Break From The Game
The Super Bowl halftime show featuring Shakira and Jennifer Lopez topped past performances but overall wasn’t the best
February 5, 2020
For people that don’t really enjoy watching football, let alone the Super Bowl, they usually rely on the commercials and the halftime show to be great to make up for it.
This year the halftime performance was performed by Shakira and Jennifer Lopez (J. Lo) along with a couple of other featured people such as Reggaeton artists Bad Bunny, J Balvin and even J. Lo’s very own 11-year daughter, Emme with a children’s choir.
The 15-minute performance was pretty good but overall I would probably give it a 3 out of 5 stars. While the performance had good intentions, I don’t think it was fully reciprocated into the show.
J.Lo, who is of Puerto Rican descent and Shakira who is from Columbia, shared the stage hoping to inspire the Latino community, and POC in general.
The intentions of including diversity were not problematic, but the inclusion of certain innuendos raised many eyebrows.
In an interview with 60 Minutes, Shakira made a very prominent point about her goal for the show circling around her ethnicity.
“The message [of my performance] is gonna be ‘Listen, I’m a woman. I’m a Latina. It wasn’t easy for me to get to where I am. And being at the Super Bowl is proof that everything is possible,” Shakira said.
She really did just that, but I really think that it could be interpreted in two ways. She showcased a lot of her talents, including dancing, amazing guitar playing, her drumming, and of course her singing, which was amazing.
But on the other side, the performance was very sexual and not something that you would want to connect to the Latino community, especially when empowering the youth.
I look at it like, if you want to be an inspiring advocate for your culture/group I would think you would incorporate a little less pop culture aspects and purer attitudes for your audience.
Same with J. Lo, don’t get me wrong they both are absolute legends, but their actions and words don’t exactly match up.
“When I think of my daughter, when I think of all the little girls in the world, to be able to have that … to see that two Latinas [are] doing this in this country at this time, it’s just very empowering for us,” J. Lo said.
What is her daughter seeing when she sees her mom up there? Because all I saw was J. Lo pole dancing and lots of uncomfortable dancing. But maybe that’s just pop culture.
But on the positive side, a lot of Latin culture was toasted to in the show, including many Puerto Rico flags, one even being a giant feathered one draped around J. Lo.
Speaking of her daughter though, Emme, her 11-year-old daughter, was featured in the performance singing “Born in the USA” with her children’s choir. And the fans are going off about her, and her sweet performance with her mom on stage.
Additionally, the two celebrities (mostly J. Lo) talked of a heartwarming tribute to Kobe Bryant, a 41-year-old, basketball legend that died in a helicopter crash on Jan. 26. Many viewers were disappointed and didn’t notice the purple and yellow cross on the field to honor Kobe.
Overall, although it feels like I am dwelling on the negatives of the performance, I think it was a pretty good show and inspiring on the surface. I’m glad that they are empowered to show people that they don’t care what they think because their body is theirs.
It was most definitely better than the last two years of Super Bowl halftime performances featuring Maroon 5 and Justin Timberlake.
WATCH FULL 2019 HALFTIME SHOW HERE – Maroon 5 feat. Travis Scott and Big Boi
