Anti-Them: A Joyful Colonial At the Heart of Empire

Good Bunny Bad Trump Dept: Super Bowl LX sucked, but Bad Bunny's exuberant "cultural landmine" of a half-time show was fire, a heartfelt, sanguine, unifying "love letter to the American Dream," or what MAGA called an "affront to the Greatness of America" during which they "couldn't understand a word of it" - Spanish! horrors! - and what's up with that? The final, unforgivable sin, proof their sordid culture war's almost done: The scoreboard proclaiming, "The only thing more powerful than hate is love."

Sunday's Super Bowl, held at the Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, CA, made it into the ranks of "among the six most boring games ever." But the brouhaha over an all-Spanish show at this historic, ICE afflicted moment by a 31-year-old global superstar and fierce advocate of Puerto Rican independence who dedicated his performance to "all Latinos and Latinas," has loudly urged "ICE out," launched a 57-date world tour that skipped the continental US, paused a European tour to join protests in San Juan - and sometimes wears a dress - made up for the game's lack of dazzle. Born Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, he grew up in Puerto Rico's working-class coastal town of Vega Bajal, came of age in a period marked by economic recession and natural disasters - like 2017's Hurricane Maria, when Trump infamously tossed paper towels into a suffering crowd - and just ten years ago was a student working at an Econo supermarket and writing songs in his spare time.

Emerging from a small Caribbean island with a long and painful colonial history, Benito started out "just trying to connect with my roots, connect with my people, connect with myself." Today, as the most-streamed artist on the planet with 90.5 million monthly listeners on Spotify, he's hailed as the King of Latin Trap, a Spanish-language derivative of US rap merged with home-grown reggaeton and salsa, often with dark themes of street life. He's also posited as a stunning success story who defies Trump's (white) America First bigotry, with a "solemn devotion to his land, identity (and) history" while declining to translate his music to English or compromise his politics. In her five-star review of his half-time show, Stefanie Fernández above all lauds his music as "a thrilling ode to Boricua joy" - not just Puerto Rican, but with a deep sense of resistance and celebration of "the love, the community and the absolute joy that we create together every day in spite of everything."

His electrifying arrival on the stage of the Super Bowl, in the belly of the beast of capitalism and nationalism and singing in “non-English,” was widely deemed "a cultural game changer" and "a landmark moment for Latinos," especially now amidst state terror; said an activist: "We need a loud, proud voice, and we need that voice to be in Spanish." Still, in a trailer before the show, Benito kept things chill. "It's gonna be fun and easy," he said. "People don’t even have to learn Spanish. It's better they just learn to dance." In the face of oligarchic ad rates - $10 million for a 30-second spot, including one for Epstein survivors - NFL commissioner Roger Goodell praised Bad Bunny as “one of the greatest artists in the world." Also, even in the face of MAGA outrage, he needs him for the same real-world, changing-demographic reason the NFL now runs 75 Spanish-language broadcasts a season. From one executive: "It's mathematically impossible for the League to grow without Latinos."

Bad Bunny's cinematic, elaborately choreographed, 13-minute show, studded with sultry dancers, began in a sea of colonialist sugarcane and unfolded in "an entire ecosystem of community": workers in straw hats, old men playing dominoes, street vendors selling coco frío, shaved ice, tacos (by LA's Villa’s Tacos), boxers Xander Zayas and Emiliano Vargas, a brass band, an actual wedding, a block party with barbershops and bodegas, a shot from Toñita, owner of one of New York's City's last Puerto Rican social clubs. Lady Gaga and Ricky Martin sang; there were cameos by other Latin artists - Pedro Pascal, Cardi B. Symbolism was everywhere: He carried the flag of Puerto Rican independence; his white jacket bore his mother’s birth year, 1964; he crashed through a roof, marking the island's shoddy housing; he climbed an electric pole with flickering power lines overhead, for its chronic outages and failing power grid. He handed his Grammy to a little boy, young Benito: future meets past.

