Reflections on Benito Bowl, Art, Love, LX Edition
📸 via NBC
Last night’s snoozefest of a Super Bowl’s sole saving grace was its halftime show, starring the one and only Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, aka rapper, singer, genius artist and producer Bad Bunny. And jesús cristo, what a halftime show it was, a flagrant declaration of culture, history, resistance, and endurance.
A real-life wedding took place. Bad Bunny was served a shot from Toñita herself. Cardi was there. Pedro was there. Upwards of 380 extras dressed up as plants to recreate Bad Bunny’s hometown in Vega Baja. Bad Bunny did a trust fall. He climbed a power pole, drawing attention to the island’s constant widespread blackouts. He paraded the revolutionary flag, the one donning a light blue triangle—Puerto Rico’s original prior to U.S. intervention.
I woke up this morning feeling good. Like, happy. Energized. That’s the power of resolute art. It’s courageous and it’s fucking potent. Bad Bunny did more than entertain last night; he used his thirteen minutes of airtime to unleash his point of view—a clear, uncompromising vision of unity, visibility, and dignity—to more than 135 million viewers, the most-watched halftime performance of all time.
📸 via Kevin Sabitus/Getty Images
As the show came to a close, illuminated in simple block lettering, the jumbotron read,
THE ONLY THING MORE
POWERFUL THAN HATE IS LOVE
Succinct. True. But let’s be clear: this applies to all oppressed for all time. Not just when the Republican gets elected. Not just when the indignity starts interfering with our reality. All time. What we’re feeling now, we must not abandon it. Let the love, the raging love, burn slowly and forever. That’s where the real power is. That’s the love that’s stronger than hate, the one that unifies and drives us to action.
If you, like I do, ascribe to “silence = violence”, then also consider that “buffet-style love = death”. We need to be principled in our love. When we don’t show up for the oppressed—from the colonized to the incarcerated to the working class—when we deny them our love and pick and choose their humanity, we are complicit in their denigration and, inevitably, our own. Love hard and equally. Stop being a coward.