Super Bowl Outrage is Nonsensical

Some days it is hard to look away from this administration’s strategy of chaos in order to focus on the hope and beauty of life together. I am starting to unpack and name what I am seeing and where I want to hold my focus. As someone who has spent the past 25+ years deconstructing the conservative evangelical faith of my youth, which has morphed into a champion of Christian Nationalism, I believe we need to be clearer about what we aspire to in order to inspire (breathe life into) positive actionable goals for life-giving communities, which en masse can take the air out of those who seek to oppress.

Let’s start with some obvious truth-telling pertinent to this week and what prompted this essay: Superbowl performance outrage is nonsensical. If you know it’s not for you, don’t watch it; If you think you might enjoy it, give it a go. It is that simple! This could be said about a lot of things, to be clear. But to proclaim other people should not participate in or enjoy something “because you say so” is Patriarchy Mindset in its full-throated egoic nature, which seeks to dominate and control political- moral- and social-, leadership, authority, and privilege.

Take Congressman Andy Ogles (R-TN.05) for example. He wrote a letter to the Chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce which oversees the FCC to call for a Congressional Probe of the NFL-NBC over the “vulgar” half-time show performed by Bad Bunny in Spanish. While many of the haters and bots said nobody understood it (we see who they are calling ‘nobody’!) Andy thinks that a performance in Spanish, a language which preceded English on this American Continent, cannot be trusted and must be assigned extra oversight. Oh, and that dancing. OH MY!! (Insert performative pearl-clutching here). My party of 60+ year olds agreed it was one of the least sexualized and the most meaningful presentation we’ve seen of late from the NFL. Andy has either never seen NFL cheerleaders or a half-time show before, or maybe he’s a subscriber to the hateful racist Christian Nationalism they are so desperately trying to install right now. Here’s his letter: https://ogles.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/ogles.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/letter-e-c-bad-bunny.pdf

These are the death-rattles of a system that no longer works in a world that is being transformed irrevocably into what the majority of people actually want – a true egalitarian society (relating to or believing in the principle that all people are equal and deserve equal rights and opportunities). Andy and his ilk will claim obscenity, but what is really obscene is the criminal ring of the 1-percent who use religious language in an attempt to deflect from their own sins by pitting the rest of us to fight amongst ourselves. We must wake up to the atrocities and injustices that have always been, which our neighbors of color have been trying to tell us for centuries, that which we could not or would not see because we were lured by our religious and political structures to trust the Patriarchy instead; “we” being those of us who were privileged enough to be mostly protected from the worst of it. But now it’s all coming to light, and we will no longer abide in darkness. It’s time to pull back the curtain fully.

Look out the window at the resistance movement and the light which they hold: Creative protestors inhabiting joyful defiance in frog suits; musicians fill the streets in front of courthouses and detention centers while the people dance and sing; clergy of all faiths gather together on the front lines being gassed along with people who may never set foot in their places of worship; artists who fend off rubber bullets with their drawing boards; historians, moms and dads, students, retired folks – some who have been at it for decades and others who have just begun to show up; activists from all walks of life putting pressure on politicians at all levels of government; and monks who walk cross-country to bring attention to the peace that could be ours if we so chose it, while being harassed by evangelicals who scream the name of Jesus and threaten hell. The Jesus I know would be walking with them and washing their feet at the end of the day. As it turns out, we are seeing that good neighborly people are in the majority. We have the power of numbers and purpose. Don’t let them tell you otherwise!

Let’s look at Minnesota specifically: There are mutual aid networks sending in money, food, medication, and clothing to those hiding reminiscent of Anne Frank; teachers from daycares to high schools are protecting children from dudes with guns, as they always have but this time they are immigration officers; brigades of neighbors blowing whistles to warn all within earshot of ICE activities and bearing witness to brutal often illegal actions including murder in their streets; and the heart-wrenching stories of nursing mothers bottling their breast milk for babies whose own mothers have been stolen away for no other offense than being labeled “illegal” on stolen lands. These circles of creative loving protection and nurturance are the midwives of the Matriarchy. Make no mistake. The time has come!

