During Sunday’s Pepsi Super Bowl LIV halftime show in Miami Gardens, Florida,the two stars delivered a set complete with pole-dancing, a children’s choir and a meme-able tongue moment.
Online, the performance sparked debate: Was it empowering to watch two women of color over 40 performing in aprovocative way? Or had we reverted back to a pre-#MeToo moment of objectifying women?
“The @SuperBowl halftime show was just a bad strip show,” tweeted @AUBeard. “We have had so much positive discussion about not treating women like sexual objects, then they go & do this. You can’t cry that women need to be treated better then support this display of sexual objectifying”
“I’m no prude, but watching it with my 7yo daughter and 11yo son was really uncomfortable,” @JLMezz wrote.
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What difference does it make that they’re “women of color”, even if that color is “may as well be white”? Both of them are good powerful singers with a long string of hits behind them, and both of them can move with the best of them. That they can do still do so when they’re well over 40 is great.
Was it a bit too saucy for a halftime show? Better than Beiber boy tearing the clothes off of Janet Jackson I’d say. It certainly was energetic.
And these days, I think self-objectification counts as empowerment. I don’t buy that, but that’s the belief that’s out there.
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