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Jennifer Lopez put children in cages for her all-singing, all-dancing attack on Trump’s immigration policies. But it’s just the latest of many hard-hitting Super Bowl performances
Rather than address one of the biggest controversies in American sporting history – the “take the knee” protests by American footballer Colin Kaepernick – 2019’s Super Bowl deflected it with Adam Levine’s abs. Fronting Maroon 5 topless, his performance was much derided; the New York Times described it as “an inessential performance by a band that might have lost some moral authority if it had any moral authority to lose”.
Praise be, then, to Jennifer Lopez for her performance at this year’s final. As well as being a triumph of hair styling, pole dancing and leather craftsmanship, this daughter of Puerto Rican parents also deployed staging that featured children sitting inside cages – surely a reference to the Trump-approved detention of Latin-American immigrants. There was female empowerment, too, with her singing dance troupe of girls surrounding her as she wrapped herself in a reversible flag – one half Puerto Rican, the other stars and stripes – as she sang a snatch of Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the USA with her daughter Emme Muñiz. Continue reading...