Super-ficial Super Bowl: America Responds to Alternative Half-Time Super Show

Making history, the Super Bowl has officially wrapped and results are in. America has voted and it's quite clear that some things are more sacred than deepening the political divide.

Looking to Build a Bridge with a friend or family member? If they aren't ready for a chat, then check out for free helpful resources: https://leavingmaga.org/

NPR's reporting on the billions made during Trump's presidency https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-the-presidency-is-making-trump-richer/id1222114325?i=1000748574629

The Super Bowl is not only one of the key sports events of the year in the U.S., but unlike other major sports events, it has become the epicenter of television advertising and mega-concert spectacle all in one. So the idea of an Alternative Half-Time show was something that caught me by surprise (I actually learned about it on Super Bowl Sunday). Was it effective? Let's chat about it.

Music by Mound City by Coleman Hawkins (recorded 1929)

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This podcast is recorded in a style that pays homage to talents like Miss Monitor (Tedi Thurman) and explores topics designed to stimulate conversations. 

Transcript

Speaker: 0:00

You, like me, are someone who has seen what happened over the past few years. My name is the lovely Ray and I was born and raised in the U.S. I currently have the opportunity to speak with people from all over the world. Regular people just like you. And I'm always fascinated by our cultural differences and similarities. This podcast is voiced in the style of the sultry-sounding 1955 Weather Girl. It is a collection of thoughts inspired by my global conversations and aims to invite you to have those hard conversations out loud and with others. Thanks for stopping by, darlings. I'd love to chat. Welcome back, darlings. Welcome back, darlings. The Super Bowl may be over and the Seahawks may have won. But the real battle is still with us. And I have a feeling that it's going to be with us for a little bit longer. You see, some people were so appalled by the idea of a man speaking Spanish performing the halftime show for this all-American sport that they felt the need to stage an alternative halftime show. Now, if people were really serious about boycotting the Super Bowl because they felt it was un-American to have a Puerto Rican performing for the halftime show, then companies would have pulled their ass and viewers would not have signed up to watch the game. But it seems that in America, your devotion to your favorite sport supersedes everything else. I, for one, think football is a bit barbaric. I mean, come on. Grown men padded up, running towards each other and tackling each other. The sad thing is, the majority of the men who are being used as human trash dummies are men of color. And that is why I have a problem with the game. If you told me the Super Bowl was a bunch of men running around playing flag football, I'd be all for it. But to have brothers on the line, day in and day out, running and risking their lives, suffering concussions, multiple concussions year after year, just for a little green to pay the bills, to keep themselves away from going back to wherever they came from. This, I find appalling. Not to mention, a lot of the times, the quarterback is a man who's not a man of color. And so, there's just this whole feeling of the white man telling his slaves to go and take another hit for him. But whether or not you agree or disagree with my particular view of football, one thing you probably agree with me on is that there was a whole lot of talk about the halftime show. Now, you might be saying, lovely, that's nothing unusual. The halftime show is always something worth talking about. But this year, the selection to have Bad Bunny perform had a lot of panties ruffled. Oh my. And so, I found the whole thing to be quite silly. I mean, a lot of people going online saying, this is America, we speak English. Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory, even though the national language of Puerto Rico is Spanish. The U.S. owns the island. And so, every time someone says, go back to your country, go back to where you came from, J.D. Vance's snide little mark about Puerto Rico being a floating island of trash, these are words said by someone who is not only heartless, but uneducated, or someone who's simply so desperate for attention, so desperate for approval, for a laugh, that they'll say and do just about anything, regardless of whether or not they mean it. I'm sure you knew the type in grade school that guy who would put down a girl after she walked away. But when she was around, he was willing to do anything and everything for her. Yeah, that guy. And so, yes, a alternative performance was held. No, no companies opted to boycott the Super Bowl by pulling their ads. Why? Because they know that the Super Bowl is the prime time opportunity to catch as many viewers as possible, and that the amount of money paid for those ads is quite high. It's what