The announcement of Bad Bunny headlining the Super Bowl 60 halftime show came with lots of backlash from the
public. With the current political state of America, his performance quickly became controversial. Bad Bunny would be the first Latino artist to headline the Super Bowl and sing completely in Spanish. Previous shows have featured artists that weren’t born in the United States, such as Shakira (Colombia), The Weeknd (Canada), Rhianna (Barbados), U2 (Ireland) and Coldplay (United Kingdom), but for some reason the choice of a Puerto Rican seemed to be “unacceptable” to critics.Â
The choice of Bad Bunny was so upsetting to some that they decided to create their own show with different artists. Turning Point USA, a nationwide non-profit organization who strives to educate high school and college students about conservative views, broadcast their own halftime show. They stated that their show was to “unite” Americans in silent protest over having a fully Hispanic
performance. Their show was headlined by Kid Rock, a man who has been publicly racist and discriminatory in the past. Choosing Kid Rock was no accidental move, as TPUSA only chose white, American-born artists who have publicly spoken out about racial issues in America, typically in favor of the more conservative opinion. Other performers included Brantley Gilbert, Lee Brice and Gabby Barrett. While TPUSA was convinced that more people would tune into their event over seeing Bad Bunny, they were terribly wrong. Bad Bunny set record numbers for viewership, with initial reports recording around 135.4 million to 142.3 million viewers. TPUSA only had a mere 20 million total viewers.
While Bad Bunny only performed for approximately 13 minutes, he offered an extremely immersive experience. The show opened on a field of sugar cane, paying homage to his homeland of Puerto Rico. From there, Bad Bunny traversed a maze of grass stalks and showed off many parts of his culture. There were many parts of the show that featured famous celebrities and notable figures. The scene where Bad Bunny is dancing on the roof of a house, shows lots of recognizable faces dancing on the porch below. Some of the celebrities included Karol G, Cardi B, Pedro Pascal, Alix Earle, Ronald Acuna Jr. and Jessica Alba, most being of Hispanic descent.Â
The next main scene that was shown in the performance was a wedding scene. Audiences loved this scene, but many fell in love with it even more after the show when it was announced that the couple playing the husband and wife were actually being married at that moment. They had reached out to Bad Bunny months prior and requested he play at their wedding. Bad Bunny responded by requesting they get married on stage at the Super Bowl for his performance. Long time Bad Bunny fan and Senior at Damascus High School, Jeilin Espin, was a big fan of his performance, but this moment stuck out to her. “The whole time they are doing the wedding, I just see different parts of Hispanic culture in the back. When he [Bad Bunny] wakes up the kid who was asleep, that really just stuck with me because I’ve experienced the same thing,” Jeilin noted. Also during the wedding, Lady Gaga debuted as one of the surprise guests. Gaga did a salsa rendition of her hit single “Die with a Smile,” originally sung with Bruno Mars.Â
From the wedding, the camera panned to a guitar that was playing a familiar tune. The intro notes to “Lo Que Le Paso s Hawaii” by Bad Bunny rang through the stadium as the camera slowly revealed Ricky Martin sitting in a white chair with a microphone. Behind Martin, you could see sparking telephone poles with people climbing them. As the attention shifted away from Martin, we saw Bad Bunny joining in climbing these poles. He sang “El Apagón” while climbing the sparking towers. “El Apagón” was written about the destruction of Hurricane Maria and the unification of Puerto Rico from the frustration of the widespread power outages.
As Bad Bunny finished his songs on the poles, he jumped down and made his way back through the front of the grass maze. As he traversed the maze of grass and sugar cane, flags of the countries in the Americas appeared to run through the grass to catch up with Bad Bunny. While it was mostly representative of Central American countries, the Canadian and American flags were also visible. He took time to shout out every single country and give them all their own time to shine. He ended his set by showing what was written on the ball he was carrying for part of the set. As he turned it around, it read “Together we are America.” A nod to viewers that no matter what challenges we are faced with politically, we are united by one thing, and that is where we are from.
Bad Bunny also decided to stick it to all of his critics. He was obviously aware of the hate and backlash that his performance generated, so he had one message on the screen as he exited the field. That message read, “The only thing more powerful than hate is love.” This message was noticed by fans as it applied to more than just the backlash from his performance, it applies to so many situations in life. Espin explained that, “This message is extremely powerful right now due to all the injustices against, not just Hispanics, but all people in America.” Espin also thinks it is important to note that, “At the end of the day, we are all human, we all bleed the same blood.” Brooke Sell, a Damascus junior, was in agreement with Espin, “I think it was just a message that makes people remember how important respect is.”
So with all the backlash and criticism Bad Bunny faced, he somehow still took the high road and came out on top. He took all the hate he received and demonstrated that it didn’t affect him. What were your opinions on Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl performance?