I must confess, I was SO angry when I read Ogles’ drivel Tuesday. I yelled, screamed, and cussed – something I was never allowed to do growing up and for decades after did not allow myself while beholden to the Patriarchy. I now find a spot of rage quite cathartic, like a good cup of tea. I was raised like many girls in the church to be calm and collected and nice and, of course, to smile as it was further demonstrated to me how we were to grow up to be women who would be seen – as slender nymphs, shaved to their prepubescent glory, dressed modestly and made up to cover any blemish or imperfection – and to not be heard; to be submissive to men for no other reason than being told to do so by their own authority supposedly given to them by a God who suspiciously looks like them. (Insert disbelieving eyeroll here). I indulged my rage that night and I woke with clarity. I had come to yet another level of defining and owning my ancestral healing, which has been a multi-year process since returning to the place of my woundedness, and I gave myself permission to speak/write the unspeakable: To challenge their narrative of God, Power, and Control – the very Patriarchy itself. Stay with me here…

The trigger: Once again, as it has always been, they seek to steal our expressions of joy, celebration, and togetherness, while they ignore and even perpetuate the true crimes being committed by the lords and moneychangers of our lands. Who are THEY to say what is appropriate or not when they won’t even acknowledge the importance of consent and bodily autonomy?!! I am SO DONE with the powers that be: The white narcissism, the toxic masculinity, the coercive dominant religiosity, the sexual abusers, the gender spectrum deniers, and all their political indignities. These wretched systems, who suffer men and women alike to hate themselves and their neighbor, and to submit themselves to the Wizard behind the curtain who has no real power other than to imbue their fear of our individual knowing and of truly knowing each other. The curtain is drawn fully open, and we see you, Patriarchy!

We are witnessing the people who, in obeyance to their fear-Wizard, are so freaked out about millions of people who would gather for a 13-minute party of sheer fun in a community of good vibes of song, dance, and resistance. They were so triggered by this on top of months of joyful resistance that they are now thrown into high-alert survival mode. They are pulling all the knobs and levers, and their division machine is no longer working as it should. Their foundations of Patriarchy are cracking, and we are seeing the tender sprouts of Matriarchy taking over. They see it too. Why do you think they have invested so heavily in divisive media while defunding education? These conservative, pharisaical, white-washed sepulchers! Do they not know what complete and utter prigs they are as they hail their abusive systems as God-ordained while calling us the heathens for loving our neighbors? They criticize and try to delegitimize, even illegalize Music, Art, Dance, Storytelling, and Truth-Telling, demonizing a celebration of Joy and Pride and Heritage, of Love and Family and Community, while claiming to be the true believers? Our light reveals their darkness and gives us hope.

This is what their system of darkness demands: To shut us down, to silence the drums, to choke out the voices, and to bind the bodies of women and children for whom they cannot control their lust so they must erase us instead of exercising self-control. They hate it when people who look and sound like Benito Antonio Martinez Ocasio have success and self-agency, because they did not grant it – Bad Bunny took it for himself and maximized it to such a global proportion he doesn’t even need to tour the United States outside of Puerto Rico to be a superstar. This wasn’t about strategizing his own phenomenal success; his sold-out 30-show concert residency brought hundreds of millions of dollars to the local PR economy; He did it for the Americans who have been purposefully deprived by their colonizers, their very own US Government. Nevertheless, Bad Bunny grew up to believe in himself and then looked straight into the camera and had the audacity to encourage others to believe in themselves too and proclaimed actual gospel truth: to overcome evil with good. This is what he demonstrates time and again, and THIS is what they truly hate: He walks the talks and shows up for the people, thus exposing naysayers as the insufferable pedantic frauds they are.

The same people who celebrate the confederacy and slaveowners as their heritage, who wave a traitorous flag, and who laugh at the Obama’s portrayed as apes, are doubling down into the muck of their own small-minded odious legacy. They can rip those history placards off the walls, but they cannot rip the truth from our hearts and minds. Just like they cannot rip the rhythm from our hips or the lyrics from our lips, because that level of joy and love is the contagion we need to spread right now. Bad Bunny is the shot in the arm that sparks peaceful revolution, a holy fire which reminds us we are all connected, and that we are stronger and better together, and when we experience other people’s creative authenticity instead of the milk toast the Patriarchy is serving, we want more of that diverse goodness.

Thus, the disciples of Patriarchy become existential party-poopers! They cannot bring themselves to participate in this life with others because they are “heaven bound” and their extreme response is to choose death of anything which celebrates life here on earth. That’s why they don’t care about horrors of war, rapacious presidents, a lawless attorney general, a murderous war secretary, or an organized international pedophile ring. Oddly, it seems only celebrations of life to which they are opposed. They memorize bible verses and play them like a game of Twister to support their animosity, while their very own anointed one (kristos = anointed) whom they name themselves after (Christian) in no uncertain terms told them the greatest commandment is to love God and to love your neighbor as yourself. The text goes on to explain that thinking you are on the right track without Love is like a “resounding gong”, annoying and pointless at best, but also damaging like the painful noise we are hearing loud and clear from Christian Nationalism.

