OPINION: More subversive than intended

I was 13 in 1992, when Gloria Estefan became the first Hispanic musician to headline the Super Bowl halftime show. But I didn’t see it.

Instead, I watched the first “alternative halftime show” in Super Bowl history — a special episode of the sketch comedy program “In Living Color.” The majority-Black cast, who called themselves the “bad boys of comedy,” certainly weren’t protesting the official show because it was too “woke.” They just thought it was corny.

This year’s Super Bowl counterprogramming, “The All American Halftime Show,” was a very different affair.

Did I have misgivings about watching and reviewing a show produced by Turning Point USA, a far-right Christian activist group?

How could I not? I’m a white man who grew up in a mostly Black ghetto in West Palm Beach, Florida, across the bridge from Palm Beach, the island of billionaires where President Donald J. Trump now has a winter home. I didn’t have to read critical race theory to see evidence of America’s racialized caste system every day. As for Christian nationalism, I saw plenty of that, too. I attended a Christian fundamentalist school, whose teachers preached the evils of rock music while praising abortion clinic bombers. At lunch, I was relegated to the “uncool” table with the other misfits: the one Jewish kid, the one Hindu kid, the two Muslim kids and the two gay kids.

So, no, I was not looking forward to a show that might dredge up old childhood traumas.

But I’m a good sport, and I like a challenge. In addition to my usual art reviews, I’ve reviewed hot sauces, operas and even a claw machine arcade. So, why not “The All American Halftime Show?”

Here’s what I liked:

Tribute to a Black antiwar musician

Although the show was introduced by U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, the first musician onstage was Spencer Waasdorp, aka Chuck Hollywood, who plugged in his electric guitar and played Jimi Hendrix’s version of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Yes, the screechy, distorted version he played at Woodstock in 1969, which was widely interpreted as a protest against the Vietnam War.

That was not on my bingo card.

I’m not saying Chuck Hollywood intended his performance as a rebuke of Hegseth — this was a highly orchestrated show, prerecorded in Atlanta, and the patriotic, pro-military theme was unambiguous. But for viewers either too young or too sheltered to know about Hendrix, Hollywood’s tribute may pique their curiosity.

Perhaps they’ll come across Hendrix’s quote, “When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.”

Gabby Barrett’s bisexual lighting

I don't know who was responsible for the lighting design during Gabby Barrett’s set, but I’m a fan.

The blonde-haired country-gospel singer, wearing a Hillary Clinton-esque blue pantsuit, stood in an abstract cone of pink, purple and blue laser lights, which wrapped around her body like a three-dimensional screensaver.

That particular color palette, which resembles the bisexual flag, has been used in films, music videos and queer art for years but gained social media traction around 2017, and is now firmly established as a cultural code for bisexuality.

Apart from its covertly pro-LGBTQ+ message, the sculptural laser installation was simply beautiful. I know I called it a screensaver, but I meant that descriptively. I really did like it. It reminded me of Anthony McCall’s avant-garde light installations, like “Line Describing a Cone” — one of my favorite artworks.

Celebration of queer fashion

I obviously expected “The All American Halftime Show” to be homophobic, and, at times, it was. Lee Brice’s new song, “Country Nowadays,” included the lyric, “Little boys ain’t little girls.”

But what they say and how they dress are two different things.

Brantley Gilbert wore a shirt by the French luxury brand Louis Vuitton, which is well-known for promoting LGBTQ+ inclusivity. Good for him!

The headliner, Robert James Ritchie, aka Kid Rock, came onstage in a Liberace-style white fur coat, which he quickly tossed, revealing a pair of denim cutoffs like those worn by the closeted gay character, Tobias Fünke, from the Netflix series “Arrested Development.”

Kid Rock has had a longstanding, if uneasy, fascination with Liberace. On his 2000 song, “American Bad A**,” he rapped, “Never gay, no way, I don’t play with a** / But watch me rock with Liberace flash.” And he wore a Liberace-inspired outfit to the White House last March. Designed by the Mexican American fashion designer Manuel Cuevas, that star-spangled get-up was a fairly obvious tribute to Liberace’s Caesars Palace outfit from 1971.

Kid Rock recently joked to Bill Maher, on an episode of the podcast “Club Random,” that a medical procedure performed by a male physician had caused him to wonder, “Am I gay?”

Is that enough to place a person on the LGBTQ+ spectrum under the “questioning” category? If so, Kid Rock doesn’t claim it. Like Liberace, he is a staunch, conservative Republican who strongly and repeatedly asserts his heterosexuality.

During Kid Rock’s set, there was an unexpected string interlude, featuring Antonio Marin, a cellist with luxurious black locks whose frilly Baroque outfit recalled those of gender-bending pop stars Prince and Adam Ant.

So, if you’re a queer teen whose conservative parents forced you to watch this, feel free to start dressing like Liberace or Prince. Apparently, those looks now have the Turning Point USA stamp of approval.

Conclusion

I went into this halftime experience expecting a lot of homophobic and white supremicist hatemongering. Instead, what I witnessed was a celebration of an iconic Black musician from the 1960s counterculture, an unexpectedly artistic use of bisexual lighting and a celebration of queer fashion from Liberace to today.

God bless America!

Logan Royce Beitmen is an arts writer for the Albuquerque Journal. He covers visual art, music, fashion, theater and more. Reach him at lbeitmen@abqjournal.com or on Instagram at @loganroycebeitmen.