The heart of performing is giving, although the Super Bowl didn’t show it.
Rihanna had zero energy and a blasé face which had “What a burden to be troubled by having to perform for these peons” written all over it. A half-hearted smile flitted across her face. Once. That showed that she’s full of herself and felt no obligation to give her all to the audience.
A Legend In Her Own Mind.
The high school dropout got kicked upstairs to singing stardom, movie gigs, and contracts with fashion house Fenty (her last name) and Fenty Beauty, the cosmetics company, whose creations bear her name. It’s the Fenty companies which catapulted her into the rank of billionaire.
While Rihanna founded both Fenty companies, the business know-how, part of the bankrolling, and half the ownership is furnished by LVMH: the Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton fashion conglomerate powerhouse. It’s not inconceivable that it’s LVMH’s executives, chemists, and fashion designers, who are the behind-the-scenes brains while Rihanna, known in the music business to be lazy when it comes to rehearsals and career obligations, is a mere name.
Consequently it’s not unreasonable to surmise that Rihanna is under the delusion that it’s her “talent” which brought her this far, not the countless professionals behind the scenes.
Can Pregnancy Be Cited As An Excuse?
Rihanna has announced that she’s pregnant again. That’s no excuse for “phoning in her performance”, as the pejorative phrase goes in show business to describe a lazy performer who doesn’t care to give it his or her all. Anyhow, being enceinte would have zero impact on her half-time performance because her lackluster, boring choreography barely required her to move.
Minimum Positive Features of the Performance
Her backup dancers exhibited great passion and energy. Too bad their choreography was comprised of grotesque moves and crotch-grabbing pelvic thrusts.
Lip-synching Criticism
I wouldn’t criticize Rihanna for having lip-synched her singing. Almost all stars lip-synch their songs for Half-Time at the Super Bowl. In my estimation a major justification is if the singer is involved in many, complex, and rapid physical exertions, such as dancing and running, that it would render him or her out of breath. It could also cause glitches in coordinating singing with the music, which would ruin the performance.
What’s Dance Got To Do With It?
Rihanna indulged in moves indisputably inappropriate for a game watched by children of all ages. She grabbed her vaginal area, smelled her fingers, then licked them.
So how is this dance? It’s not. It’s not choreography. It’s not beautiful. It’s not clever. It’s not remotely skillful. It’s not an impressive athletic feat. There’s no redeeming artistc merit. It’s ghetto trash.
By the way, where are the National Organization of Women and other loudmouth feminist groups to yammer against the sexualized objectification of women which Rihanna’s actions constituted?
But She Kept Her Clothes On
Why? One-word answer: vanity.
As for the few commenters on the internet who lauded her for having kept her clothes on, unlike her customary semi-nude wardrobe, don’t be impressed. She was swathed in yards of loosely-fitting, shapeless, scarlet fabric because she was unable to lose the lard from the May 13th, 2022 birth of her first child.
So What Does Rihanna Really Have Going For Her?
Rihanna has world-class audio engineers, stellar songwriters and lyricists, top musicians, first-rate session producers, topnotch publicists, savvy record promoters, energetic and trained backup dancers trendy choreographers, and expensive costume designers. And autotune is her crutch.
Can Rihanna be faulted for availing herself of these professionals? Of course not. Those are the ten star-maker machine components for every celebrity singer. The difference is that unlike Rihanna some of these singers actually have talent.
So now let’s objectively focus on what value Rihanna herself brings. How much raw talent does she actually have? You be the judge and listen to her wobbly-voiced, ear-splittingly nasal rendition of Mariah Carey’s “HERO”.
She’s a cute girl but minimally talented so perhaps she made it in the music biz on her back…not an unheard of route to stardom.
How is Half-Time Entertainment Chosen?
The National Football League’s elite officials—viz., the entertainment director, the NFL’s head of music, its production company bigwigs, and the half-time show’s producer and director compile the short list of possible entertainers. After that the short list is handed over to the host city which ultimately chooses the half-time headliner. How much say Glendale, Arizona city officials had in this year’s “entertainment” is debatable since heavy-hitters Apple Music (the sponsor) and Roc Nation (owned by Beyoncé’s husband, Jay-Z, it was the company which produced the show) were involved.
None of the entertainment cast receives payment but the appearance translates into skyrocketing a headliner’s album and singles sales.
Rihanna hasn’t released music in 7 years so you can bet Super Bowl LVII will give her career a gigantic boost.. For the volunteer dancers, band, and pyrotechnic experts, Super Bowl is a prestigious credit.
Of course, the host city pays all expenses for the headliner, their band, and their support staff which includes their musicians unless the music is canned, the artist’s managers, agents, PR representatives, hairdressers, makeup artists, costumers, etc.
Bottom Line
Let people who choose to see Rihanna and her ilk pay their money for concert tickets. Just don’t foist her upon impressionable children or the majority of adults who were expecting talent as half-time entertainment.
And I hope that in years to come those who choose Super Bowl half-time entertainment don’t confuse us with a nation of crotch-grabbing, ghetto trash voyeurs.