When Bad Bunny handed the grammy to the child in his show, the representation of himself as a young boy with a dream, it was a reminder to embody a spirit of overcoming the evils in the world: The oppressive systems that have damaged so many people who were told to stay small, don’t rock the boat, don’t express those emotions, work hard for a pittance, separate yourselves into impenetrable family units, be suspicious of people different than you, avoid community except religious gatherings, trust your appointed leaders without question, be quiet Sheep! This is the behavior of coercive dominant abusers. Ask yourself, who benefits from this collapse of character and dreams?! Patriarchal structures that only want you to be faithful worker-bees then die without benefits. When I was growing up in this system, I was told that self-esteem and believing in yourself is a sin, so I was ‘dutiful’ and I wasted my talents for so many years – which ironically Jesus actually warns about in one of his parables. This is why I am so proud of the artist known as Bad Bunny, and all the artists and resistance leaders who did not succumb, who exhibit self-expression with a new array of empathy we haven’t seen before. These new lights will lead us to greater things. The Patriarchy, of which our systems of religion and politics are strictly tied to was never about God, or Love, or Humanity. It has ALWAYS been about controlling the masses for the purpose of benefiting the few.

What they have not figured out yet is that this God/Neighbor/Self trifecta is an all-or-nothing inseparable Mystery. To understand the sum of this equation requires the input of soul-searching, not just on your own but along with your neighbor in order to find the answer is Love. To be curious about how other people, cultures, and celebrations are a manifestation of the same Creation is to come to understand we are all part of something bigger than ourselves that cannot be seen or fully experienced until we learn to collaborate with “the other” in vulnerable self-aware communion. That this level of authenticity and creativity has been bred out of so many people is systemically strategic within Christian Nationalism. They divided ‘us and them’ in their godless vagrancy to feed their need to control neighbors and to debate our very humanity, which is the antithesis of Love. This is the pitiful existence we will continue to experience until we respond to that spark, a holy fire, or a fireworks show behind a billboard message of unification with a resounding ‘Yes!’

What they really fear is themselves; that as we shift from Patriarchy to Matriarchy – from hierarchy to heterarchy, white colonialism to colorful globalism, from commodity maximization to vitality realization – they fear they will be treated in the same ways they treated us. What they fail to understand is that Matriarchy does not work in the same oppressive ways. Its very nature is restorative, not punitive, and it’s not gender-based nor us v. them. Just as we’ve seen vile women uphold the Patriarchy, we see good men working alongside women within the budding Matriarchy. It is actually the most “Christ-like/Christian” system we can create that does not require adherence to any dogma or religion, which was the whole point of Jesus’ earthly ministry. When we were told “The Kingdom of God is at hand” and we were taught to pray “…Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven,” we were given the keys to the Kingdom; to creating systems which inhabit Love, of which there is no greater thing. Of course, to the patriarchally-trained ear, this sounds like “woke” nonsense, but honestly, Jesus’ teachings are Woke AF! (Somebody get me this T-shirt)! I could go on and on about how hypocritical the far right is as they vote for and protect the most vulgar and abusive men in their political and church structures; how they scream about the unborn but refuse to create a world where women and children are valued and protected; and how their Mandates for Leadership from the Heritage Foundation in collaboration with TPUSA are oppressive and Sinful AF, but I’ll end for now with this:

In the Matriarchy, a Creator/Artist/Mother/Goddess does not seek to destroy that which they have given life to – they seek to protect, nurture, and watch it bloom and bear fruit; to experience and inhabit love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control because a society built on these things gives us all Freedom, and is only successful when shared. In essence, “It takes a village…” What mother would not want this for their child? Bad Bunny is a beneficiary of this motherly love, as he has beautifully acknowledged on multiple occasions; his mother always believed in him and supported him to pursue that which he believed he was created to do and be. This is the gift of Matriarchy, plain and simple, although not all mothers are able to give this to us, as they were victims of and passed down internalized misogyny* purposefully instilled by the Patriarchy (*denial of the sacred feminine which resides in us all regardless of gender, just as the sacred masculine does). But that is changing. We are blossoming, and we will bloom and bear fruit.

This is a reminder that in a world full of Donald Trumps and Andy Ogles be a Bad Bunny! In a world of division and hate, one which destroys children with guns and bombs and pedophilic lusts, one which seeks to quell expressions of love and faithfulness and community, follow Bad Bunny’s fierce Matriarchal legacy: Believe in yourself, honor and support your community, share your joy and talents with the world, amplify the voices of those who have been quieted, keep your sense of humor, and always remember, “The only thing more powerful than hate is Love.”

© 2026, Laura Reber @LauraHansonReber

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