marketing teams live for and strive for every year. So, what company is going to risk millions of dollars in revenue that could come from placing their ads in the Super Bowl? What company will risk all that money? Just to have a few people say, yeah, thanks for taking a stand against those Spanish -speaking people. Well, business owners aren't stupid. And of course, if one company pulled their ad, there will be millions others ready to take that spot. So, the organizers of the Super Bowl knew exactly what they were doing. They took a risk. They took a gamble. And it paid off in spades. Because not only did the Super Bowl have high viewership, but the halftime show was the most watched halftime show in the entire history of the Super Bowl. That's right. Bad Bunny managed to get more viewers than Michael Jackson did in his performance. That says something. Okay, darlings. So, we know that this sad attempt to boycott the Super Bowl is something that failed miserably. Now, let's go ahead and take a little bit of a closer look at those who performed at the Alternative Super Bowl or just the very premise of the Alternative Super Bowl in general. This event was organized to be a politics and agenda-free show. And while Turning Point USA's Alternative Halftime Show garnered views, let's take a look at the headlines. So, we have the New York Post. TPUSA's All-American Halftime Show Draws Millions to Rival NFL Super Bowl. The New York Times. Turning Point USA's All-American Halftime Show Draws 6.1 Million concurrent viewers. Now, how many viewers did Bad Bunny get? Hmm, I mean, 6 million? That sounds like a lot. But, my friends, let's compare the numbers. After all, there are people like me who aren't interested in football and henceforth, we may only tune in for the halftime show. And for Bad Bunny's performance, that reported over 135 million viewers. Compare that. 135 million to 6 million. Interesting, because we can't say that it was just those Puerto Ricans bringing up the numbers because the entire population of Puerto Rico is just over 3 million. And we can't say that it was just those Spanish speakers in the U.S. that were bringing up numbers because there aren't 100 million Spanish speakers in the U.S. So, that tells you something. That tells you that people were interested in a good show. People were interested in Bad Bunny. Plain and simple. What people were not interested in was being lied to again. In this sad attempt to divide us all by having people pick sides, not based on their team, but based on politics. Maybe people were just tired of being divided, feeling separated from their friends and loved ones. And just being outlaid. Maybe the turning point in the USA is that Americans are looking to unite. And if it's something so simple that unites us as a football game or a halftime show, well, I'm all for it. Hmm. But the thing I find strange is this event that was supposed to be politics and agenda-free spent an awful lot of time with tributes to Charlie Kirk. What the fuck? Yes, a man died. And that in and of itself is a tragedy. But where were the tributes for Congresswoman Melissa Hortman, who was assassinated for also doing her job and standing up for what she believes in in the political arena? See, a lot of people in the ultra -conservative political right-wing party don't talk much about Charlie this, Charlie that. Hey, if you're going to weep over the death of someone who put their heart and soul into trying to help people understand politics and be a part of the political future, then wouldn't Congresswoman Melissa Hortman also deserve some of those tears? Where were the tributes for the two high schoolers that were shot on September 10th at Evergreen High School? Yes, it seems that Charlie Kirk's assassination was the exact same day that a shooting took place at Evergreen High School. And we don't hear much talk about this. After all, two students were shot and the shooter shot himself. But guess what? Just because this was a high school, just because there was only one fatality, that does not make those lives less valuable, less worth cherishing and talking about. Because you see, had this been a mass shooting at a school, there may have just been a little bit more attention in the press. But alas, this was not on the agenda for tributes at the politics and agenda-free alternative halftime show at TPUSA. You know, I thought that this whole Super Bowl thing has me thinking back to an interview where Rosie O'Donnell was talking about why she moved to Ireland and how she feels that it was the safest move for her and her family. And there was something rather interesting that she said. She said, I think it should be investigated. I think it's rather curious. And mind you, darlings, I am paraphrasing just a bit here. But something to the effect of, I think it's rather curious because, you see, Kamala Harris was feeling stadium, feeling stadium. And yet, she lost the election. Just something to look into, just something to think about. And when I first heard her make those comments, I thought, oh, that is interesting. I