It is not enough to say that Bad Bunny just headlined the best Super Bowl halftime show ever. This was like a fleet of stealth bombers, launched into 1.35.4 billion American homes at once (according to early NBC reports), dropping joy, spirit, culture, exuberance, and, yes, a wake up call for a nation under attack. This 13-minute celebration of Latin heritage was a defiant nunca to the havoc, fear-mongering and flat out war on culture that has sacked America’s psyche.
Kudos to the field generals who pulled this thing off. Boy was it needed after a zipless half of football where one team kicked three field goals for nine points and the other team had zero points and four first downs.
Bad Bunny, on the other hand, ran wild. And he ran it around a cornfield maze which covered much of the field. It was mobilized by people in green stalk suits, the only way to run a field out there given a restriction on trucks and vehicles on a turf where another half had to be played.
Somehow an instant village was also erected, complete with telephone polls. There was a barbershop and a hairdressing salon. Horns and strings were played. A little old lady smiled. The most-streamed artist on Spotify danced on the flat storefront roof, fell through into a living room, and physically and in real time (along with what had to be some video magic) visited scenes of his childhood in Puerto Rico.
There were guest star moments. Big moment diva Lady Gaga nailed it as usual. Ricky Martin looked mahvelous. It was all captured by drones and hand-held cameras on the field, with no noticeable screw ups. The Patriots should hire the halftime coordinators.
Allow a shout out to The Weeknd from a few years ago who pushed this whole halftime narrative concert thing into this new, Broadway pop up direction. Up till then, we had Prince singing “Purple Rain” in the driving rain, to me the greatest rock ‘n roll halftime act ever. Last year there was Kendrick Lamar, mounting an elaborate F-you to Drake.
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Bud Bunny added salsa and stirred. There were dancers everywhere, with cameras capturing their smiling faces and every sensational shake from behind. There was a parade of Latin American flags, and did I hear a shout out to Canada? There was a bride and groom, an actual bride and groom, with Bunny the ring bearer; this couple had reached out to the singer and he put their big moment in the middle of his.
And, yes, that little boy in front of the TV set, that was five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos, the kid detailed and terrorized in Minneapolis just weeks ago. Bad Bunny to the rescue, fighting ICE with fire.
Every word sung was in Spanish, which Donald Trump, and Bret Farve, and other old men on X or Truth Social hit for a loss, provoking further “get off my lawn” style outrage on the Internet. At 74 John Mellencamp is also old but he got it. The singer-songwriter, who was the opening guest on Real Time with Bill Maher Friday, weighed in on the language barrier.
“I don’t know what Bad Bunny is saying,” the singer of “Ain’t that America” tweeted Sunday, “However I do know that he is standing up for Puerto Rico and I am standing up for him. His half time show was great.”
Still, sometimes you just have to spell it out.
The only English used in the entire show was up in giant letters behind Bunny on the Levi stadium Jumbo-tron. It read, “THE ONLY THING MORE POWERFUL THAN HATE IS LOVE.”
Gracias, Bad Bunny. This was America at its best.
