The Suits and The Sugarcane
On Bad Bunny, two Super Bowl half-time concerts, the difference between political programming and political art — and why your work matters more than you might think right now
On Sunday night, two Americas watched two halftime shows. One was a party. The other was a meeting.
You already know the broad strokes. Bad Bunny headlined the official Super Bowl LX halftime show at Levi’s Stadium — performing almost entirely in Spanish, staging a wedding on the fifty-yard line, building a sugarcane field out of human bodies, and handing his Grammy to a child — while Turning Point USA streamed a counter-programmed “All-American Halftime Show” from an undisclosed soundstage in Atlanta featuring Kid Rock, some country acts, and a QR code asking for donations.
If you watched the TPUSA show — and I did, so you didn’t have to — the first thing you noticed was Kid Rock in his jorts and fur vest. But then you looked at the crowd, and that’s when it got strange. Fewer than 200 people, packed along a catwalk in a rented warehouse, wearing suits and business casual and blazers. The Vice President endorsed the event on social media. The Secretary of Defense appeared in a pre-show…