The Halftime Show was Weird...and Not Like Tim Burton/Johnny Depp Good Weird

So the Steelers weren’t the only team to lose the Super Bowl this year. The Black Eyed Peas threw a couple interceptions, too.

Despite the polarizing effects of the Super Bowl, the two nations seem to have united in their disappointment in the halftime show. And I watched it in a room full of people who could all agree: it was not very good. It felt like I was watching a (really expensive) talent show (with fireworks) at the local high school, and I was on the edge of my seat the whole time, waiting for the performers to hit a sour note, ready for the whole thing to be over so I could stop being stressed out for them. Or it was like watching a kid on roller skates. He’s flailing his arms around, never quite balanced, and the entire time he looks like he’s going to fall on his face.

But it wasn’t a high school talent show or a kid on roller skates. It was the Super Bowl. It’s the annual climax for corporate marketing departments; it’s the most watched televised event of the year (actually last night’s game was the most watch televised event ever). Many Americans prepare for this day in the same way that they prepare for Christmas or Thanksgiving. They cook certain foods, make certain drinks, they invite their loved ones over to gather around the tree…I mean T.V. It seems like with that type of pressure, we could do better than Fergie dry-humping Slash’s leg while he continually repeats a riff that all thirteen year old boys with an electric guitar know how to play. (Seriously? If you’re going to bring Slash out on stage and not let him just wail in that face-melting kind of way, why don’t you just give him a kazoo…wait, can you auto-tune a kazoo?)

Anyway, I read a snarky and sardonic blog (don't even think about clicking on that link if you don't like the F word...or are socially conservative...and typically don't like grim sarcasm...I'm not responsible for hurt feelings or time lost reading it) about the performance today, and it was so mean that I actually started to feel bad for Fergie and the other Black Eyed Peas. (I’m leaving Usher out of this, because he wasn’t dressed like a robot). I tried to imagine the pressure that the Peas were feeling knowing that they were getting ready to perform for 100.9 million people. And we weren’t the easiest crowd to please.

Since the Super Bowl is like a national and religious holiday for many, the hype factor really dooms the performance before anyone takes the stage. Our expectations are too high, especially considering that the stage has to be assembled in less than 6 minutes. Plus, by halftime, most football fans have a pretty good buzz going on and half of them are on edge because their team is down. Then there are the guys that usually associate sport watching with man-time and they are pissed off because they had to bring their girlfriend/wife and she’s been asking ridiculous questions all night long and talking about stupid stuff the whole time. (I’m not saying ALL girls do this, so don’t get your undergarments all bunched up). These guys don’t want to watch a fruity halftime show (unless Bruce Springstein is involved…then it’s not fruity). The halftime show is just the thing that stands between them and their team winning the Super Bowl. And there are all the women that are pissed off because the Go Daddy commercials made them feel physically inferior and they are quietly stewing over the lewd comment that their boyfriend/husband’s offensive friend made, and since their boyfriend/husband silently agreed with that comment, they are already planning on not talking to him on the car ride home. And this reminds them that they are also angry because their husband/boyfriend is getting a lot drunker than he intended to and they’ll have to drive home while giving him the silent treatment. So the last thing they want to do is stare at Fergie’s awesome calf muscles and miniscule inner thighs.

So, the performers (notice I’m avoiding the word musicians here) already have the odds stacked against them before they can even screw up the lyrics to the “Star Spangled Banner.” It’s not entirely their fault that a good portion of those 100.9 million viewers spent the entire half time show giving their TVs the stink-eye, tweeting about Will.i.am’s plastic hair, or questioning the purpose of the discordant back-up dancers (it’s impossible to get that many people to dance in sync unless you live in a communist country). Maybe it’s our fault for expecting too much out of the Super Bowl Halftime Show. Maybe we should just lower our expectations.

But then I remembered that the halftime show was auto-tuned…and suddenly my desire to feel bad for the Black Eyed Peas becomes as dim as Slash’s awareness of his surroundings last night. I guess since it was the first pop performance since the Janet Jackson nipple cameo, I had forgotten how much dancing would be involved. And of course if Usher is going to do cheerleading stunts, his breathing won’t be regular enough for him to really sing, but it still seemed like cheating. And then I remembered that Fergie screamed the lyrics of “Sweet Child O' Mine” while she treated Slash’s leg like a stripper pole. (How is this more okay than seeing Janet Jackson’s nipple for ½ a second?) Even if the hype does stack the odds against the performers, last night’s performance was just plain weird.


(here's a clip of Fergie rubbing up on Slash before screaming the lyrics)

Here’s hoping for an awesome halftime show for Super Bowl 46. Maybe next year there will be a musician or two on the stage for more than thirty seconds. Or maybe they’ll just go the same route again because that Bieber and Ozzy commercial was a hit. And the idea of a “Bark at the Moon”/”Baby” mash-up is more than a little intriguing.