This past Sunday was known to a lot as the Super Bowl, but to many it was the “Benito Bowl.” Unless you live under a rock, you know this past halftime show was performed by Puerto Rican artist Bad Bunny, only weeks after he won Album of the Year at the Grammys. While many across the globe were excited for this performance, there were a handful of people who were completely against it, including the President.
When Bad Bunny was initially chosen to do the halftime show last September, there was outrage from bigots all over the country. These people were angry that a “non-American” was doing the halftime show, and it would primarily be in Spanish, a language that is the second most spoken in the country.
In the wake of Donald Trump’s hateful movement against many Latin Americans, people took that as an opportunity to tear this choice to shreds. Trump deemed the show a “slap in the face to our country.” Why he thinks that is a mystery, considering Bad Bunny is an American citizen and showed much love for the country during his performance. Since coming into office, Donald Trump has started a war on Hispanic and Latino people of America.
With his unnecessary and violent use of ICE and the horribly racist things he has said, the choice to have Bad Bunny perform was an act of protest and one that came with amazing music.
Alongside the President’s disapproval, the right-wing artist Kid Rock decided he was going to put on his own halftime show, the “All-American” halftime show. Clearly, there is a correlation between being against Bad Bunny doing the halftime show and being uneducated, as Bad Bunny is Puerto Rican and Puerto Rico is an American territory.
This show and “rebellion” was pure racism and a refusal to acknowledge that any other cultures exist and are worth the center stage. The show’s highest viewership was six million people, mainly hate watches as the chat flooded with the Puerto Rican Flag, while the real halftime show reached 128.2 million people.
This is more viewership than the actual game itself, which only reached 124.9 million viewers. Not only did he put on an amazing show, but he was the perfect choice from the start as his last album “Debí Tirar Más Fotos” reached 37 million streams in its first eight hours after debut and topped the Billboard 200 for a full week after release.
Despite the immense amount of hatred Bad Bunny was receiving, he put on one of the best halftime shows, and one that valued love over hate. Through his performance, he showed that when everyone is united, it makes for a stronger country than when everyone is being torn apart by the so-called leader of the nation.
Towards the end of his show, he held up a football that read “God Bless America” and proceeded to name all the states in America, not just the United States. Then there was the most powerful message, which was on the Jumbotron that read “The only thing more powerful than hate is love,” something that everyone in this country needs to remember. We are stronger when we are together, not when we let people in power tear us apart.
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