Culture,  Entertainment

What did you think about Beyoncé’s half-time performance?

What did you think about Beyoncé’s half-time performance at the Superbowl? I think what was most disappointing to me is that these displays have become so normal and ordinary. Hardly anyone seems to bat an eye anymore when these kinds of spectacles unfold on national television. Even the First Lady of the United States tweeted her approval, saying how “proud” she was of the performance.

That is why it is noteworthy when someone goes against that tide of popular opinion. And that’s exactly the kind of response that came from Rachel Campos-Duff, former star on MTV’s “Real World” and current mother of six. Her commentary is not written from an explicitly Christian perspective. It merely reflects the concern of an ordinary mother who still believes there are some lines of common decency that shouldn’t be crossed. I don’t agree with everything that she writes. Nevertheless, that she writes seems significant to me. She concludes:

By green-lighting Beyonce’s Pepsi-sponsored halftime show and lowering its standards of decency, the NFL diminishes its family-friendly credibility and erodes the trust of the parents who faithfully gather their families around the TV for the Super Bowl and raise the next generation of football fans. How about a little respect for the moms and dads who buy the NFL gear and carpool the kids to football practices and games? Our children are the future of the NFL and this country and there are grown-ups in high places who ought to know better.

The images that I’ll remember – and I hope my children will as well – from this Super Bowl came from the ads for Chrysler, proving that raunch need not rule the ad wars. Thank you for honoring real role models- our hard-working farmers and brave troops.

10 Comments

  • Bill Griffin

    “By green-lighting Beyonce’s Pepsi-sponsored halftime show and lowering its standards of decency, the NFL diminishes its family-friendly credibility and erodes the trust of the parents who faithfully gather their families around the TV..”

    The sound that one hears as they are spewing their coffee on the screen of their computer.

    I know the tone of her article and I appreciate it but seriously? The NFL and common decency are two words that do not belong together. From the half naked cheerleaders on the side lines to the men convicted of, accused of all sorts of crimes from manslaughter, rape, criminal sexual conduct, disorderly conducts, blowing tens of thousands of dollars at strip clubs, drug use, drug abuse, steriod abuse, and these can be all players from one single team! and the NFL blindly looks the other way because they need their stars on the field and we want to mention the “family friendly credibility” of the NFL?!?

    Surely we jest.

    Beyonce’s half time show just didn’t do much for me. I’m not a fan of the music or the culture that it represents.

  • Ken Temple

    Of course, I had heard of Beyonce before, but the first time I paid attention to Beyonce and actually watched a performance was seeing her sing the national Anthem at President Obama’s Inauguration. She was modest and tasteful and respectful and had a nice smile. But then when she did the Superbowl half-time, she had a very hard and slutty look on her face, dressed ungody and inappropriate, and the whole thing of her “sexy” movements made her look like a prostitute. I was very disappointed; but not surprised.

  • Larry Geiger

    I’m a guy. I watched some of it. I did not find it “sexy” or some such thing. Actually, it was sort of creepy. Actually it was sort of creepy in today’s zombie sort of fashion. It’s hard to describe. My wife tried to analyze it while sitting beside me trying to figure how I was reacting to it. We don’t very often see stuff like that. So we turned it off and went to bed (which of course leads one to surmise that we are too old and groaty to know or understand much of what goes on today and that surmise would be correct).

    Quite honestly there are images that I see that are enticing. Sometimes in a negative, lustful way for me. But that show was not. It was mostly just incoherent. I might see an image on the cover of Sports Illustrated and feel something very similar to what an 18 year old might feel. But if a lot of young men were really turned on by that half time show, then that shows that there really are some significant generational differences.

  • David Dunbar

    Didn’t watch it. Rule at our house, for quite a few years: “completely skip the Super Bowl halftime show”. It’s been filth for quite a while. But then, what do we expect lost people to enjoy — holiness? Of course they’re going to raunch out — because they love darkness.

    • Stephen Beck

      I think the Rolling Stones show was pretty innocuous. And most of America got a nice nap in before the game started back up!

  • James Stanton

    I didn’t pay much attention to the halftime show spectacle but I did watch a lot of the commercials. I thought the Farmers ad was fairly misleading and meant to appeal to the “Real American” demographic. The days of the small-time farmer are long gone. Corporate farms dominate the agricultural sector and the vast majority of the hard workers who do the often unappreciated work are Latinos.

  • Linda Jackson

    Supporting the Super Bowl is not very Christian either, if you are going to criticize Beyonce, well then take a look at the NFL players moral, they have much worse offenses. Really, any uptight, ultra-conservative Christian shouldn’t be watching either of these events, in my opinion.

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