The Only Good Thing About the Bad Bunny Halftime Show Controversy

Can Christian creators actually LEARN something from the Bad Bunny Super Bowl Halftime Show? 

In this episode, we'll unpack the one key lesson that all faith-centered creators can take from the cultural impact of this performance. 

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Transcript

By now you've probably heard everything you could possibly hear about the Bad Bunny Super Bowl halftime show. You've seen podcasts, you've heard and read think pieces. So much has been made about this one performance by one artist on what might be one of the world's biggest stages. you might wonder then, why in the world would we do an episode about the Bad Bunny halftime show on a Christian creator podcast? Well, it's because I think that this entire controversy proves one important point that every one of our faith focused creators in our community needs to pay attention to. But before we get to that discussion, I want to ask you a personal favor. I would love to hear from you in terms of what you think this show offers and provides for you as you're listening and you're watching. You see, as a podcaster, I realized that

A lot of this is just me speaking to you and it sounds like a monologue, a one way conversation where in our community, 360 and in other areas, we get to have a dialogue where I get to hear from you. So even on this podcast, I want to hear your opinion. How are we doing? What's the feedback on the way the episodes have been going, the guests that we've been doing, the solo episodes that we've been doing. Is it impacting your everyday creative lifestyle?

Because if not, I want to make some changes. I want to make sure that this continues to serve you and that we honor our promise to help you become the creator that you were created to be. So there are many ways you can do that. You can use the text feed, which is inside our audio players. you got to do is scroll down and see where it says, send us a text, tap that, and it will open up a text line inside your phone so that you can text us and let me know what you think. Or you can email me at Alan, A-double-L-E-N.

at Godandgigs.com or if you're listening or watching on a place where there's comments available, please comment and share what you think about the show. This is going to be so instrumental in helping us create the show, the podcast that will help you in every area of your creative lifestyle and your faith. Okay. Appreciate it so much. Now let's get into our discussion about the one good thing about the bad bunny controversy.

Allen C. Paul - God And Gigs (02:19)
All right, my friends, this is not a conversation that I wanted to have. And I don't mean that in a kind of, you know, dismissive, this isn't worth my time. We shouldn't be talking about this. That is not what I mean at all. All I'm trying to say is it has been so much noise about this halftime show, so much conversation, so much.

discussion that I felt like I couldn't add anything else. Like what, could I possibly add? We have heard everyone and everybody talking about the bad bunny halftime show. So I thought there was just nothing else to share until I saw an entire week later after the super bowl, that it is still the number one trending topic, like on Google and I guess chat, CBT and other things like that. So.

We have to talk about it, even though I don't want to talk about it because clearly it has taken over the culture when it comes to why people are so either on one side or the other side divided over a halftime show, which essentially was for a football game, which I honestly don't hear people talking about. Here's what's crazy about that. And it comes right into my comment on the one good thing.

about the Bad Bunny discussion. So before we start, let's talk about what I'm not going to talk about. I'm not going to talk about the moral sensibilities or immoral sensibilities that Bad Bunny shared in his raps, in his songs. I'm not going to talk about the cultural Hispanic connection, the Puerto Rican connection, and whether people thought that was appropriate that he only sang in Spanish. I did not, by the way, watch this performance.

I had to work. Here's one of the funny things about this entire discussion was that I didn't get to watch the Super Bowl because I was gigging that day. So I found myself in the same way as a lot of lots of people outside of the discussion because I didn't know the songs. I didn't watch the performance. I didn't want to go Bad and watch the performance on YouTube like everybody else and try to catch up because it just felt like there was already so much noise about it that

It didn't make any sense for me to play catch up. said, okay, I'm just going to leave it alone and let everybody kind of have their own little moment to go over this. Cause I really didn't feel like it made sense for me to jump in until, like I said, I saw how much this is not necessarily even about a one performance. There's so many areas that people are diving into when it comes to culture, morality, ⁓ patriotism, so many areas that people are discussing that said this actually

Is beyond now even the 15 minute halftime performance. And here's why this is the number one good thing that I would love for you guys to kind of see in this entire discussion. The one good thing about the bad bunny discussion is that it's a discussion about an artist and their impact, which is overshadowed. As I mentioned, the football game.

All of the other things that go along with the commercials and everything else with the commercialism of the Super Bowl, which is basically kind like a big American holiday for commercials and consumerism.

