CHRISTIAN TOTO IS ANSWERING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Here’s Why the Super Bowl Half Time Show Bombed.
Maroon 5 and co. weren’t hyper focused on making a stunning show. They knew they couldn’t offend select members of the audience. They feared the repercussions of any moment considered politically or culturally significant. They knew every gesture, every lyric would be analyzed and scrutinized. And, if the social justice crowd deemed it problematic, the band would hear about it in short order.
Is that any way to create art? No, and we’re seeing the results.
As Phil Mushnick writes at the New York Post, “Super Bowl halftime act denigrates Martin Luther King legacy:”
King’s legacy is too great to be eclipsed by a QB who supports the convicted police murderer Joanne Chesimard, granted exile in Fidel Castro’s Cuba, and no-trials executioner Che Guevara in the name of pick-and-choose justice.
But at halftime, the NFL seemed to go out of its way — as far as possible — to degrade King and his legacy by inviting two vulgar, N-wording, women denigrating, boasting, no-upside, backward-pointed rappers, Travis Scott and Big Boi, to perform.
Both have made their fame and fortune by promoting and perpetuating every negative stereotype of black America. Don’t take my words for it; look up — or down — their lyrics for yourself.
The NFL invited Scott fully knowing and anticipating that his lyrics would be so objectionable that he was three times bleeped while performing. The NFL knew what it had, knew what was coming — and that still met with its certification as entertainment to over 100 million viewers.
Why were they invited? So the NFL could fill its annual quota of objectionable performers? Why, especially in Dr. King’s conspicuously revived presence, did the news media not note, let alone decry, such a slap in Dr. King’s face? Or would it be impolite to offend the offensive?
And so it passes, quietly, of course, that this year’s Super Bowl, as per Roger Goodell’s stewardship, carried two non-football themes: A celebration of all that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. lived and died for, and the repudiation and degradation of everything he lived and died for.
Not to mention the repudiation and degradation of everything Pete Rozelle lived for — I’d like to think that the man who worked hardest to transform the NFL into entertainment for the whole family would be shocked that the Super Bowl halftime show now requires a five second tape delay in case someone drops an F-or-N-bomb.