses regarding Hispanic/Latino culture. While the graduate version of the course received a lot of buzz on local media in 2022, he noted a change in student enrollment since opening up the course to undergraduates.
“I have students from all across campus,” Rodriguez said. “There’s some from criminal justice, nursing, business, computer science, English, poli-sci, music, etc. …When they see themselves represented, they want to know more about the culture. So, of course they’re going to take this elective.”
Recent studies show that students excel in academic settings when engaging with material that is representative of themselves and their interests.
Rodriguez’s courses go beyond revolving around just ethics or culture. He specifically highlights how media plays an intrinsic role in pop culture, distinguishing his courses within the School of Journalism and Media Studies, rather than a traditional humanities course.
“We have language, we have all these identities embedded in culture,” Rodriguez said. “Television, movies, radio… I think pop culture is inherently media, and media is inherently pop culture.”
Students who take Rodriguez’s courses watch and analyze music videos, social media presence, commentary and the overall reputation of the artist to better understand the interpersonal dynamics between pop culture and media. His main goal for his students is to walk away with improved media and cultural literacy.
“I want students to be able to recognize it in the media, critique it, improve it and when they create it, have more of this critical, literal mind,” Rodriguez said.
He will be teaching a new course starting this fall semester about RuPaul’s Drag Race; incorporating queer journalism, politics and culture into his academic atmosphere. Topics in this course will include the show’s judging panel as ‘cultural gatekeepers,’ with a focus on mediation and conflict.
Rodriguez looks forward to teaching this course in the fall, given the current sociopolitical atmosphere surrounding queer culture and journalism in general.
“There’s so much misinformation about LGBTQ individuals, specifically about trans individuals,” Rodriguez said. “There just needs to be more cultural literacy on this subject.”
As long as Rodriguez continues to teach at SDSU, he will not halt his calling towards pop culture, media and representation. For him, these topics are quintessential in not just society, but in journalism.
“If pop culture wasn’t powerful, then they wouldn’t try to be silencing it or regulate it,” Rodriguez said.