This piece originally ran on the Obsessed by Kevin Fallon Substack. Subscribe for even more coverage.
Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl Halftime Show gave the country something it wasn’t expecting, and certainly wasn’t prepared for: a celebration. More, if you can believe it, in these times, a celebration of America.
You’d be confused, or perhaps even stunned, if you witnessed the bad-faith stoking of a culture war over the booking of the Puerto Rican superstar for the biggest entertainment platform in the country. It was an apparent travesty for him to sing his Spanish-language hit songs during an ostentatious sports spectacle that, somehow, has been bastardized to represent American values.
In what ways would Bad Bunny distract, they’d have you think, from the traditional American morals of commercials, capitalism, and concussions?
And, what’s worse, at a time when an amplification of Latin American culture could be at odds with the unpopular tyranny of ICE operations. Unamerican! Boycott!
At a volatile moment, Bad Bunny nimbly navigated the land mines and powder kegs to deliver an explosive performance that detonated outside the discourse-baiting, hideously politicized noise. He threw a party that served as a manifesto, something I wouldn’t have imagined if I didn’t see it with my own eyes—and dance along to it, and be changed by it.
What could have been a protest that stoked the fire that is already an exhausting inferno from a party of pyrotechnic pundits and politicians was instead something they’d look foolish to criticize or herald as anything other than American in its best, most vibrant form.
It was an irresistible dance tour through the intrinsically Latin American part of our country’s culture: how the population works, lives, kicks back, throws down, and finds joy. How they love.
It was a mirror to all Americans, reminding us of our communities, our neighborhoods, our families, and our cultures. Every image was analogous: so specific to the Latin experience, yet so universal to the American experience. So recognizable.
At a time when so many people, particularly the Latin American community, are oppressed, angry, and beaten down, Bad Bunny did the most renegade thing he could do. He didn’t make anger into overt protest art; he showed his American people thriving. The ignition wasn’t lit for more division. It was a spark for hope, a reminder that we should all be thriving, too. And could be.
He danced and rapped and sang, looking sexy as all hell as he did it. (Remember when it felt sexy to be American?!?!) The staging and camera movements were thrillingly cinematic, taking us from neighbors on patio furniture on a balmy night out to a block party to a wedding to Lady Gaga leading a salsa dance.
There were political nods, sure, to Puerto Rican workers fixing electrical wires, a reference to the ongoing power issues in his home territory—a U.S. territory. At one point, he gave the Grammy Award he won last week to a little boy watching on TV.
Bad Bunny has been outspoken about the atrocities of ICE, which is likely why so much advanced hysteria was stoked about his performance—as if he would be the only Halftime Show-worthy artist topping the charts right now who would be angry about what is happening. He didn’t have to call out anything directly; he showed us the jubilant, flourishing lives of the people being targeted instead.
And that’s why I’m so pissed off.
Specifically, that’s why I’m so pissed off at spineless MAGA provocateurs and people like Welfare Queen Brett Favre, who went viral with a post Super Bowl Sunday saying, “Not familiar with Bad Bunny so don’t know if his music is good or bad. I’m just going to watch what I know Lee Brice, Kid Rock All-American Halftime Show.”
Oh yes, a whole counterprogramming Halftime Show was planned by Turning Point USA, a group of grown adults in an existential tizzy over the person performing at the Super Bowl. I cannot imagine more loser behavior than being a grown adult—many of these people are in their sixties or older—and throwing a fit over the performer at the Halftime Show.
But here’s where it’s fun to prove how ridiculous this all is.
Am I to believe that Brett Favre held off on a protest counter-show and public post about it when Lady Gaga performed her Halftime Show because he was a true connoisseur of her work? Was he a diehard KatyCat, hoping to hear Katy Perry’s deep cuts during her big performance? It’s selective, hatefully timed posturing.
Whether or not someone is familiar, Bad Bunny is the biggest star in the world right now. He just won the Grammy for Album of the Year. Wouldn’t a normal response be to marvel that someone who is, apparently, quite good at this whole music thing, is performing, and be excited to see what all the fuss is about?
Naturally, it took minutes for Donald Trump to melt down on that digital Siberia of misery that is Truth Social after Bad Bunny’s performance, saying it was “one of the worst, EVER!” because “nobody understands what this guy is saying.”
Beyond it being yet another grotesque refusal of the president to acknowledge that a large population of the country he serves, and chose to run for office and represent, speaks Spanish, we’re kind of sending tweets from glass houses at this point.
Sir, as if I have any clue what you are saying half the time. And I don’t want to stoop low, but I did recently purchase a ticket to the Melania documentary, about your immigrant wife who speaks English as a second language, whose words were sometimes subtitled, and whose director said he often couldn’t understand her.
This is music. I haven’t understood a music lyric in my life. I—and I’d adventure most of us—are making up words left and right. This is America, where we sing, “Hold me closer, Tony Danza.” To make a point about not understanding a song’s words is the laziest way to pull and fire a weapon.
And let’s be real, I’m tuning into the Super Bowl. I don’t even understand what the announcers are saying when they’re allegedly describing what’s happening in the game in English.
This outrage is so selective and random, which is why we should all be so peeved about it.
Ricky Martin was one of the surprise performers during the Halftime Show. I know that all those Boomer ladies who were organizing the Turning Point protest concert were shaking their bon-bons to him 25 years ago. Bad Bunny played a sample of Daddy Yankee’s “Gasolina” during his set. You bet that Karoline Leavitt was at the club wearing three-layered tanks and a popped polo, her bangs flat-ironed, taking Jell-o shots and grinding to that bop—and it was (gasp!) in Spanish!
I need to stop leaning into this rant because I’m so moved by what Bad Bunny did, particularly how he ended the performance. With their flags waving behind him, he named every country in the Americas as the statement “The only thing more powerful than hate is love” projected behind him. Then he revealed that the football he had been carrying at various points had the words “Together, We Are America” on it.
Take in that message. Watch the whole performance again. And never forget: That is what they wanted you to boycott. That’s what they said wasn’t America. That’s what they said was going to ruin the country.
And this is what they wanted you to see instead:
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