By Alli Rosenbloom, celebrity.land
(celebrity.land) — In just over 13 minutes worth of music, stars and symbolism, Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny rewrote what it means to be American in a time of strife.
For months, conservatives from the president on down have painted him as anti-American. Last night, Bad Bunny asked: What if I’m the real American?
Bad Bunny — who introduced himself with his real full name Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio — brought the iconography of Puerto Rican culture to his Super Bowl halftime show performance, a joyous and high-energy affair that celebrated the island where he was born and its place in the American story.
The artist did not shy away from overt political symbolism, ending the authentic and confident performance on a note of unity.
After playing some of his biggest hits, Bad Bunny stared down the camera and spoke in English for the only time during the performance to say, “God Bless America.”
He followed with a list of more than 20 nations in North, Central and South America while dancers trailed him displaying the flags of many of those nations, with the US and Puerto Rican flags most visible directly behind him.
While the US often uses the word “America” to identify itself as a single, distinct country, many of its neighbors use it to refer to a greater unified continent, a point that Bad Bunny hammered home when he spiked a football that read “Together we are America,” before launching into his nostalgic anthem “DtMF.”
The message was clear: Bad Bunny declared himself an American patriot in the broadest sense of the term and he doesn’t think it’s a view that should really be left up to a coin toss.
Strong symbolism
After all the pushback to Bad Bunny’s selection to headline the halftime show, the musician took the stage as a celebratory and active voice.
While performing “NUEVAYoL” — a song considered to be a tribute to immigrants and Puerto Rico’s diaspora in New York — Bad Bunny was seen giving a Grammy statuette to a young boy who seconds before was watching the moment the musician won the award on TV, alongside two adults.
The young boy was played by a child actor named Lincoln Fox Ramadan, who was cast based on his resemblance to a young Bad Bunny. The segment was meant to symbolize the artist handing a Grammy to his younger self, a representative from Ramadan’s talent agency W Group told celebrity.land on Sunday.
Wendy Woods, talent agent, owner and CEO of The W Group Artists and Entertainment group in Florida, said she was “blown away” by Ramadan’s performance and was “honored” to help him get on the stage with Bad Bunny.
For a brief moment, the Internet ran with rumors that the boy was Liam Conejo Ramos, the 5-year-old who was taken into ICE custody in Minneapolis and placed with his father in a family detention facility in Texas, before being released earlier this month while his case plays out.
Though ultimately untrue, the moment could be seen as a message of support to immigrants across the US, harkening back as it did to the night Bad Bunny aligned himself with those calling for an end to the Trump administration’s unprecedented immigration crackdown.
A celebration for all
Throughout the show, Bad Bunny celebrated pastimes beloved in Puerto Rico, from dominoes to boxing, and also the families and generations that make up life on the island.
At one point in his performance, a man was seen proposing to a woman; later, they were seen together wearing all white, getting married. It was the story of this couple’s nuptials told throughout the performance.
Once the crowd parted after the wedding ceremony, Lady Gaga made a surprise appearance to sing a Latin-inspired rendition of her Grammy-winning collaboration with Bruno Mars, “Die With a Smile,” serving as the wedding singer for the couple, who were then seen cutting into a multi-tiered wedding cake and sharing a long kiss.
This was yet another moment when the show tidily hammered home its point about freedom and the pursuit of happiness, while making clear that celebrating marriage and children is not a uniquely conservative pursuit.
The show called back continuously to Puerto Rican culture and also featured many famous ‘backup dancers,’ including Jessica Alba, Karol G, Cardi B and Pedro Pascal, and a surprise performance from Ricky Martin, who sang “Lo Que Le Pasó a Hawaii,” a warning about the cost of gentrification.
Bad Bunny made good on his promise that viewers didn’t need to learn Spanish in order to enjoy his halftime show.
It was a dance party with a message, one that was blasted on a screen at Levi’s Stadium as he closed out his set: “The only thing that is more powerful than hate is love.”
celebrity.land’s Michael Rios, Verónica Calderón, Esteban Campanela, Laura Sharman and Sofia Hanalei Sanchez contributed to this report.
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