Americans were forced to sit through one of their biggest cultural events of the year in a language that is not theirs, surrounded by symbols of other, foreign places.
The Super Bowl is supposed to be one of the cultural cornerstones in American life that still belongs to Americans. There are only a handful of days each year when most of the country pauses and gathers around the same screen to participate in something recognizably ours. It’s a shared experience — rooted in common language and culture and tradition. Which is why the Super Bowl half time show this year was a clear display of pure contempt for America.
Football is not a global sport that just ended up in the United States. It was created right here at home in the 1880s by Walter Camp. It was a sport created by Americans, for Americans. The NFL remains overwhelmingly domestic both in its players and its fanbase. In other words, football isn’t some international pastime. It’s one of the last mass cultural institutions that is distinctly American.
Yet, this year’s halftime performance by Puerto Rican singer “Bad Bunny” was conducted almost entirely in Spanish. His songs celebrated Puerto Rican — not American — culture. At the end of his performance, he exited the stage followed by one American flag and several foreign flags, holding a football that read “We are all America” while a giant screen read “The only thing more powerful than hate is love.” And, given his recent “F*ck ICE” comments at the Grammys, it’s clear the message of his performance was that defense of sovereignty and national culture and rejection of its replacement would be framed as hatred.
Americans were forced to sit through one of their biggest cultural events of the year in a language that is not theirs, surrounded by symbols of other, foreign places. The audience was not invited into a shared civic experience. Instead, they were required to bear witness to the replacement of their own culture.
This wasn’t accidental, either. While speaking in October, Bad Bunny, who has only Spanish-language songs, addressed Americans directly: “If you didn’t understand what I just said, you have four months to learn.” The burden wasn’t on the performer to meet or assimilate to the audience, but rather on the audience — Americans — to adapt to a foreign language or be left behind during their own cultural event.