What’s at stake in Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime performance

This article What’s at stake in Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime performance was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

Embed from Getty Images

With the Super Bowl just days away, anticipation for the halftime show centers on Bad Bunny, whose powerful remarks at the Grammy Awards set the stage for a performance charged with urgency and purpose. At the ceremony, Bad Bunny called attention to families torn apart by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and insisted that artists have the responsibility to speak out against injustice, making clear that he intends to use his platform for resistance and solidarity. He has emphasized in interviews that he intends to “speak [his] truth” at the Super Bowl. Not only speak it, but wear it, with fans speculating he will perform in a dress as another political statement against gender conformity.

Polarized responses — ranging from exuberant celebration to xenophobic condemnation — expose unresolved tensions over national identity, colonialism, migration, gender and belonging. Initial responses included praise for unprecedented Puerto Rican visibility circulated alongside claims that the artist is “not American,” “illegal,” or should be deported or have his visa revoked.

The National Football League’s decision to have Green Day open the halftime show, following public calls for a white performer to appear alongside Bad Bunny, has added another layer to the cultural moment. Green Day has long been known for their own protest anthems and explicit expression of resistance to the Trump administration.

In direct response to the NFL’s selection of Bad Bunny, conservative non-profit Turning Point USA is producing a competing broadcast that they are referring to as an “All-American” halftime show scheduled to stream alongside the Super Bowl halftime. This program, described by organizers as a celebration of “faith, family and freedom,” will be headlined by Kid Rock and supported by country artists Brantley Gilbert, Lee Brice and Gabby Barrett, with distribution across platforms such as YouTube, X, Rumble and conservative networks like TBN and Real America’s Voice. These plans have been reported in national news media as an explicit counterpoint to Bad Bunny’s performance and have drawn satire and commentary in popular culture, highlighting the extent to which the Super Bowl halftime show has become a proxy in broader culture wars.

The outrage over this decision has said more about belonging than it has about music. It is a struggle over who counts as part of the nation’s collective “we.” The Super Bowl halftime show is a once-a-year moment when the country symbolically decides whose culture gets to represent the nation and determines what it means to be “American.” When Black, Latinx or other marginalized communities appear on stage, their visibility often triggers broader conflict over race, identity and power. It is moments like this where pop culture is a space where political conflicts play out in public.

The halftime show has long been a site of contestation. Kendrick Lamar’s 2025 performance, which featured dancers forming a fractured U.S. flag and references to Black resistance, drew sharply divided reactions. Eminem’s decision to kneel in 2022 echoing a protest tactic that was made famous by NFL players who knelt during the national anthem to protest police violence and racial injustice years prior.

That movement was catalyzed by NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who began kneeling in 2016 and was subsequently pushed out of the league. The act of kneeling — silent, disciplined and nonviolent — exposed how narrow the boundaries of “acceptable” protest remain within professional sports, and how quickly even restrained dissent by Black people is punished rather than engaged. Other moments — from Lady Gaga’s affirmation of the queer community to Jennifer Lopez and Shakira’s 2020 references to immigration detention and Puerto Rican identity — underscore that the halftime show is never just about entertainment.

The backlash against Bad Bunny began almost immediately after the announcement. At its core is a refusal to recognize Puerto Rican identity as part of the American story. It is a refusal rooted in ignorance about Puerto Rico’s history and its ongoing political marginalization. Many Americans remain unaware that Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens by birth, and public discourse routinely treats the island as foreign. The erasure of Puerto Rico’s colonial status from school curricula and mainstream media enables this ignorance, making it easier for people to call for exclusion, deportation or a return to narrowly defined ideas of “American” culture.

Bad Bunny’s presence on the Super Bowl stage forces this story into view by laying bare a colonial relationship that is usually kept out of sight. His artistry foregrounds Puerto Rican identity, cultural pride and critiques of displacement and neglect, all without translating himself for English-speaking audiences. Songs like “El Apagón,” which calls out gentrification and colonial governance, make Puerto Rico’s political realities visible to a global audience. His refusal to dilute his language or message was on full display during his Saturday Night Live monologue, when he joked that Americans still had four months left to learn Spanish before the Super Bowl. The joke landed because it reversed expectations: the burden of translation shifted away from the colonized onto the audience.

The nativist rhetoric labeling Bad Bunny “illegal” has also produced an unintended effect. Rather than silencing him or his supporters, it has sparked a wave of humor, memes and collective joy. Fans joke about cramming Spanish lessons, singing along phonetically, or simply dancing without understanding every word. These responses draw on a long tradition within nonviolent resistance known as tactical frivolity — the strategic use of humor, play and joy to undermine attempts at discipline and exclusion. Here, it is not the backlash itself that constitutes protest, but the collective response to it: a refusal to be shamed, disciplined or pushed out of public space.

