Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime show continues to live rent-free in the minds of Republican lawmakers and conservative commentators. Plenty of right-wingers were outraged that the NFL tapped the Puerto Rican star for the show, and criticized the Spanish-language performance in real time. The GOP isn’t letting it go, and has since called for multiple investigations into those responsible, while making a hilarious show of translating and dissecting Bad Bunny lyrics in public
It started on Monday morning. Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) wrote a letter to the House Committee on Energy Commissions, calling for a formal inquiry into the NFL and NBCUniversal over their “prior knowledge, review, and approval of indecent content” from Apple Music’s halftime show.
“The Apple Music Super Bowl LX Halftime Show was pure smut, brazenly aired on national television for every American family to witness. Children were forced to endure explicit displays of gay sexual acts, women gyrating provocatively, and Bad Bunny shamelessly grabbing his crotch while dry-humping the air.” Ogles wrote. “The performance’s lyrics openly glorified sodomy and countless other unspeakable depravities.”
Ogles claimed in a post on X that the show “depicted gay pornography” (we couldn’t find any) and that the performance was “conclusive proof that Puerto Rico should never be a state.”
Rep. Randy Fine (R-Fla.), meanwhile, has called for the Federal Communication Commission to investigate. Fine claimed on X that the “disgusting halftime show was illegal” and that had Bad Bunny “said these lyrics — and all of the other disgusting and pornographic filth in English on live TV, the broadcast would have been pulled down and the fines would have been enormous.”
“Puerto Ricans are Americans and we all live by the same rules,” Fine wrote, adding that he would be sending the FCC a letter demanding “dramatic action, including fines and broadcast license reviews, against the NFL, NBC, and ‘Bad Bunny.’”
Rep, Mark Alford (R-Mo.) chimed in on Real America’s Voice on Tuesday, claiming that while he doesn’t “speak fluent Spanish” the “lyrics from what we’ve seen from Bad Bunny are very disturbing.”
“We have a lot of questions for the entities that broadcast this and we’ll be talking with Brendan Carr from the FCC,” he added. “This could be much worse than the Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction.”
Conservatives running to the FCC to complain about the moral turpitude of Super Bowl halftime show performances is practically an annual tradition. Kendrick Lamar’s record-breaking performance last year drew 125 complaints, including accusations that the rapper engaged in “vulgarity” and that Serena Williams’ guest appearance — in which she performed a Crip Walk dance — glorified “gang” affiliations. Rihanna’s 2023 show was also met with FCC complaints, including hysterics that “twerking should rank up there with the F bomb,” and claims that her backup dancers white suits were intended to represent sperm. In 2016, the FCC was flooded with messages complaining that Beyoncé’s guest appearance for Bruno Mars was “no different than white people wearing KKK attire.” Shakira and Jennifer Lopez (with a cameo by Bad Bunny) received over 1,300 complaints for their 2020 performance.
Congress members attempting to crack down on a performer like they have against Bad Bunny marks a new front of the long-running culture war against Super Bowl performers.
Like scores of popular artists before him, including many who have performed at Super Bowls, Bad Bunny sings about women, grinding (on your own and with someone else), having lots of girlfriends but never having a wedding (although he held a real one on Sunday), love, loss, and the many great things about the place you are from. Like your average NFL cheerleading team, his backup dancers wore small outfits and gyrated and even twerked a little bit.
If you’re noticing a pattern by which the pearl-clutching masses attack performers with furious claims of vulgarity, you might be onto something. Republicans — led by Turning Point USA — hosted an anti-halftime show on Sunday, stocked with an all-white, English-speaking lineup fronted by Kid Rock. The 55-year-old artist — who has been arrested multiple times and accused of assault — rapped his song “Bawitdaba,” which includes family-friendly references to “topless dancers,” “hookers all trickin’ out in Hollywood,” meth, porn, and more. Someone should let the FCC know.
One of the other chief complaints conservatives have leveled against Bad Bunny is that he sings almost entirely in Spanish. How were they supposed to understand him in real time without subtitles? One could wonder the same about Donald Trump, as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) pointed out this week. “I barely know what Trump’s saying half the time. So, I feel him,” she said responding to the president’s trashing of Bad Bunny’s performance.
Despite the meltdown over Bad Bunny’s performance, the halftime show scored big ratings, ranking as the fourth most-watched in halftime history. It has received generally positive reviews both in the United States and abroad. We do this every year, and at this point if Republicans saw a halftime show that didn’t send them into a moralistic conniption, it might be a sign to retire the event in its entirety.
