So, are you going to watch halftime?
That’s what someone asked me.
Halftime?
The Super Bowl halftime, he clarified.
Oh, you mean because it will be headlined by Bad Rabbit or Easter Bunny or whatever he calls himself?
Bad Bunny, he corrected me. B-A-D.
Right. I remembered. There was a fuss a few months ago when it was announced that BAD Bunny, a Puerto Rican performer (real name Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio) was going to headline the Super Bowl halftime show. This upset a certain segment of fans because Bad Bunny has criticized the Trump administration and its immigration policies.
I think he also sings.
Almost entirely in Spanish (even though he will be performing primarily for an American audience watching a uniquely American sport).
Despite considerable backlash, the NFL stuck with its choice for the same reason it partners with gambling businesses and plays 17 games, most of them on plastic grass: MONEY. The NFL believes Bad Bunny will help grow the NFL’s international and Latino audience.
A conservative group — the late Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA — struck back by organizing an alternate halftime show that TV viewers can watch instead, livestreamed. It’s being billed as the “All-American Halftime Show” and will celebrate “faith, family and freedom.” You remember those things, don’t you?
“We’re approaching this show like David and Goliath,” said Kid Rock, the star of the alternative show. “Competing with the pro football machine and a global pop superstar is almost impossible … or is it?” Rock said. “We plan to play great songs for folks who love America.”
So, which will you watch, my friend asked again?
Neither.
I haven’t watched a Super Bowl halftime show since about 1967, which means never. I’ll miss the Battle of the Halftimes. The only thing worse than one halftime is two halftimes.
Halftime is break time — for food, bathroom calls, talking about the first half, fixing the leaky faucet, running to the fridge again, talking to, you know, people in the room, turning down the sound of the TV so I can hear them (a columnist once called one Super Bowl halftime “a salute to noise”).
Have you noticed that halftimes are almost never shown on TV anymore — except the Super Bowl?
I rest my case.
(Once halftime begins during an NBA game, the lower bowl empties like there was a bomb scare. There are a lot of empty seats when the second half begins — fans are noshing up on the concourse.)
Halftimes are also a great place to exercise the local marching band, but we don’t want to go there. Many years ago, I wrote about the tedium of marching bands and halftimes and was bombarded with emails (15,000 when I stopped counting) from every high school band from here to Kalamazoo, all of them trying to convince me otherwise. Please, no more emails — I love marching bands. Really.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Super Bowl halftime. What I know about them is based on what I read the next day. I missed the exhibitions by the dysfunctional family known as the Jacksons — the “accidental” disrobing and the grabbing of the nether regions. I missed J-Lo’s middle-aged-crisis burlesque show with Shakira. Beyoncé’s anti-police messaging. M.I.A.’s middle finger salute to the TV camera. Kendrick Lamar’s obscene gestures and language, which drew the attention of the FCC.
Sounds fun, doesn’t it?
Before Hollywood and Madison Avenue got a foot in the door, the Super Bowl was a football game with a sideshow called halftime and a handful of commercials. Now the Super Bowl is a commercial and entertainment extravaganza with a little football on the side. The entertainment industry has overtaken the game.
Halftime is about 12-15 minutes during the regular season, but 25-30 minutes at the Super Bowl. They show it between insurance ads featuring pigs, lizards, ostriches, ducks and a variety of barnyard animals.
And now a Bad Bunny.
