Good lord, right-wingers, get a grip. It’s unhealthy to expend this a lot vitality being unhappy a couple of Tremendous Bowl halftime performer.
Sure, they’re nonetheless freaking out about Dangerous Bunny. A lot in order that they’ve achieved essentially the most hilariously impotent lib-coded factor possible: created a Change.org petition.
“The Super Bowl halftime show should unite our country, honor American culture, and remain family-friendly, not be turned into a political stunt. Bad Bunny represents none of these values; his drag performances and style are the opposite of what families expect on football’s biggest stage,” the petition reads.
Dangerous Bunny shall be performing on the 2026 Tremendous Bowl halftime present.
Have any of those folks seen a Tremendous Bowl halftime present within the final 25 years? We’ve had the likes of Kendrick Lamar, Usher, Rihanna, Woman Gaga, Shakira, Beyoncé, and Prince. In actual fact, you need to return to 2003 to discover a nation artist, and that was Shania Twain, who has a minimum of dabbled in pop music.
You’ll be aware that conservatives usually are not suggesting that Twain return—as a result of she loves drag and nonbinary and trans artists.
The anger over the Puerto Rican rapper is de facto simply straight-up racism thinly—very thinly—disguised as some imprecise craving for America’s misplaced glory. However actually, the fitting is simply livid that it may need to listen to Spanish songs. And the way dare conservatives be compelled to observe a international performer—oh, wait … they preserve forgetting that Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory.
And the signers of this petition actually haven’t any qualms in anyway about posting essentially the most bigoted feedback.
“The Super Bowl used to feel like America — strong, grounded, united. Now it feels like we’re forgetting the people who built that unity with their bare hands. This isn’t about music. It’s about memory. About a country that once stood tall, proud, and grateful — and the fear that we might not anymore,” one remark stated.
“The people who built that unity with their bare hands”? What does that even imply?
One other signer wrote, “American sports speak the language we understand.”
Okay, that one is each racist and incoherent.
Or how about, “Most Americans speak English… no race hate intended but it’s the truth. I don’t even really know who he is. Bring country music back to football! Stop listening to Jay z all the dang time.”
You recognize that any time you see a qualifier like “no race hate intended,” what follows is assured to be racist as fuck.
“George Strait is a much better choice than that thing that has no idea if he wants to be a guy or a chick,” another person wrote.
Positive, let’s throw some homophobia into the combination!
The one purpose conservatives are fixated on Strait specifically is that President Donald Trump named him a Kennedy Middle honoree earlier this 12 months. There isn’t some natural groundswell of demand happening right here.
Usher performs throughout the Tremendous Bowl halftime present in 2024.
Additionally, it’s simply embarrassing to stack up Strait’s numbers towards Dangerous Bunny. In 2024, Dangerous Bunny’s songs have been streamed 11.5 billion occasions. He was additionally essentially the most performed artist on Spotify from 2020 to 2022, and he’s the No. 1 Latin artist on Billboard’s recap of the final 25 years. And his newest album, “DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS,” hit No. 1 earlier this 12 months.
To be honest, the 73-year-old Strait does have a best hits album nonetheless kicking across the Billboard 200 … at quantity 119.
In the meantime, Home Speaker Mike Johnson, positively a person with a eager grasp of recent tradition, thinks Lee Greenwood ought to play the Tremendous Bowl. Sure, the person who has actually just one track everybody is aware of, “God Bless the USA,” which got here out in 1984. The dude is 82 years outdated—nobody is clamoring for Greenwood.
However there’s one thing else happening right here apart from simply the abject racism. Conservatives are incensed that they’ll’t seize the tradition. They management all three branches of presidency and so they’re terrorizing the nation, however they nonetheless can’t pressure us to hearken to no matter fifth-rate has-been who’s hooked up themselves to Trump.
The NFL isn’t going to eliminate Dangerous Bunny, particularly not due to a petition that’s earned a paltry 30,000 signatures.
As a degree of comparability that will surely infuriate the signers of this petition, the Justice for George Floyd petition obtained 19 million signatures, a petition to designate the KKK a terrorist group bought greater than 3 million, and a petition to cancel scholar debt bought 800,000. Hell, even a petition to make actor LeVar Burton the host of “Jeopardy” netted 296,000 signatures.
Conservatives must content material themselves with the Turning Level USA alternate halftime present, which now has a web site however no performers. Lara Trump has stepped ahead and provided to carry out, regardless of actually by no means being requested. She’s certain to be an enormous draw, what together with her most up-to-date single getting about 2,800 streams on Spotify.
If fortune smiles on us, maybe Turning Level will get Creed to headline, as they’ve threatened. Then we may hope for a repeat of his 2001 halftime present, a really unhinged expertise full with shirtless males on aerial silks and the worst lip syncing you’ve ever seen.
The concept of Creed because the family-friendly various to Dangerous Bunny is very comical. The band’s lead singer, Scott Stapp … okay, we’re gonna want a listing right here:
He began a fistfight with members of the band 311.
He made a intercourse tape with Child Rock and 4 girls, for which he needed to sue to forestall it from being bought. Nevertheless it’s okay as a result of, for Christians like Stapp, getting blow jobs from groupies isn’t really intercourse.
He bought arrested for public intoxication roughly 24 hours after getting married.
He was charged with felony home assault, which was later dropped to a misdemeanor.
He jumped off of a resort balcony in Miami throughout a drug binge, falling 40 toes and breaking his cranium, hip, and nostril.
Now that’s family-friendly, proper?
In distinction, actually the one filth you may dig up on Dangerous Bunny is that his ex-girlfriend sued him in 2023 for together with a recording of her saying, “Bad Bunny, baby,” on two songs, for which she demanded $40 million.
There’s nothing that right-wingers can do to alter the truth that Dangerous Bunny goes to carry out on the Tremendous Bowl. He’s going to sing in Spanish. He may put on a gown. He may kiss a dude. However it doesn’t matter what he does, he shall be reflective of america—a polyglot nation of immigrants and a wonderful mashup of cultures.
George Strait may by no means.
