Last week, Bad Bunny performed at the Super Bowl halftime show, and there was so much controversy over him singing in Spanish that the conservative group, Turning Point USA, decided to host their own rival halftime show headlined by Kid Rock and Brantley Gilbert. 

But here is what I don’t understand. What was it that made a Spanish performance specifically cross the line that previous shows, riddled with explicit lyrics and scantily-dressed dancers didn’t? When did we go from being able to appreciate and celebrate other cultures to taking anything different from us as a personal attack?

When I first heard about the Turning Point USA’s halftime show, it was proudly announced to be broadcast on their YouTube channel and TBN, the world’s largest Christian TV network, so I was expecting a great lineup of Christian artists. The Super Bowl halftime show has historically had not-so-child-friendly moments (I remember watching the Justin Timberlake/Janet Jackson incident as a kid live with my family), so I was not opposed to a Christian-based alternative. It could have been a new tradition for me to watch with my own family.

Then they announced the headliner to be Kid Rock and I was very confused. I couldn’t recall any of his songs that don’t have drug or sexual references? Don’t get me wrong, I was raised on Kid Rock and his songs are fun, but if the goal is to provide a Christian halftime show alternative, why him?

Meanwhile, Bad Bunny had to show up to the Grammy awards two weeks ago with a bulletproof vest because of the amount of death threats he has gotten since he was announced as the halftime show performer. 

At first, I thought the fuss was over Bad Bunny not being American, so I did some research. Turns out Bad Bunny is a born American citizen, as were his parents. His family is from Puerto Rico, which is part of the US. Meanwhile, several of the halftime performers in the past have not been American, such as the Weeknd, Coldplay, Phil Collins, and a lot of others. As far as I know, there was no outrage over any of those.

There was also a rumor spread about Bad Bunny that he burned a US flag, which is completely false. I’ve been a fan of his for years, and I’ve never seen him do anything anti-American.

So then, I questioned if it was the lyrical content or dancing. But there have been several rappers with explicit lyrics and barely-clothed dancers, much worse than Bad Bunny’s performance, and none of that was apparently worthy of boycotting the halftime show and creating an alternate one, so that really only leaves the Spanish-speaking aspect of Bad Bunny as the culprit.

But roughly 13-14% of Americans speak Spanish, and for the rest of us, shouldn’t it be fun to celebrate another culture for 15 minutes? If the halftime show ever had a Louisiana artist that played zydeco in Cajun French on a Mardi Gras float, I personally would be ecstatic to see the rest of the country celebrate our culture.

So why can’t we be happy for Bad Bunny and allow him to have 15 minutes on a stage? Why are we so plugged into the news that tells us to hate anything different from us, instead of celebrating a fellow human who is made in the image of God?

To be clear, it’s okay to boycott a show if the nature of the performance does not align with your values, but it is never okay to boycott it because you hate your neighbor for being different from you.

Both of the halftime shows closed with messages. Turning Point had a good moment of Kid Rock encouraging people to give their life to Jesus (which was good, even if it was only a few minutes after singing a song about topless dancers and drugs), and Bad Bunny saying “God bless America” in English, actually.

Turning Point’s screen flashed with a clip from Isaiah 6:8, “Here am I, send me.”, a reference to the late Turning Point Founder, Charlie Kirk, and Bad Bunny’s screen said “The only thing more powerful than hate is love”, a reference to the amount of intense hate he has gotten in the past few weeks.

I’d like to also close with a message.

“Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.” -1 John 4:20

Taryn Ogletree is a local small business owner and author with previous experience of several years in finance.