I’m asking this because of what happened during the Super Bowl halftime performance. Bad Bunny was everything the MAGA crowd expected - and perhaps feared - he would be.
Some were already threatening to boycott the halftime show because Bad Bunny has been a vocal critic of Trump’s ICE raids, having spoken out at the Grammys last week, which was just the latest in a series of comments.
A Trump-aligned MAGA group even hosted an alternative halftime show featuring Kid Rock. So expectations were high, and the moment came.
At the end of Bad Bunny’s performance, standing among flags from various South American countries, he made his point. He said, “God bless America,” and then name-checked countries from across North and predominantly South America - an obviously deliberate provocation, given ICE’s targeting of migrants from those nations.
And right on cue, Trump took the bait, immediately firing up Truth Social and taking a swing at the Super Bowl itself.
My prediction is that the Super Bowl will weather this. It will outlast Trump and the MAGA outrage cycle because it always does.
Remember Beyoncé’s Black Panther-esque performance 10 years ago? There was controversy.
The Super Bowl got pulled into the Colin Kaepernick “taking the knee” debate. There’s been low-level drama in the intervening years since. And yet, the Super Bowl just keeps setting records. Even we watch it from New Zealand.
Last year, it drew nearly 128 million viewers, making it one of the most-watched US broadcasts ever.
I am firmly of the view that you should never mix politics with sport because it simply gives some fans a reason to walk away - at a time when you cannot afford for people to walk away.
But maybe some events are just so big they can afford to, and not even Trump can dent their popularity. Maybe the Super Bowl is exactly that kind of event.
Heather du Plessis-Allan is a journalist and commentator who hosts Newstalk ZB's Drive show. This article was sourced from Newstalk ZB.
9 comments:
Weather what, a tweet from a weirdo who sent 100 tweets on Christmas Day last year? Yeah I think they’ll be fine, obviously.
HDPA what about that awful sign they had “The only thing more powerful than hate is love”. How dare they politicise a sporting event with that hateful nonsense!
There was a half-time show?
I watched the game, which was not great, never noticed any show among the annoyances that are the gaps in play in any New Zealand broadcast of sport.
I have read, however, that a very large number of the non-captive audience watched an alternative ad-break at half time.
Whether you agree or not, since the beginning of recorded history politics have always been "mixed" with sport.
From the ancient Olympics (naked men only) to shemales beating up on women.
Good luck trying to separate.
I guess the Super Bowl doesn't get any federal funding that Trump can withdraw so they can afford to treat him with the contempt he richly deserves. Otherwise we might expect him to demand they rename it the Trump Bowl and give him full creative control over the entertainment. But why stop with the entertainment. He would then be free to declare the game was rigged if the wrong team won or, at the very least, blame the losers for having too many being DEI hires. And that would probably be more entertaining than the actual football.
weird bunny's performance was divisive. he did the entire thing without using one word of english. utter disrespect to the country he has found himself in. HDPA you used the term migrant which is inaccurate. the term you were looking for is 'illegal migrant'. pandering to minorities makes my stomach turn.
Bad Bunny is Puerto Rican Anon 3.29. He didn't just "find himself" in the USA. He's an American citizen. That gives him the right to be as disrespectful as he likes. Something to do with the First Amendment you know.
And by the way, around 59 million people speak Spanish in the United States, around 18% of the population. It has the second largest Spanish speaking population in the world. Yet Trump says that "nobody understands a word this guy is saying". Apart from once again showing his ignorance about the demographics of the United States, calling 59 million Spanish speakers nobodies is not a smart political move. But then Trump never was very good with numbers, was he?
Anon 906 people are free to watch pre recorded Kid Rock jean shorts lip syncing performances at any time. They’re also free to watch one of the biggest and most popular acts of the 2020s. It’s all just great.
More ppl watch the half-time show than the game, which shows music is more popular than sport.
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