In Santa Clara, the sun hangs low over Levi’s Stadium as the second quarter of the 60th annual Super Bowl draws to a close. Those put to sleep by the unexciting first half would miss the fantasy of palm trees, sugar cane, and light poles sprouting from the turf. There are viejos playing dominoes, women doing their nails, a barbershop, and a piragua stand with the label ‘Bunny’.
At the edge of the grass stands a casita — a typical mid-century Puerto Rican home, built of concrete to withstand hurricanes, unlike the older wooden structures that vanish in the storms. Maybe there is something to be said about this show feeling like a 15-minute pause in the eye of a political hurricane.
Since his selection by the NFL and Roc Nation as the headliner last September, the winds have been howling. Almost immediately, the US administration practically declared war on the decision. If any war was waged as a result, it was only on social media, between the rapturous excitement from his millions of fans worldwide, and the indignation and hysteria from right-wing figures who objected to hearing Spanish during the Super Bowl.
There’s been no shortage of claims that Puerto Ricans aren’t US citizens (not true) or that the half-time show has only ever been hosted by real Americans, such as Paul McCartney, U2, and Coldplay. The threat such a show posed to their political worldview was heightened further by the NFL’s glee in drawing as many eyes as possible to their sport.
A little essential context for readers: Puerto Rico has been a colony — unincorporated territory, they call it — of the United States for almost 130 years. Its 3.2 million residents are citizens, but they cannot vote, and while they have a representative at the Washington Capitol, he has no right to vote either. After decades of mistreatment by the federal government and local politicians, millions of Puerto Ricans have left in search of everything they have lacked at home: economic stability, education, electricity, a roof, and food, to name only a few.
With that outlook, celebrating Puerto Rican-ness is a challenge to the coloniser, yes. But doing so on the most important stage in the United States, on national television and under the nose of the president who once considered selling Puerto Rico so as not to have to deal with the catastrophe left by Hurricane Maria in 2017, is an act of self-love.
The broadcast opens with a recording of a young man carrying a Puerto Rican flag amid a sea of sugarcane, the backbone of Puerto Rico’s colonial economy with a benediction for everyone watching: “Qué rico es ser latino. Hoy se bebe,” the young man cants.
Back in San Francisco, the urban Caribbean rhythm rumbled in the 49ers’ stadium. The screens spat with capital letters a single repeated word, ‘PERREO,’ before Bad Bunny starts the show with his biggest song, ‘Titi me Pregunto’. We reach the casita, populated with a litany of stars including Pedro Pascal, Karol G, Cardi B, and Jessica Alba. Down and out to the sounds of ‘Yo Perreo Sola’ and ‘Safaera,’ perhaps his most unbroadcastable songs, and yet delivered with the brazenness of knowing that what can’t be understood by the administration can’t be weaponised.
Lady Gaga makes a surprise appearance doing a Latin-accented version of her hit ‘Die with a Smile’ with the Puerto Rican group Los Sobrinos. The concept is pitched somewhere between e pluribus unum and cruise ship salsa, but it’s all in good fun, especially to see her dance with Benito.
The other great guest is Ricky Martin, a bygone Puerto Rican superstar, who made a brief but fabulously vociferous cameo singing a snatch of Bad Bunny’s ‘Lo Que Le Pasó a Hawaii’, a song that asks people not to abandon their heritage and their roots. When Bad Bunny climbs a light pole to sing ‘El Apagón’ (The Blackout), he is referencing the devastation of Hurricane Maria and the corruption that left the island in darkness.
It is an imaginative recital, an odyssey through Puerto Rican culture, that of the island and that of exile, in which there is even a real wedding (and a child asleep on the tables, as in an authentic Latin American wedding). There is a sharp irony here in repeatedly featuring the ‘family values’ conservatives claim to protect. Yet when presented by immigrants, these same values are misrepresented just enough to be vilified.
In the stands, a wealthy audience, able to afford tickets upwards of $10,000, pay little attention to the exhortation to dance. From the stands, the set is largely obscured by the tall grass, making it clear the production was intended to favour the 128 million watching on screens. This was a message sent over the heads of the pundits and the indifferent stadium crowd, directly to those who needed to hear it.
English is employed just once towards the end of the set, in a subversion of the traditional blessing. “God Bless America,” he says, “be it Chile, Argentina… Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela… Mexico, Cuba… United States, and my homeland, Puerto Rico.”
For Bad Bunny, who proudly advocates for Puerto Rico’s independence and flies a light blue Puerto Rican flag associated with that stance, this was a declaration. A declaration that Puerto Rico is an American country in the broadest sense of that weighted word: it is part of a bigger family, one that doesn’t revolve around the US.
“Bad Bunny 2019 by Glenn Francis” by Toglenn is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.