Channing Tatum’s Lip Sync Battle performance recently splashed news feeds for a couple days. As a quick synopsis: Channing Tatum dressed up as Beyonce, danced as Beyonce, and tried to sing as Beyonce, but isn’t Beyonce… nor is the track played his. But Tatum used the public’s paradigm of his being a masculine sex symbol to remix Beyonce’s song, the original media object, and it’s hilarious. The humor is the intention of the remix by Tatum to win the  competition: Lip Sync Battle, but the level of hilarity could not be achieved without Tatum’s juxtaposition of what the public expects of his being a masculine sex symbol in his emulation of Beyonce’s music video. It adds shock. Joe Sixpack from down the street would not have garnered as much public attention for the performance simply because he does not have the privilege of being a media star. Nobody would know who he is or what to expect from him. For all they know this could be Joe Sixpack’s hobby of dressing as Beyonce and shaking his shoulders. Tatum leverages his privilege in Beyonce’s choreography as if he has taken two original art pieces, the second being his public image, and made them into something new. A remix.

The intended audience of Beyonce’s original music video was obviously as many patrons to the music industry as possible, but more importantly, the message it sought to deliver was an empowerment for women: a sort of fight song. Tatum on the other hand remixes her media piece for self-humiliation (but could it really be considered humiliating if you’re famous…?) to create humor for his audience, who is to ultimately decide his success in the competition.