{"id":291405,"date":"2026-02-11T00:18:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T00:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/291405\/"},"modified":"2026-02-11T00:18:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T00:18:09","slug":"america-displays-a-cultural-split-screen-at-the-super-bowl-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/291405\/","title":{"rendered":"America displays a cultural split screen at the Super Bowl \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

With the Super Bowl<\/a> in Levi\u2019s Stadium down the road in Santa Clara, San Francisco was a throng of fans, celebrities and corporate stunts. <\/p>\n

The Seattle Seahawks ambled into town from up the west coast and had the majority of locals rooting for them. The New England Patriots emerged from their eastern Arctic blast and blinked in the California winter sunshine. <\/p>\n

Benito Ocasio aka Bad Bunny spent the week loping around the streets in advance of his much-anticipated half-time live appearance, where he performed mostly in his native Spanish. That\u2019s in a positive way by the natives and the Democrat city and a negative way by conservative America. At times, it seemed that San Francisco was hosting the Benito Bowl, and we were all just living in his world. All over the country, Benito Bowl parties were planned from Minneapolis to the Bronx.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Super Bowl half-time show: Bad Bunny delivers a message of unity. Trump calls it \u2018disgusting\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Bad Bunny\u2019s lookalike contests entertained the masses in the Mission District, marching bands oop-pah-pahed up and down Market Street. San Francisco mayor Daniel Lurie, the man who built Levi\u2019s Stadium, looked on delighted at the impromptu salsa dancing on Union Square as DJs entertained thousands of visitors. <\/p>\n

Along with the circus came the bread \u2013 and plenty of it. Limos, hummers, lots of vroom-vroom sports cars tried out the hills for size and disgorged their passengers at the steps of parties hosted by Air Jordan, Empire music company, Uber and countless others.<\/p>\n

\"MoreMore than one million visitors descended on San Francisco and San Jose for the Super Bowl. Photograph: Justin Sullivan\/Getty Images <\/p>\n

Cardi B performed in a club, Green Day were around the corner, Jay-Z was in town to supervise his half-time show choice. Spike Lee and his son had dinner with Francis Ford Coppola in the director\u2019s restaurant. <\/p>\n

Justin Timberlake danced along with Justin Bieber and all sorts of famous-looking influencer types sauntered in and out of the Apple Store right on cue.<\/p>\n

A grizzly, bearded David Letterman wandered the cleaned-up Tenderloin neighbourhood taking selfies with the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD). The Budweiser Clydesdale horses clod-hopped around the streets delivering six-packs to thrilled punters.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0In pictures: Bad Bunny\u2019s Super Bowl half-time showOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Charlie Smyth, the Co Down former primary schoolteacher and now 24-year-old Irish kicking star of the New Orleans Saints, was in town to meet, greet and take a cable car ride. The super-sound Charlie has his feet firmly on the ground, insisting that in the NFL you are only as good as your last training session, never mind big games.<\/p>\n

Overhead, small planes dragged large flag ads for nimble household robots, and drones buzzed to catch the perfect non-foggy shots of SF bridges.<\/p>\n

SFPD choppers and scramblers prowled the hills and streets.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose toys they\u2019re using? They\u2019re all homeland security,\u201d remarked an observer, unamused. Stickers of pictures of ice cubes with Xs through them littered lamp-posts. <\/p>\n

A week ago an anonymous character dressed from head to toe as Batman appeared at the Santa Clara supervisors\u2019 council<\/a>, hosts to Levi\u2019s Stadium and the Super Bowl. Batman stood there in full leather cape and bodysuit and admonished the council with plenty of F-words for even thinking of working with Ice for Super Bowl security. Of course, the anonymous superhero went super viral.<\/p>\n

Batman prefers to remain anonymous, just saying that he has been walking the streets of Santa Clara for the last eight years, handing out food and water to homeless and reporting abuses of encampments, all the while dressed in a superhero costume.<\/p>\n

\"AA “Bad Bunny says Ice Out” sign on a lamp post in San Francisco. Photograph: Patrick T Fallon\/AFP via Getty Images <\/p>\n

He leads a motley crew. In 2020, after the murder of George Floyd, he connected with another costumed crusader, the \u201cCrimson Fist\u201d, and now they and others form the Bay Area Superheroes group in bringing attention to social issues. <\/p>\n

On Sunday, as Bad Bunny brought the bodega spirit of Puerto Rico to Levi\u2019s Stadium celebrating all of the Americas, he and his flag-waving troupe were cheered on by thousands in the stadium waving white towels with \u201cNo Ice\u201d printed on them. The show\u2019s themes coalesced into an emotional tribute to US Latino culture.<\/p>\n

\"BadBad Bunny and Lady Gaga perform during the Super Bowl\u00a0halftime show in Santa Clara, California. Photograph: Kevin C Cox\/Getty Images <\/p>\n

And it was a dig to the rival Maga half-time show being transmitted online from Florida. Turning Point USA hosted an \u201cAll American Halftime Show\u201d, featuring a video message from Pete Hegseth and a line-up that included headliner Kid Rock. Just before transmission a post on X said unfortunately the show would not be streamed live on the platform due to licensing restrictions. Oops. <\/p>\n

It is reported that six million watched the Maga YouTube stream. At the time of writing, it is estimated that more than 130 million watched Bad Bunny.<\/p>\n

Outside the Super Bowl stadium, Batman led a few thousand protesters in a Latino-style protest rally against Ice, echoing the singing and dancing inside. <\/p>\n

In San Francisco, and in the barometer of my yoga class, they all agree: Benito \u201cBad Bunny\u201d Ocasio won the sunny San Francisco Super Bowl. And Batman. And the Seahawks, of course. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With the Super Bowl in Levi\u2019s Stadium down the road in Santa Clara, San Francisco was a throng…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":291406,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[23645,969,93,61,60,90],"class_list":["post-291405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-american-football","tag-donald-trump","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=291405"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291405\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/291406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=291405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=291405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=291405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}