The fact that a artist's performance can dominate our cultural conversation is proof that art and performance and the real actual performing of a song, right? This was not AI. This was not something that was invented for, you know, clicks, although obviously it was clearly designed to get all the attention that it's getting.

But the key of this is, that it proves that art and presenting our music and presenting our movies and presenting our films and presenting our stuff to the world will get attention if we want it to. It will become something that becomes a topic of conversation that can dominate and actually change people's minds and keep them engaged.

beyond all the other information that's coming around the world, the bad news, good news, whatever. Again, this is about a musical performance. A musical performance is dominating the conversation. So the good thing that it proves is that art is still relevant to our culture, even when so many other things are going around us. When there's so much noise about politics and everything. I know politics is entering this conversation, but that's my point. It started with just an artist.

And then it bloomed into all these other areas, but it proves that it starts with the art. The conversation started with the music started with the person that's presenting something. And then it boiled over into all these other areas that people are talking about. Well, what does that say to you and me? It says as faith focused creators that we can continue to focus on the one thing, which is how am I creating art that moves people and gets people engaged and gets people talking because the

goal is not just to get the popularity, the goal is the people care. And once people care, there is so much less worry about, is it going to go live on TikTok? Is it going to go viral? As long as people care about what your perspective is and how you present it, you have the ability to have a career. You have the ability to be ⁓ relevant, to make...

An impact with the people who may either believe in you or don't believe in you believe what you say don't believe what you say But it does create that space there was plenty of discussions about all of the issues Before the halftime show everything that people were talking about whether it be classism or immigration or whatever There was plenty of discussion around that before this halftime performance, but after it

The halftime show now becomes the focal point of all these other issues. So the art becomes the focal point, not necessarily the issue that people bring up around the art, around the performance, around what Bad Bunny presented. And that's my point. It means that at, when you try to engage people in a certain area of faith, a certain topic, your art becomes the focal point of that discussion.

And that way you can have an impact on people, even if it isn't a huge audience, because now what you are singing and playing and creating becomes the key point of what people are sharing versus all the other

So my comment and my, ⁓ admission and, and not admission encouragement to you is to not get caught up in what did Bad Bunny say who did this and, know, all the money that was obviously behind the performance, everything else that made supposedly this thing blow up this huge audience. All of those things are true. This is probably not a discussion that you'd be having if this was your local theater truth.

It wouldn't be your discussion if it was just something that happened in the local jam session. True. It got huge because of the stakes and because of the huge amount of publicity it got. But again, it does prove that the actual performance and the people talking about the performance proves that you can have the same kind of relevance to the people that you are trying to reach. It proves that art still has the ability

to move the needle. It still has the ability to affect the way people think about, the way they process. And so instead of looking at just one artist and whether he should have said this or shouldn't have said that or should have spoken English or should, let's remind ourselves, hey, in my community, I can have that same kind of impact, not to go viral, but to have the same kind of relevance. And if you are singing for God, if you are singing for whatever reason, performing, whatever it is,

You got to have that mentality that I want people to care. I want people not to notice me in terms of wanting the popularity, but I want them to be impacted by how I share it. I want to make sure that the connection between me and my community is so strong that we are equally passionate. Now you can be equally passionate against something, right? And there'll be people that don't like what you do, but you have to be for something. You have to be for something and you have to allow people to be against it sometimes.

So again, this entire discussion, I'm not going to go Bad and forth about bad bunny so much because I know many of you might just be as, tired as I am of the conversation. So that's not my goal. My goal is not to beat up and say, everybody should be watching this. didn't watch it, but I do believe it is proof that we can still have an impact on culture in any area that you happen to be creating it. And if that's true, it's an encouragement. If it's true that.

I guess Bad Bunny was building his career for 10 years or whatever, and then it hits this moment, that moment can happen for you as well inside your sphere of influence. And it doesn't have to be on a Super Bowl stage. It could be anywhere. So once again, hopefully this was encouraging. You didn't find yourself feeling like, my gosh, we're talking about the same situation again. I wanted to bring it from another perspective that would give you some encouragement to stick with your creative evolution, to stick with.

The growth to stick with building the community that you're building, to stick with trying to make music that matters, art that matters, creating work that matters to you and to the people that you are trying to reach. Because the whole point is it is powerful. It is relevant. It is effective. When you speak from your heart, speak your truth and share from the heart. Art still has that ability to move an entire country, entire world in a certain direction.

because God gave you that ability inside to make an impact.