…Between Jen Rubin and Pablo Torre about the Super Bowl LX Halftime
From https://open.substack.com/pub/contrarian/p/bad-bunny-shows-us-what-radical-joy?r=1m56j2&utm_medium=ios&shareImageVariant=overlay
Jen Rubin
All right, now we get to the part of the Super Bowl that everyone, I think, liked the best, and that was the halftime show. The lead-up, of course, to this came through the Grammys, came through the really vile racism, the violence, the hatred, the bad-mouthing from the White House. And on display was the most loving, joyous, American, wholesome, had a wedding, for goodness sakes, kind of display. What was your reaction as you’re watching this kind of unfold before your eyes?
Pablo Torre
I was waiting for the thing that Donald Trump said, effectively would happen, which is that there would be some grandiose, you know, protest. F Trump, FICE, ICE out, all that stuff. And instead, what we got was a party that made you look stupid for saying that this is gonna be some, you know, disaster of politics you know, as they prescribed it. And I was doing a very schizophrenic thing. I was looking and watching Bad Bunny, but also on another screen, I was looking at Kid Rock.
Yeah, it was, it was, it was, so funny to see the contrast, right? Like, sometimes when you’re imagining the documentary of our time, you’re thinking, it can’t possibly be that symmetrically convenient. But if you’re to split-screen it, you have party where everyone’s happy and celebrating, high production values, clearly mainstream and popular, okay? You don’t have to love Bad Bunny’s music, but just you recognize exactly how well produced this is and how joyous it is. On the other hand, you have this lip-synced pre-produced, pre-taped, jort-wearing Kid Rock thing, and it was just like, this feels… so pathetic. And the part of Bad Bunny to focus on that, that felt so radical, while feeling also very down the middle, even. was that all it was, was a bunch of people who speak a different language, but are also Americans existing and having fun? And so, it wasn’t… it wasn’t something that was overt in its protest gestures at all. You know, love is the only thing that can conquer hate, or whatever it was, like, the Erica Kirk slogan basically blasted on that Jumbotron was pretty intentional, I think, in terms of preempting what people would have wanted to claim, but also. It’s this reminder that the only reason this stuff feels radical, people speaking Spanish, partying, getting married, having fun, dancing, is because this administration has tried to sell that as dangerous, and terroristic, and anti-American. And it just doesn’t… Hold water. You know?
Jen Rubin
Exactly.
Pablo Torre
It felt like the metaphor for, like, do you believe your eyes, or do you believe what the administration’s telling you?
Jen Rubin
Exactly, and on the biggest stage, with the biggest audience you’re ever gonna get, for them to see how full of crap, Donald Trump is, was… It was genius. And whether they thought it through in those terms, or they just said, we’re gonna have a joyous show because that’s what we’re all about. we can consider. But I think just for… The sheer color of it, the brightness, the tableau that they put together. It really is like lightness and dark. happy or mean, joyous or resentful. And you couldn’t have made a better statement as to why the administration is now so desperate, so defensive, becoming more and more extreme, more and more violent, because they’re losing. They’ve lost the threat, they’ve lost the population. They can’t help it. They’re not going to stamp out multiculturalism. They’re not going to stamp out what makes America America. And that was what was, I think. Satisfying and reassuring, in some sense that they’re losing. They’re gonna lose. And not necessarily the ballot box lose, though I think they’re gonna lose there too, but they can’t control that. The country is bigger than they are, and they know it. And so they look small and petty and defensive and boring.
Pablo Torre
Yeah, that’s the other thing, is, like, this administration came to power allegedly having some finger on the pulse of what the average American, the median American wanted. And what you’re seeing, you know, I’m watching this same weekend, again, the documentary of our time, Donald Trump posting the video where the Obamas are apes, right? And you’re just like. who is this for, right? And the person it’s for, of course, is their actual demographic now, which has shrunk and shriveled to the people who are otherwise known as the worst group of people on Twitter. On Twitter, specifically. Just, like, this is… they’re catering to a base that has become, calcified into just internet trolls. I’m not even saying that editorially, I’m saying that, no, that’s… that’s who the base it.
And so you miss how unbelievably horrible the Ice in Minnesota story is to the mainstream, reflected in polling. You miss how popular Bad Bunny is, as reflected in streaming numbers. You miss how embarrassing it is to say, we’re countering the biggest artist in the world with bleep blink… just kid rock. Just like, what are we doing? It’s like, popularity was Donald Trump’s weapon, and now it is the thing that he has lost, and everybody sees that.
And finally from MaryAnn McKibben Dana comes this
