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I actually liked the halftime show, I enjoy bright lights and catchy music. I like the parts where the singers dance and wear costumes. I think it's fun when the team scores a touchdown and everybody cheers or boos. And the commercials are so much fun.
I also think nobody will be talking about this in about 24 hours, maybe 48, maybe 36, at best. I'm just going to keep scrolling. Maybe tomorrow we can talk about how Clavicular just got brutally frame-mogged by a frat leader at ASU.
There have been several "based" defenses of Bad Bunny's halftime show. They seem to rely on an association with the Donroe Doctrine. My contrarian defense is different: The logic of the show accepts, implicitly, that to be an American is the highest good. We aren't tearing America down with how it's an evil slavery plantation black murder genocide colonial settler great Satan. No, America is great. I'm Bad Bunny, I'm American, I'm the country of Guatemala, I'm American too. Everybody wants to be America. The cheerleaders are all shaking their fat asses because they love being American. The sugar canes and empanadas and Puerto Rican flag are all American, it's very important you see us as American, we have to be American. America, America.
And within the logic of friend-enemy obviously this is all some sort of reconquista anti-anglo anti-conservative pro-Spanish inverse morality play, and Trump and MAGA are right to perceive this as an attack. But the attack actually says "we're American too, maybe more American than you are," which is a response to MAGA, because MAGA is running the conversation now. Trump is the most important thing in the world, we have to defeat MAGA, we have to reclaim America, we have to RESPOND.
And then, also, it's just a silly dance routine where celebrities dress up in costumes and nobody will even remember this after about five o'clock and it's dinner time and it smells like meatloaf and mashed potatoes again. Kendrick Lamar, oh yeah I remember that, yeah that's what the show was last year right?Hey did you see that Mark Carney just got brutally frame-mogged by a Trump leader at G7?
I thought about mentioning the Donroe Doctrine. And I do think America should improve relationship with south of the border. I think this is more of a protectorate than we should fully merge cultures. America should remove threats to stability in the region and I guess do Noblesse Oblige. Things like remove Maduro from power. Take out drug cartels. Increased trade. It would be nice to take out the Cuban regime to give them growth. I could even see making Miami an open city as the entry way to Latam. (Adding borders around Miami but liberal on visas and US law). Encourage more US tourism to LATAM.
I also would strongly encourage the NFL not to promote BB. Because he’s a cultural degenerate who make Latins look like they are constantly in heat.
I also hate the word Latin because it feels like a catch-all term for very distinct cultures. We do it with Asian too obviously. But what the word Latin usually refers to I feel like we highlighted the worst version of Latin. Things like the Tango exists if we wanted a reach out to Latam Super Bowl. Instead we got a combination of woke + degenerate Latin combination of cultural conquest. 50% English to show a partnership.
This is the show I would put on if I wanted to inflame anti-immigrant tensions. I would make Latins look like a bunch of sex craved animals on welfare.
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I agree that it's likely going to be forgotten relatively quickly, just as, say, the French Olympics Last Supper thing is not really being talked about anymore. I think I disagree that it's of no importance, though.
It seems to me that there are going to be very few people like you who are able to put the politics aside and just try to appreciate "what's there". There is a Gaza-level information war where everyone comes in with their own priors and comes away with a totally different impression. There are very good reasons to never drop the priors when consuming cultural output these days.
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