The Media Research Center’s simmering rage over Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime show kept up elsewhere with a Feb. 9 column Fox News by Jorge Bonilla, presumably the only person at the MRC who can speak Spanish:
Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime show is officially behind us. Mercifully. What began with hype and outrage, and then more outrage, ended with a show most charitably described as polarizing and confusing for those who were not already Bad Bunny fans. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell promised that Bad Bunny would use the show to unite the world “in a really creative and fun way.” It turns out that he was right. Most of the country, with the exception of some Democrats like California Gov. Gavin Newsom, was united in its revulsion over a show that was narrowly tailored to a niche audience despite being billed as inclusive and respectful of America.
[…]The Super Bowl halftime show was a condensed version of the show he put on during his Puerto Rico residency. As America watched, Bad Bunny began with a walk through a sugar cane field. He passed by several scenes typical of Puerto Rico as he opened with “Tití Me Preguntó (“Auntie Asked Me”),” such as a coconut water stand and a domino table. As he arrived at a house, viewers were treated to a mashup of several of his other hits before transitioning to a homage to ’90s and ’00s reggaeton and the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it depiction of two dudes grinding.
Had any of the show been in English, we would’ve heard a mostly positive message from Bad Bunny: “My name is Benito Martinez Ocasio. And if I’m here today at Super Bowl LX, it’s because I never, never stopped believing in myself. You should also believe in yourself. You’re worth more than you think. Believe me.”
[…]On the other hand, this was a clear vetting failure. The halftime show was carefully constructed to mainstream two similarly toxic ideas to viewers in the United States: first, the idea of Puerto Rico as a separate nation from the United States. Second, the idea of Latino identity as a nation within a nation, a permanent immigrant status separate from the American mainstream.
Far from uniting the world “in a really creative and fun way,” Bad Bunny delivered a highly divisive show that put identity politics front and center. The final product fell far short of Goodell’s hype, leaving a sour taste in the mouths of millions of viewers.
One shudders to think what the league might have in mind for next year if they insist on forsaking their core audience in pursuit of global expansion.
One shudders to think what Bonilla might say if another Super Bowl performer failed to align with his right-wing politics.
Clay Waters sneered in a Feb. 10 post:
Bad Bunny academic specialist (yes, that’s a thing) Vanessa Diaz was interviewed on Monday’s PBS News Hour after the Puerto Rican singer’s Spanish-language Super Bowl halftime show to speak reverently of the performer symbolizing Puerto Rican resistance to American colonial might, or something.
[…]Diaz cited Bad Bunny carrying an old-style Puerto Rican flag with the triangle in blue is actually the light blue. And the light blue is a symbol of Puerto Rican independence….”
Spanish, by the way, is hardly an anti-colonial language.
Nawaz mentioned President Trump’s criticisms and Turning Point USA’s “counterprogramming halftime show. They billed it as the All-American Halftime Show….” It featured Kid Rock and country artists. The leftist academic lashed out, contorting the very title of the “All-American Halftime Show” into a racist attack on her ideologically constructed pop-star hero.
[…]Given that Bad Bunny has stated he wishes Puerto Rico to be decolonized and to separate from America, and that virtually all of his Super Bowl performance was sung in another language, to say the show “was not American” is hardly a stretch and certainly not racist.
Sound like Waters is getting tired of being called a racist because of his hatred of Bad Bunny.
Nicholas Fondacaro huffed in another Feb. 10 post:
While insisting that they’re not snowflakes, the liberal elitists of ABC’s The View spent yet another show whining about someone criticizing Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl Halftime performance, this time it was former Real Housewives star Jill Zarin. On Tuesday’s episode, their animosity boiled over as they lashed out toward average Americans for not wanting to be multi-lingual. They also suggested they were better than average Americans because they attended the opera where Italian and French were sung.
Co-host Sunny Hostin, whose family brought slaves to Bad Bunny’s home of Puerto Rico, lashed out at those who dared not to like the all-Spanish-language performance. According to Hostin, you needed to shut up because the Macarena was very popular at one point (despite the fact the lyrics didn’t play a role in its popularity)
[…]Toward the end of the segment, moderator Whoopi Goldberg went out of her way to scold those average Americans who dared to express criticisms of Bad Bunny’s performance. Moreover, despite most of the stadium not dancing, she insisted those with a negative opinion were a loud minority of viewers who didn’t have jobs:
Fondacaro didn’t prove Goldberg to be wrong.
The next day, Tim Graham groused that the “Real Housewife” who trashed Bad Bunny got fired:
Anyone who’s followed the “Real Housewives” franchises on Bravo know that they are paid to say outrageous things to each other, a garage full of divas on wheels. So it’s mildly shocking that the E! channel collapsed in wokeness and fired Real Housewives of New York veteran Jill Zarin from a reboot with her former cast mates called The Golden Life for an Instagram video she made trashing the Bad Bunny Super Bowl halftime show. Media accounts called her comments “racist.” For what?
Well, as Graham eventually admitted, Zarin whined that “there were literally no white people in the entire thing (though she later admitted that Lady Gaga, a white person, took part), adding that “You’ve got all these young kids watching the Super Bowl and he doesn’t have to be grabbing himself every five seconds because he’s so insecure.” Even Graham picked up on that: “Let’s assume the most ‘racist’ thing in her is complaining there weren’t white people in the show, but then she acknowledges pale Lady Gaga was singing and dancing in it.” He went on to whine:
The “values” here are clearly wokeness. You can’t condemn something not being done in English, and to say it’s distasteful to get all political about deportations is apparently beyond the pale.
Somebody seems to be mad that Bad Bunny’s show wasn’t tailored to his right-wing bias.