Halftime Show Controversies

In this morning's Super Bowl Halftime Show aftermath on social media, I knew people would still be talking about Jennifer Lopez' and Shakira's revealing outfits, their provocative and sexual hip and booty shaking, and J Lo's pole dancing. And while at first I had no problem with the show, after seeing many comments last night, I do agree that they ought to have toned things down, mostly because so many families watch the Super Bowl with their kids. I will admit, even I shook my head at the pole dancing segment. Then I remembered I had seen recently that J Lo did a movie about a stripper, and I figured this a reprise of that role. But it was indeed head-shakingly unnecessary. So in this morning's retrospective light, yes indeed, Jennifer Lopez and Shakira, 50 years old and 43, respectively, are beautiful and they're sexy, not "for their ages", but as women of any age. They would very much still have been so with just a little more costume and a little less coochie in their presentations.

What I didn't expect to see this morning was controversy over the fact there was singing in Spanish. I am as big a critic, or should I say an opponent, of illegal immigration as anyone you're going to meet. But if seeing two beautiful worldwide stars like Jennifer Lopez and Shakira do a show partly in English and partly in Spanish rankles you, I think it's time to step back and reassess. For far too many of us, probably even for someone reading this, that frustration is a combination of two things: a total lack of self-awareness and of bigotry. They've allowed any instance of anyone speaking a language other than English here in the States to be associated with rejection of U.S. culture and a refusal to assimilate. And they don't recognize it as a form of bigotry, but rather what they're hearing when someone sings in Spanish, or talks Greek in a diner, or whatever, is someone who thinks speaking English is beneath them or something like that. It's not always that, friends. And shockingly, folks, some immigrants learn English before or after they come here and still enjoy entertainment like last night in their native tongue. Shocking but true.

I'm blessed to have heard my grandpa and grandma occasionally, rarely but occasionally, speak to each other in their native Italian. For what it's worth, my Spanish was halfway decent when I got out of school, but has atrophied badly from lack of use. I recently tried to learn Italian, and have dabbled with learning French in the past. At 62 I am finding learning a foreign language much more difficult than I did the Spanish in school, harder even than learning French when I was in my forties. In a perfect world I'd love to speak fluent Spanish, French, Italian and even Portuguese. The big hurdle at this point in life is not having anyone to practice with. That's not a rejection of the U.S.A., our culture or anything like that.

I think I liked it better when people were arguing over "too much booty" and "too much sexy".

Have a great day, friends! God bless.