This Sunday, many of us will huddle around whatever TV or screen we can find to watch the 50th edition of the Super Bowl. We have many ardent supporters of the Denver Broncos in our midst, watching what may likely be Peyton Manning’s last game. Others may root for the dominant Carolina Panthers and the near-unstoppable Cam Newton. However, there is likely a silent majority of us who just watch the game out of sheer habit.
Yes, the Super Bowl determines who will be the NFL Champion this season, but don’t be fooled; the game is ultimately about entertainment and making money. The 21 most-viewed television broadcasts of all time have been Super Bowls.
Whether or not you support football, it is an American institution. Ultimately, it may not be about winners and losers, but the sheer fanfare of it all. It’s expensive. It’s shiny. It’s huge.
In the center of this tradition is the Super Bowl Halftime Show, a 15-minute non-stop jam-packed medley of America’s most mainstream artists. This year’s edition, sponsored by Pepsi for the third year in a row, is to be performed by Coldplay.
Coldplay is somewhat of a disappointing choice for a headliner. They’re coming off a very weak album, A Head Full of Dreams. Pepsi may have realized that when they decided to bring on past performers Beyoncé and Bruno Mars, who rocked the stage in 2013 and 2014, respectively.
The Halftime Show is an institution in itself that can have moments as memorable as Malcolm Butler’s catch last year. There seems to be a moment in each show that becomes media fodder for the days and weeks to follow. This may have all begun with Janet Jackson in 2004 when Justin Timberlake exposed her breast on one of the biggest television broadcasts of all time.
I remember the following year, when Paul McCartney was performing. In the middle of the performance, McCartney took off his jacket. The den I watched the game in erupted in laughter and howling in reaction to the Jackson controversy the year before.
Two years later, Prince opened his show with a phallic silhouette of him and his guitar. Two years after that, The Boss, Bruce Springsteen famously slid into a camera lens crotch first. Madonna invited M.I.A. on to the stage. In some form of protest, the Sri Lankan rapper decided to flip off over 100 million people.
In the age of the Internet, gaffes have turned into memes. Last year, “Left Shark” became a national phenomenon after one of Katy Perry’s shark dancers seemingly forgot his moves and winged it. The year before that, the Red Hot Chili Peppers who backed Bruno Mars for roughly 45 seconds flung around wildly with instruments that weren’t plugged in. In 2013, the typically graceful and gorgeous Beyoncé was caught in a freeze frame, which to redditors seemed to resemble the Hulk.
Overall, while the Super Bowl halftime show catches awkward moment year after year, it is overwhelmingly impressive.
The show typically lasts fifteen minutes, packed into about thirty to forty-five minutes of actual halftime. This may be shocking, but before the halftime show the only things on the field are football players. That means in probably less than 15 minutes an entire massive stage with working lights, lasers, palm trees, you name it, is set up in the middle of a football field.
While the performers occasionally screw up, the show is an impressive feat. Katy Perry entered the show on a giant metallic lion float and then left it on some kind of shooting star lift. Most concerts don’t even get that kind of theatricality.
Coldplay may not end up being the best pick for a show like this. (Especially being an English band playing the 50th anniversary of possibly the most American show event on earth.) Either way, they will probably end up making an impact, whether they put on a spectacle or someone flies crotch-first into a cameraman.