Superbowl 50 was played at the weekend. If you live in the US it’s an event that’s hard to avoid. It’s part of the culture here, like turkey on Thanksgivings and fireworks on the 4th of July. The game was poor, which isn’t unusual. The halftime show also mostly sucked, thanks to the worlds most boring band – Coldplay. Appropriately enough, in a male dominated event, the only redeeming bits of the whole experience were provided by two women. Lady Gaga did a great version of the National Anthem and Beyonce rescued the halftime show.
Normally, none of this would be relevant to a blog like this one. However, I couldn’t let Beyonce’s outfit and her backing dancers pass without comment. They looked like 70’s revolutionaries if they’d been cast for an exploitation action movie and dressed by Helmut Newton. I thought they were brilliant, both in terms of their fetishistic look and their routine. Obviously there was a political element to it, with reference to the Black Power Salute and Black Lives matter. It also pissed off some assholes, so that was another added bonus. The only thing that would have made it better would have been if they’d invaded the stage and beaten the crap out of the guys in Coldplay. That’s a Superbowl show that would have been worth the ticket price.