Bad Bunny Delivers Meaningful Performance At Super Bowl

Photo from Google Images | Bad Bunny shouts out to numerous countries in the American continent.

For thirteen minutes, Bad Bunny made history at Super Bowl LX. His halftime show performance set a new Super Bowl record by amassing over 135 million viewers. Such a strong viewership is notable considering the current deeply polarized political climate, stained with anti-immigrant rhetoric, violence, and hate, especially for Latino communities in the United States. However, Bad Bunny's remarkable performance not only reiterated the messages of his now Grammy award-winning album "DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS," but also created a slew of culturally moving moments for viewers around the globe.

This year's Super Bowl Halftime Show started in a sugarcane field. To many Puerto Rican natives (as well as people within the Puerto Rican diaspora, including myself), the fields hold a history of hardship and resilience. When Puerto Rico was acquired by the United States in 1898, sugarcane was one of the island's economic backbones. Upon Puerto Rican annexation, the United States took advantage of this plentiful crop, subjugating Puerto Rican workers, or jíbaros, to hours of grueling labor in the island's hot and humid conditions. For me and many others in the Puerto Rican diaspora, the sugarcane imagery was a reminder of our roots. The performance reminded me of my grandmother, who, like thousands of Puerto Ricans in the early 20th century, was raised in Hawaii and lived on sugarcane plantations. Historians now refer to this subjugation in both Puerto Rico and Hawaii as a form of industrial slavery. In contrast, Bad Bunny presented jíbaro culture as a symbol of the strength of the Puerto Rican people on and off the island, not as oppression.

Bad Bunny continued his performance on an electricity pole singing with "El Apagón," a song that directly translates to "the blackout." Puerto Rico often goes dark for days at a time due to having the least reliable electricity system in the country. The unstable grid and the lack of political accountability surrounding energy inspired the creation of the song and its music video (which I highly recommend watching).  Despite the fear and instability that inspired the song, "El Apagón" is a celebration of Puerto Rican culture, and performing it suspended from an electricity pole transformed a symbol of governmental neglect into one of cultural defiance. The Super Bowl version, a remix of his song "CAFé CON RON," was historic not only for bringing plena, a traditional, upbeat, distinctly Puerto Rican music genre, to the world's biggest stage, but also for celebrating Puerto Rican identity.

Last but not least, the "standout" moment of the Halftime Show for many viewers came after Bad Bunny said, "God bless America." After performing "El Apagón" and "CAFé CON RON," Bad Bunny shouted out nearly every country in North, Central, and South America as well as the Caribbean. From the moment millions of people around the globe could see every flag of the Americas, the performance became less focused on celebrating the Puerto Rican identity and more on celebrating the identities of the Americas, as Bad Bunny ended the show holding a football reading, "TOGETHER WE ARE AMERICA."

Elise Roman (12) remarked, “As a Puerto Rican and Guatemalan woman, Bad Bunny's performance not only addressed the issues impacting the Latino community, specifically the Puerto Rican community, but also represented and celebrated over one billion people. As the Latin American community grapples with increasingly more violence and hatred, to me, Bad Bunny's performance is doing what our leaders cannot: unite the people. In the limited amount of time he has, Bad Bunny redefined what it means to be distinctly American. Not just one language. Not just one flag. Not just one identity. In performing under one of the biggest spotlights in entertainment, Bad Bunny demonstrated how, amidst the violence and hate, Puerto Ricans and all Americans will refuse to stand in the dark.”