The buoyant crowds around him were young, old, dark, light, men, women, heavy, slim - redefining, said one fan, "who gets to be American," and how broad that definition can be. Like his "ICE out" declaration just last weekend, when he won three Grammys, including a historic album of the year, for DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS, the first Spanish-language album to win. "We’re not savages, we’re not animals, we’re not aliens," he said in an emotional speech. "We are humans, and we are Americans.” In response, the White House raved he’d attacked “law enforcement.” And so it went. When the NFL announced the show's performers - Bad Bunny and Green Day, who performed American Idiot - Trump blithered, "I’m anti-them. I think it’s a terrible choice. All it does is sow hatred" - this, from the lifetime racist who last week posted the atrocity of the Obamas as apes. Later, Jon Osoff called him "a Klansman" in a greedy, feckless, unaccountable, 38,000-mention "Epstein class." He was too kind.

Bad Bunny was on at Mar-A-Hell-go, but Trump didn’t go to the game, likely warned he'd be booed like JD at the Olympics. Still, he trashed the show as "terrible, one of the worst ever,” whining, "Nobody understands what this guy is saying" and what about "the Best Stock Market and 401(k)s in History!" Vile MAGA chimed in. Megyn Kelly: "I like my half-time shows in English from people who love America." Matt Walsh: The show "in a language almost none of your lifelong fans can understand, while waving the flags of countries none of them are from, is the biggest fuck you." Laura Loomer: "Illegal aliens and Latin hookers twerking at the Super Bowl. Not a single white person...Immigrants have literally ruined everything." Other sages: "Someone needs to tell Bad Bunny he’s in America. This is an abomination," "I didn't understand a word of that show," "If we learned anything, it's that we should be deporting more people," and, "I hate the illegals even more now." (Breaking news: Bad Bunny is an American.)

For these deplorables, Turning Point USA broadcast a cheesy alternative, "All American Half-Time Show" featuring 55-year-old Formerly A Kid Rock in shorts along with country singers Brantley Gilbert, Lee Brice and Gabby Barrett, who came in third on Season 16 of American Idol, playing "great songs for folks who love America." It was filmed earlier at an apparent strip club to a pallid crowd of dozens, including freshly-booed JD. There were "technical difficulties" due to "licensing restrictions"- they forgot to get permission from X - so they had to move to YouTube. It was themed "Faith. Family. Freedom," perfect for Kid's song, "Young ladies, young ladies, I like ’em underage/ Some say that’s statutory/ But I say it’s mandatory." He got roasted for "the worst lip-syncing of all time," but gamely urged flabby cultists to put their small old fists in the air and softly shout, out of beat, "FIGHT FIGHT," "TRUMP TRUMP," and "Rock for Freedom, Rock for Truth." Rock for lamely losing the culture war.

Inexplicably impressed, dumb Tommy Tuberville wrote, "Roger 'Woke' Goodell better be taking notes, because millions of Americans would rather hear good music from these patriots instead of anti-American propaganda from Bad Rabbit or whatever his name is." Many disagreed: "It was literally tens of people," "It was painfully long," "It was everything and nothing all at once," "It was like watching goldfish in a glass fishbowl, just swimming back and forth, in circles, in their own shit," "It was the definition of trying too hard," "Bless their hearts," and, "Holy fuck these people are cringe." One die-hard called it "a massive victory for TPUSA," Megyn Kelly wept from "a stunningly powerful" tribute to Charlie Kirk, and about five million people watched it all. An estimated, record 135 million watched Bad Bunny, and millions more later streamed it, even though he sowed hatred by singing in Spanish, the first language for over 50 million Americans, who also speak about 400 other languages at home.

Bad Bunny, many felt, brought joy, exuberance, a reminder of "what the American dream really looks like," of "who we are, or at least can be," of "what America looks like when we are not afraid of each other." "He simply showed his humanity," said one fan, "and reminded us of our own." There were watch parties, said another, because, "I'll be damned if I let fear take my joy away." And while Latinos have been losing socio-economic wars for years, by defiantly arguing on America's biggest stage there's something better than the right wing's hate, "Culturally, we're winning." Bad Bunny closed by saying, "God bless America." Then, flanked by dancers carrying jubilant flags, they strode forward as he recited all the names, one by one, of the Hemisphere, the hard-fought-after Americas, South, North, Central, ending with the United States, Canada, and "Mi patria, Puerto Rico. Seguimos aquí.” My homeland, Puerto Rico. We are still here." Finally, he spiked a football. It read, “TOGETHER, WE ARE AMERICA.”