MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
So Eric and Leila referenced a political controversy around Bad Bunny's selection for the halftime show. So we were wondering - has the Super Bowl and the entertainment always carried this kind of political weight? We're going to ask Howard Bryant. He's a frequent sports contributor for NPR's Weekend Edition. Good morning, Howard.
HOWARD BRYANT: Good morning. How are you?
MARTIN: So before I ask you to get into the big picture, any thoughts on Bad Bunny's performance?
BRYANT: Yeah. I thought that the performance was a party, and I think it was exactly what the Super Bowl is supposed to be. It's a big party with big dancing and big production and super names for the super game. And it really wasn't, to me - outside of the language, it wasn't - I mean, it wasn't that big a deal. In 2020, Shakira, Jennifer Lopez and Bad Bunny were at the Super Bowl. And so to me, the real difference was the insistence on the - by the White House on making this different and having a - an alternate Super Bowl take place when the biggest game in the - the only game in the country that everybody's watching at once was happening.
MARTIN: So does the Super Bowl and this halftime show usually carry this type of political weight, or is this a new thing? I was thinking about, OK, in 2004, you remember the famous wardrobe malfunction with Janet...
BRYANT: I was at that game.
MARTIN: ...Jackson and Justin - you were there for that - Justin Timberlake. And poor - you know, poor Janet Jackson, barred from the Grammys that - late - the next year because of this. And then, you know, in 2012, M.I.A. made the middle-finger gesture during Madonna's performance. And Beyonce's 2016 appearance with Coldplay - somehow she was criticized, nobody else. So I was wondering, like, what's the chicken and what's the egg here? Are there controversies about what actually happens during these performances, or are these controversies looking for a place to land?
BRYANT: Well, I think the former is usually how it goes. You have an event, something happens, and then we react to the happening. But this was premeditated. And that's what I mean about the real difference was the rhetoric coming from the White House. Everything else, generally speaking, when you're watching the Super Bowl, is something that you respond to when you're watching the game. And in the past, there have been - especially because football is so ubiquitous now. Football is the spot. If you go back the last 15 years or so, when you - when you're in the very political space of - whether it was Colin Kaepernick, whether it was the - you know, the players protesting - that's the type of stuff that you're expecting when you say, OK, well, we may have a controversy. Is there a moment where the game is going to reflect something that's happening in the culture?
And right now the players have been muted. There hasn't been that sort of politically charged element that we had either during the George Floyd moment or pandemic or Kaepernick or any of that. So that's why this entire lead-up was extremely sort of a surprise, a bit of a - I wouldn't say a letdown, but it was a surprise to me because it just felt so manufactured. And I would say even in the ads, like, there usually are - there's a theme, Michel, you know, when you have - I think, 2012, you had the - you know, 11 years after 9/11, you had a lot of patriotism in that theme. Then crypto was a theme. But this was extremely muted. The only difference was the White House telling us that this was something that it wasn't.
MARTIN: Anything else stood out to you about yesterday's game?
BRYANT: The game?
MARTIN: Yeah.
BRYANT: Yeah. It was one of the worst games going, but - a shutout, almost.
MARTIN: A shutout, almost. OK. And that's unusual.
BRYANT: And that's - we never had one. There's...
MARTIN: Never.
BRYANT: ...Never been one. I mean, the closest we had was the - when the Patriots beat the Rams 13 to 3, but somebody always scores. This was a pretty bland, by-the-numbers game, pretty bland, by-the-numbers political fizz of a controversy.
MARTIN: That is Howard Bryant. He's a frequent sports contributor for NPR's Weekend Edition and the author of "Kings And Pawns: Jackie Robinson And Paul Robeson In America." Howard Bryant, thank you so much.
BRYANT: No, my pleasure. Thank you.
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