Slate: Bad Bunny’s Halftime Show Proved That for 'Oppressed' Groups, Joy Is Resistance

This editor missed both halftime shows during the big game, but he's seen plenty of video of Bad Bunny's performance at the Super Bowl. The show was obviously choreographed with the TV camera in mind, because the view from the stands wasn't that great:

This is hilarious. The stage designer didn’t bother to think this one out. 😂 pic.twitter.com/RlqT7wMiYe
— Freedom Enthusiast 🇺🇸 (@ThoughtCrimes80) February 9, 2026

They were more concerned with the television cattle than the stadium cattle.

Gotta maximize your reach, baby!
— P. W. A (@fertiletownship) February 9, 2026

That's right. The run with a football through the sugar cane fields with the slave workers was definitely meant for the TV audience:

pic.twitter.com/cm5FNUyUzB
— media (@mediafortwo) February 9, 2026

Matt Walsh was not a fan:

Having the halftime show for your biggest game of the year in a language almost none of your lifelong fans can understand, while waving the flags of countries that none them are from, is the biggest fuck you that I’ve ever seen a corporation give to its own consumers
— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) February 9, 2026

Most of the media was enamoured of the performance … even Elmo from Sesame Street chimed in to say that he was a fan of what The Washington Post thought was a family-friendly romp, filled with "the kind of wholesome, traditional family values that would have fit right in with some of the more sentimental commercials that appeared during the game."

To be fair, folks in the stands could see the electrical workers trying to keep Puerto Rico's fragile grid together:

… there were plenty of other references to the politics of everyday life, including Bad Bunny’s choice to perform “El Apagón.” The song (meaning “the blackout”) is a protest tune about displacement and other inequities facing Puerto Ricans, named after the rolling blackouts the island has faced in the years since Hurricane Maria in 2017. Bad Bunny performed it while climbing a powerline pole, with a Puerto Rican flag in hand, as dancers were on top of other powerline poles. This is unsurprising for the artist, considering the album itself is about celebrating the beauty of Puerto Rico while also being heartbroken by the political reality of gentrification and the effects of the tourism industry that the island’s inhabitants face. Bad Bunny has always been good at effective political messaging because he’s not usually striving to be overtly political, but he is aware that he lives an inherently political existence—one in which nostalgia surfaces not only as an effect of time, but because of what gentrification and inequality take from you.

Oh, so that was the message: "the political reality of gentrification and the effects of the tourism industry that the island’s inhabitants face."

Literally nobody is oppressed.
— Spencer (Florida/Man) (@IslandDog) February 9, 2026

Who's oppressed?
— AAE (@AAC0519) February 9, 2026

Who is oppressed? Not this guy, clearly. 😅
— President Doctor (@LDreeniatnuom) February 9, 2026

They aren't oppressed
— GeronL (@geronl) February 9, 2026

An oppressed group who's performing at a Super Bowl Halftime Show? @ListComesForAll
— Dominic Seibert (@DomJSII) February 9, 2026

So oppressed, he made a Super Bowl Halftime show.

Dork.
— Summer (@SummerELight) February 9, 2026

pic.twitter.com/T8UB5kVOp2
— Panic Chicken (@panicchicken01) February 9, 2026

Go and look up the word oppressed and come back and delete this. Fools.
— Spare Me Your Selective Outrage! (@SomewhatHopeful) February 9, 2026

pic.twitter.com/T1EXEnubU2
— Corynetes ♣️☢️🔬 (@ObstinateBob) February 9, 2026

Not the message that was received and if it was, you wouldn’t have had to write this nonsense as cover.
— Daytripper20 (@Day_Tripper20) February 9, 2026

Is this the worst take on Bad Bunny's halftime show? It could be.

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