Bad Bunny’s Stunning Redefinition of “America”
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Society
/ February 10, 2026
Bad Bunny’s Stunning Redefinition of “America”
His joyous, internationalist, worker-centered vision was a declaration of war against Trumpism.
Greg Grandin
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Bad Bunny performs onstage during the Apple Music Super Bowl LX Halftime Show at Levi’s Stadium on February 8, 2026. in Santa Clara, California.
(Kevin Mazur / Getty Images for Roc Nation)
An estimated 135 million viewers in the United States watched Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, aka Bad Bunny, perform live at the Super Bowl halftime show on Sunday. Many millions more all over the world later caught the show online. What they saw was a stunning redefinition of what it means to be an American.
It took about five seconds to realize this was no ordinary halftime show. And another 30 for Bad Bunny to overrun the trench work of the US culture war, and the schisms of race, gender, class, and sexuality so easily manipulated both by MAGA nationalists and bad-faith centrists. He showed all kinds of people working and playing, creating a universal joy that excluded none.
Bad Bunny jammed over a century of history into his 13-minute performance. He started where all good history should: with labor, walking through a sugar plantation set as workers cut the cane that, over the decades, has generated incalculable profits, mostly channeled to Europe and the United States from the Caribbean, including Bad Bunny’s Puerto Rican homeland. And even as the show moved on to other themes—and the other performers, Lady Gaga and Ricky Martin—the sugar cane remained, surrounding scenes of urban streets, Puerto Rican casitas, Bronx bodegas, and those ubiquitous cheap plastic chairs. The whole extravaganza—its monumental scale, cultural storytelling, and celebration of hard-working men and women—seemed like a WPA mural jolted alive by the rhythm of perreo.
That Bad Bunny sang mostly in reggaeton Spanish was an unabashedly defiant act. But most of the show’s politics, however obvious to some, was largely muted by the lush pageantry. Was the woman in the couple who married on stage pregnant? If so, was this a symbolic thumbing of the nose atTrump’s efforts to end birthright citizenship? (We’ll have this baby right here on the 50-yard-line, and it will be American and a US citizen!) Similarly, when Bad Bunny gave a Grammy he recently won to a young boy, viewers immediately speculated that the boy was Liam Conejo Ramos, the 5-year-old seized by ICE in Minneapolis. He wasn’t, but the point felt clear: He could have been; according to The Guardian, ICE has captured roughly 3,800 minors between January and October 2025.
And the sexualized …
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Current Issue
Society
/ February 10, 2026
Bad Bunny’s Stunning Redefinition of “America”
His joyous, internationalist, worker-centered vision was a declaration of war against Trumpism.
Greg Grandin
Share
Copy Link
X (Twitter)
Bluesky Pocket
Ad Policy
Bad Bunny performs onstage during the Apple Music Super Bowl LX Halftime Show at Levi’s Stadium on February 8, 2026. in Santa Clara, California.
(Kevin Mazur / Getty Images for Roc Nation)
An estimated 135 million viewers in the United States watched Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, aka Bad Bunny, perform live at the Super Bowl halftime show on Sunday. Many millions more all over the world later caught the show online. What they saw was a stunning redefinition of what it means to be an American.
It took about five seconds to realize this was no ordinary halftime show. And another 30 for Bad Bunny to overrun the trench work of the US culture war, and the schisms of race, gender, class, and sexuality so easily manipulated both by MAGA nationalists and bad-faith centrists. He showed all kinds of people working and playing, creating a universal joy that excluded none.
Bad Bunny jammed over a century of history into his 13-minute performance. He started where all good history should: with labor, walking through a sugar plantation set as workers cut the cane that, over the decades, has generated incalculable profits, mostly channeled to Europe and the United States from the Caribbean, including Bad Bunny’s Puerto Rican homeland. And even as the show moved on to other themes—and the other performers, Lady Gaga and Ricky Martin—the sugar cane remained, surrounding scenes of urban streets, Puerto Rican casitas, Bronx bodegas, and those ubiquitous cheap plastic chairs. The whole extravaganza—its monumental scale, cultural storytelling, and celebration of hard-working men and women—seemed like a WPA mural jolted alive by the rhythm of perreo.
That Bad Bunny sang mostly in reggaeton Spanish was an unabashedly defiant act. But most of the show’s politics, however obvious to some, was largely muted by the lush pageantry. Was the woman in the couple who married on stage pregnant? If so, was this a symbolic thumbing of the nose atTrump’s efforts to end birthright citizenship? (We’ll have this baby right here on the 50-yard-line, and it will be American and a US citizen!) Similarly, when Bad Bunny gave a Grammy he recently won to a young boy, viewers immediately speculated that the boy was Liam Conejo Ramos, the 5-year-old seized by ICE in Minneapolis. He wasn’t, but the point felt clear: He could have been; according to The Guardian, ICE has captured roughly 3,800 minors between January and October 2025.
And the sexualized …
Bad Bunny’s Stunning Redefinition of “America”
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Bad Bunny’s Stunning Redefinition of “America”
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Current Issue
Society
/ February 10, 2026
Bad Bunny’s Stunning Redefinition of “America”
His joyous, internationalist, worker-centered vision was a declaration of war against Trumpism.
Greg Grandin
Share
Copy Link
Facebook
X (Twitter)
Bluesky Pocket
Email
Ad Policy
Bad Bunny performs onstage during the Apple Music Super Bowl LX Halftime Show at Levi’s Stadium on February 8, 2026. in Santa Clara, California.
(Kevin Mazur / Getty Images for Roc Nation)
An estimated 135 million viewers in the United States watched Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, aka Bad Bunny, perform live at the Super Bowl halftime show on Sunday. Many millions more all over the world later caught the show online. What they saw was a stunning redefinition of what it means to be an American.
It took about five seconds to realize this was no ordinary halftime show. And another 30 for Bad Bunny to overrun the trench work of the US culture war, and the schisms of race, gender, class, and sexuality so easily manipulated both by MAGA nationalists and bad-faith centrists. He showed all kinds of people working and playing, creating a universal joy that excluded none.
Bad Bunny jammed over a century of history into his 13-minute performance. He started where all good history should: with labor, walking through a sugar plantation set as workers cut the cane that, over the decades, has generated incalculable profits, mostly channeled to Europe and the United States from the Caribbean, including Bad Bunny’s Puerto Rican homeland. And even as the show moved on to other themes—and the other performers, Lady Gaga and Ricky Martin—the sugar cane remained, surrounding scenes of urban streets, Puerto Rican casitas, Bronx bodegas, and those ubiquitous cheap plastic chairs. The whole extravaganza—its monumental scale, cultural storytelling, and celebration of hard-working men and women—seemed like a WPA mural jolted alive by the rhythm of perreo.
That Bad Bunny sang mostly in reggaeton Spanish was an unabashedly defiant act. But most of the show’s politics, however obvious to some, was largely muted by the lush pageantry. Was the woman in the couple who married on stage pregnant? If so, was this a symbolic thumbing of the nose atTrump’s efforts to end birthright citizenship? (We’ll have this baby right here on the 50-yard-line, and it will be American and a US citizen!) Similarly, when Bad Bunny gave a Grammy he recently won to a young boy, viewers immediately speculated that the boy was Liam Conejo Ramos, the 5-year-old seized by ICE in Minneapolis. He wasn’t, but the point felt clear: He could have been; according to The Guardian, ICE has captured roughly 3,800 minors between January and October 2025.
And the sexualized …
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