mean, Kamala was feeling stadium. However, this country seems to be very anti -women in power. And given that a lot of the mad angst is contingent, is fueled from the fact that the president before Trump was a Black man, given that there was that racist and sexist undertone, fueled. And I understand why Kamala Harris lost. But interesting, Rosie O'Donnell, that you position it this way. And that's what I thought at the time. But looking at these Super Bowl numbers, I can't help but think back to Rosie O'Donnell's words and wonder, hmm, maybe she's really got a point. Because maybe only 6 million people are blinded by their hatred towards people of color. Maybe only 6 million people are so enraged at the idea of a woman running the United States of America, that they would use that hate in order to vote for Trump. But 135 million people, seems like a good number of those people would have voted for Kamala Harris. So, maybe people just don't give a shit when it comes to watching a football game. I don't know. I don't know. But I do have to say that the very idea of not participating in something you enjoy, simply because someone you, I don't know, respect, admire, whatever your feeling is towards Trump, simply because Trump says so, that's a little weird. I mean, if Trump said, leave your family, would people in the MAGA movement do it? And as I'm saying this, I'm thinking, well, actually, aren't people doing this? Aren't people cutting off family members? Or is it more on the left-leaning, progressive side where people are saying, nope, can't be around that family member anymore. Maybe it's those lefties doing all the cutting off. I don't know. But what I do know is there is a wonderful website called Leaving MAGA Community. And I don't know about you, but the more outrageous things that I see in the news about the MAGA community, Trump said this, Trump's doing that. And the people who still support him, I voted for him because I thought he'd give me cheaper medication. I voted for him because I thought he would allow for fertility treatments to be covered by insurance. I voted for him because I like that he is anti-transgender treatment for youth. I voted for him because I thought he was best for big business. I voted for him because I thought he cut my taxes. I voted for him because he promised me this, that, and the other thing. The people who look at their bank accounts and realize they're still not richer, the people who hear that the president is spending millions of dollars to renovate a ballroom that did not need renovation, but oh, we should all be okay with it because it's not costing taxpayer money. The people who think it's great that he went after the president of Venezuela, meanwhile, he's also sending troops into U.S. cities and using the National Guard to attack U.S. citizens as if they are all criminals. I wonder if these people are not looking at these other actions, if they are looking at these other actions and then saying to themselves, well, that's okay because, because what? You are a Christian saying that he's doing the Christian thing, maybe the Christian way to turn the other cheek, but isn't part of being a good Christian lending help to those in need? It looks to me like Trump is only helping himself and his greedy friends. There's a wonderful investigative report in which it is divulged that Trump has made $4 billion during his presidency. Some estimates up to $4 billion. So that is using his title as president to make money, not after he left the White House, mind you. I mean, the man is running up hotels and acquiring land and one might say, oh, well, he was always into real estate, but his son-in-law who has zero finance experience is also using the title of the president in order to try to make deals and get investments from foreign leaders. All very shady in my opinion, but this isn't really about my opinion. This is about us looking deeper and getting to a point where we're willing to pull back the covers and really take a look at what's going on. And so my darling, if you are finding that someone you love is just unwilling to take a look at things, just to question things just a little, and I'm not saying that everything Trump has done is bad or wrong. I mean, that would be like saying that every human can either be all good or all bad. But I think it's important that we don't deceive ourselves. And so if you know someone who is refusing to acknowledge that the alternative halftime show was a bad idea and that Bad Bunny is a fucking amazing performer, then you, my friend, may know someone who's in a cult. And so leaving MAGA Community might be able to help you figure out how to bridge that gap with that loved one, how to reconnect with them. Because honestly, the only way the insanity ends is if we all keep talking about it, keep working together, and remember that hiding in a bubble won't make the problem go away. Especially after the house is on fire around your bubble. Yes, darlings, well, I will put a little link to leaving MAGA Community in the show notes. And until next time, it's been lovely to chat.