Bad Bunny’s decision to accept the Super Bowl stage is especially striking, given his earlier cancellation of U.S. tour dates over fears of exposing his fans to ICE harassment and arrest. The NFL has refuted rumors that immigration agents will be at the Super Bowl, stating that ICE won’t be among the federal agencies present. 

Rather than a contradiction, this performance represents a deliberate decision to use the biggest possible stage to make Puerto Rico and its struggles visible. Bad Bunny has framed the moment as a collective victory — for himself, Puerto Rico and Latinos more broadly. By stepping onto the Super Bowl stage, he brings debates about belonging and colonial power into the center of American culture.

Bad Bunny’s public persona and performances repeatedly challenge reggaetón’s machismo and broader U.S. gender norms. He is widely seen as a queer icon for his embrace of gender nonconformity and sexual fluidity, including appearing in drag in “Yo Perrero Sola” to critique misogyny and affirm women’s autonomy. Other songs complicate heteronormative expectations or call for collective resilience. Not every track is an overt protest anthem or political statement, but together with his gendered and sexual deviance, he makes a space for diverse ways of being masculine and rejecting those labels altogether.

Listening to Bad Bunny’s music can also change how people understand Puerto Rico and its history. Songs like “LO QUE LE PASÓ A HAWAii” and “El Apagón” invite listeners into histories of colonialism, displacement, gentrification and political struggle that are rarely taught in the United States. For many audiences, this music provides a first encounter with Puerto Rico’s unresolved colonial relationship with the U.S. This is an encounter made accessible through rhythm, storytelling and emotional connection. 

Music has long played this role in movements for social change. During the U.S. civil rights movement, freedom songs such as “We Shall Overcome” and “Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around” were not just expressions of hope but tools of nonviolent resistance used to build solidarity, sustain courage in the face of repression, and turn fear into collective resilience. Similar dynamics were visible during the Baltic Singing Revolution of the late 1980s, when mass public signing helped mobilize nonviolent resistance and assert national identity in the face of Soviet domination. 

Previous Coverage

Why movements need to start singing again

These traditions continue today, from protest chants and songs at demonstrations against police violence to music used at rallies resisting ICE raids and deportations. In Minneapolis, the fatal shooting of two United States’ citizens, Renée Good and Alex Pretti, by federal immigration agents amid protests sparked widespread outrage and prompted many powerful artistic responses.

Local artists in Minnesota have also composed and performed new songs addressing the crisis, blending personal grief with calls to collective action. These include original protest compositions that have circulated on social media and live settings throughout protest marches and community gatherings. Groups like Brass Solidarity, originally formed in the wake of the movement against police violence in 2020, have adapted their repertoire to support actions against ICE raids. They have been playing traditional songs of solidarity and freedom at protests and contributing to the expressive fabric of resistance. Protesters have leaned on easily recognizable faith-based songs prominent in the Civil Rights era, including “Amazing Grace,” “This Little Light of Mine,”and “We Shall Not Be Moved,” repurposing them for immigration justice rallies. Citizen groups such as Twin Cities Drum Collective are using music as a form of disturbance, playing loudly outside where ICE agents are lodging in the late night hours.

On the national level, legendary rock musician Bruce Springsteen released a protest song titled“Streets of Minneapolis” explicitly condemning ICE operations and invoking chants such as “ICE out now” in its chorus. Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello has released a new song “Pretend You Remember Me” as an ICE protest song and has joined citizens in ICE protests in Minneapolis. Lead singer of the band Las Cafeteras has led the whistle movement against ICE in Los Angeles and the band has toured the U.S. on their “Melting ICE Tour.” And faith groups and activists in El Paso, Texas have gathered to pray and sing hymns at the border in solidarity with migrant struggles.

In moments of political repression, singing together has repeatedly allowed communities to assert dignity, hold ground in the face of exclusion, stick together and claim their place in public and political life. While music does not resolve the conflict, it sustains people through it, carrying memory, grief, defiance and joy when other forms of speech are constrained or ignored. These moments rarely announce themselves as historic at the time. They unfold in ordinary spaces where people gather to remain present, visible and unmovable in the face of exclusion. Music used for protest purposes on large stages — or the largest stage in the United States — has more profound reach and influence. This was a sentiment expressed not only by Bad Bunny but various other award-winning artists at the recent Grammy Awards.

The controversy over Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl performance is ultimately a revealing sign of the country’s fears and tensions. The louder the calls to exclude, the more visible the solidarities that emerge in response. Celebration, humor and collective anticipation become practices of belonging, reminding us that national identity is not fixed or handed down from above; it is constantly being argued over and reshaped. As the spotlight turns to Super Bowl LX, the halftime show will surely entertain and reveal how many people are ready to claim space, dance and sing like no one is watching, refuse erasure, come together, and insist that joy itself can be a form of resistance.

This article What’s at stake in Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime performance was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

People-powered news and analysis

Source: https://wagingnonviolence.org/2026/02/stakes-bad-bunny-super-bowl-halftime/