An Unexpected Delight During The Super Bowl Halftime Show

I am going to start by saying, I don’t watch football. I don’t care who was in the Super Bowl or who won it. I didn’t even really care who was in the halftime show.

Today, on the Monday after the game, I was talking to my physical therapist and they were all talking about the halftime show that featured Shakira and Jennifer Lopez — two singers that I have a passing like of. I am more of a fan of JLo’s acting (Out of Sight and Hustlers, come on, awesome stuff) than her singing. 

Regardless, I was impressed during that 15 minute show at what these two women pulled off. They didn’t just entertain the holy hell out of the audience (which they did, keeping the energy up at 11 the entire time), but they added some interesting notes that I think people are starting to notice.
The kids singing from cages, during a performance that was very heavily Hispanic and Latino oriented can’t be missed as a statement about kids in, well, cages at the border. 

The multilingual singing and performing, well, that’s pretty obvious isnt it?

The HUGE diversity of dancers, and performers ont hat stage. It wasn’t just white women. It was women, men, or however they may identify, of all colors.

Raul Reyes of CNN said, “Beyond its entertainment value, the Super Bowl halftime show mattered because it put Latino performers center stage, celebrating their contributions to popular culture. It reflected a smart marketing strategy by the NFL and it was a win for diversity and inclusion.” 

We have been through a lot as a country, and right now we are one of our lower lows (not our lowest of course) and I feel a sense of anxiety, sadness and despair many many times during the course of a month, week, or sometimes days. But this performance said a lot to me that I didn’t think a Super Bowl halftime show could, it reminded me that THIS is America. THIS is the world in which we live. Where people come together to perform, to relish in their passions, to be proud of their heritage, and to shout it from one of the biggest stages in the world without shame. 

I felt proud, during those 15 minutes, and a little emotional when I realized what it all was saying to me, and I wondered if it was saying the same to anyone else? I’ve seen articles complaining about the “gyrating” and the stripper pole and blah, blah, blah. To me, that stuff is part of these women feeling proud of their skills, and being proud in their bodies. I wasn’t insulted by it, there was nothing grossly oversexualized about it. It was a celebration of body, of culture, of love. 

Photo Credit: Photo by LARRY W SMITH/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock (10546440eg).

Shakira and JLo at the Super Bowl Halftime Show

It was something I didn’t expect to see, and I am really glad I took the 15 minutes to watch it. It made my sad heart a little less sad.

See you all on Friday for my regular blog post!