Each year, the Super Bowl causes a storm of Twitter jokes poking fun at everything from the officiating to the commercials. Perhaps the most overwrought jab has to be some variation of “I heard there was going to be a football game at the (insert performer) show,” and this year’s Super Bowl provided no buck for that trend.
After some (very) brief internet research, no fewer than 40 internet denizens Tweeted out some pithy reinterpretation of the aforementioned Tweet. In a year where the game itself was historically sluggish, there was potential for the halftime act to steal the show, but let’s not kid ourselves.
Maroon 5 is no Beyoncé, and even when accompanied by Travis Scott and OutKast’s Big Boi, this year’s halftime show was always going to be another flurry of questionable set pieces and chopped-up songs that look and sound like a mess that is nowhere close to the message and dazzlement worthy of the stage.
Jonah Baker | Argonaut
So instead of recounting the reasons why Adam Levine’s oddly timed strip tease shouldn’t have happened, let’s take a shot at imagining what a truly transcendent Super Bowl halftime show could look like next February. There is an unfortunate inverse correlation between what is the most possible and what is the most entertaining, so we will start with the plausible and finish with the outrageous.
Childish Gambino with a final flourish
Donald Glover has been rumored to be moving away from the musical alias since his most recent album, “Awaken, My Love!” was released at the end of 2016. Since then, he headlined just about every festival and released one of the most politically charged music videos in history, so there are few other opportunities for Childish Gambino to truly go out on top.
Playing to the roughly 150 million people who watch the Super Bowl every year would be a storybook ending and an opportunity for Glover to make a public once-and-for-all transition to the next phase of his artistry.
Oh yeah, and his music is masterful and diverse enough to make for a show as entertaining as Levine’s wildest dreams. Gambino has beef with close to nobody in pop culture, meaning that we could see previously-impossible pairings.
Collab for the culture
First, Ariana Grande rises from the middle of the stage starting with any of the sugary-sweet anthems that half the population loves while the other half outwardly dismisses but can’t help singing after one daiquiri. Then, a necessary costume and tone change to something edgier and more urgent, until suddenly the spotlight diverts to the highest nosebleed seats and rests upon a man in a simple suit and skinny black tie. Kendrick Lamar begins rapping quietly, then louder as he is delivered from the nosebleeds to the center stage via a drone-supported platform to join Ariana.
Once the shock has sunk into an audience that just witnessed new art made by our generation’s greatest rapper, Kendrick and Ariana launch into a rendition of “No Diggity” by Blackstreet and Queen Pen that brings the house down.
Then, just as the audience thinks the nirvana must come to an end, Barack Obama steps out from his spot on stage, as he was secretly a backup dancer throughout the show.
The whole stadium falls silent, and the former president gives the most eloquent message of unity and hope that the nation has ever seen, and he ends his speech giving his blessing to whoever the perfect candidate for the 2020 election is at that point. The candidate goes on to win the Iowa caucuses that take place the following day, and history forever remembers Super Bowl LIV as the dawn of a new era of American culture and politics.
Tangible change
The sad reality is that we could absolutely get something as ridiculous as an Ariana Grande-Kendrick Lamar-Barack Obama tour de force in the Super Bowl, were it not for the disappointingly backward politics of the league itself.
The NFL, as a whole, remains stunted in its views on whether or not its players deserve full freedom of speech. The league’s owners also seem to view marijuana use as far more reprehensible than domestic and sexual violence, which makes the aforementioned pipe dreams for halftime shows outmoded.
Nobody as politically conscious as Glover, Grande, Lamar or Obama would align themselves with an organization that is so clearly unsure of what it means to be a good person.
So maybe, instead of a flashy musical compilation with positive messages but little force outside the stadium itself, we should all hope for the 32 owners to take time out of the league’s biggest game to announce its most-overdue changes in how the players are treated.
Of course, this would also require Roger Goodell to recuse himself from his seat as NFL commissioner and end one of the most polarizing periods of sports leadership ever. There is no man more responsible for the league’s image issues, and no game-breaking play or halftime diversion would garner more applause than Goodell exiting the league for good as the NFL finally turns a new leaf.
Jonah Baker can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @jonahpbaker