The building up of the Super Bowl this year was fueled by more controversy than anything else. Specifically, the highly anticipated yet controversial half-time show performance by Bad Bunny which drew in many viewers. Bad Bunny, a Puerto Rican pop-star, has received so much hate for his performance at the Super Bowl before it even happened because he’s “not from here”. I mean, how can we have a performance in between an AMERICAN football game by someone who’s not American and is Puerto Rican!? Obviously that was sarcastic but some people actually do think that. Anyways, the actual performance happens and I really did have so much hope as did many others. His performance included him naming South American countries the way they are supposed to be pronounced as, after all, they are American. A whole crew of bushes even followed him, holding up those countries’ flags. It was a beautiful act of protest to watch and would’ve remained that way if it weren’t fort for him bringing out no other than Lady Gaga.
What’s the problem with Lady Gaga you might ask, but to those who have been a part of the movement for Palestine know very well that she is a proud Zionist. So yes, the half-time show did indeed leave a bitter taste in a lot of peoples mouths just because of her appearance. Call it overdramatic, call it “too woke”, but supporting and giving a platform to a full-blown zionist means supporting a genocide supporter. Bad Bunny himself never spoke up about Palestine at all, ever in fact. But even that could be looked past at with the demonstration he did on the field, it was him brining out Lady Gaga that truly ruined the performance.
One cannot stand for one social justice, humanitarian issue and not another. Struggles are intertwined with one another, liberation can only happen when all are liberated, oppression cannot end in just one place it must be eradicated everywhere. Thats the issue with liberals though isn’t it, they cherry-pick issues that are convenient for them to talk about and simultaneously do nothing about. What could’ve been a huge “fuck you” to the government and oppressive forces such as ICE ended up just becoming liberal propaganda. A performance cannot make a progressive, radical, f u statement to any kind of fascist government or oppressive policing force if you platform someone who openly supports and endorses a fascist government and oppressive policing force. The two just can’t coexist because it normalizes zionism which at its core goes against everything the performance was trying to do.