When the second quarter ended, the television went off at the Super Bowl party I attended with my family. This has been our standard practice for at least 10 years, maybe 20.
We don’t watch the halftime show because often it is extremely sexualized — “I better have you naked by the end of this song” was the lyric Justin Timberlake sang as he exposed Janet Jackson’s breast. None of us wants to watch half-naked women dancing, and we don’t want to show it to our daughters or sons, of any age.
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During halftime, someone on our family group text was watching the show and wrote: “Maybe it’s my age, and a bit of prudishness, but I don’t like watching the females’ butts shaking in my face.”
This should be a universal opinion of decent people, but somehow it is political, and only conservatives can admit that sexualized dancing is corrosive and shouldn’t be on the main stage of American culture.
But generally, our cultural elites have decided to accept and celebrate sexual vulgarity.
In 2008, the Recording Academy gave the Grammys for best rap single and best rap album to rapper Lil Wayne for his song “Lollipop.” The “lollipop” in question was actually the rapper’s genitalia, which gives you some idea of the song. If you don’t know the lyrics to “Lollipop,” I promise you it’s far more vulgarly sexual than you imagine. If you read the lyrics, you will regret it. I won’t include them here.
I’m not chastising Lil Wayne for writing the song. I’m chastising purportedly responsible people for celebrating the song. Again, Lil Wayne was given a Grammy Award for this lengthy, explicit, and demeaning description of sex. And the next year, the president of the United States said he added Lil Wayne to his playlist.
It’s the same with the singer who calls himself Bad Bunny: Yes, his songs are depraved, degrading, and shameful. But more relevant for the public debate is that he was given the stage at the halftime show to parade vulgar sexuality, and that in the run-up to this pornified show, his pornographic songs were celebrated by the prestige legacy media.
NPR previewed the halftime show with a segment describing his music as “sort of a nuanced picture of what Puerto Rico is.” The excerpt NPR played was from his song “Diles,” specifically the lyric, “That I know your favorite positions.” Again, the entire song is vulgar and just about sex. The nuance is hard for the layman to detect.
This year’s halftime show apparently had pro-family elements — a wedding! — and some mitigating factors: The worst lyrics were reportedly removed, and they weren’t in English anyway. But there was also crass sexualization onstage, too. And every single liberal who has commented on the show is celebrating it.
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Meanwhile, the headliner at the conservative alternative show himself has a record of gross and demeaning pornographic songs.
Smut will always exist. Decent people shouldn’t celebrate it.
