Photo courtesy of People.
The Super Bowl is an exciting game for people all over the nation. Aside from the football game, viewers can anticipate the best commercials of the year along with an exciting halftime performance. Super Bowl LIX has left SAU viewers questioning brands and Kendrick Lamar’s political messages from his halftime performance. This year’s Super Bowl broke records, with 203.4 million viewers, according to Anthony Crupi of Sportico.
Aside from the shocking shortness of excitement during the game, students say they left wondering what is next for Kendrick Lamar after calling out Drake during his halftime performance. Aside from the Drake drama, students remark on Lamar’s political views from the show. SAU Public Relations students also questioned marketing aspects from brands’ advertisements during this year’s game.
SAU and Public Relations senior Brenden Argenta says he was beyond happy about the halftime show. He enjoyed Kendrick Lamar’s take on his halftime performance. Brenden found Lamar’s underlying subtexting political messages to be fitting. “There couldn’t have been a better way to say everything he didn’t… his lyrics and choreography spoke louder than any words could have.”
On the advertising side, Brenden says he found the ads entertaining. “Some of the ads were very weird, but that is how you get people talking about your message as a company today.” He found the strategies used by companies to be safe and strategic. Brenden’s favorite ad was the female athlete ad by Nike. “I have never seen anything to this scale for female athletes.”
SAU multimedia major Malu Coelho, an international student and senior says she did not watch the actual game. However, she did tune in for Kendrick’s halftime show. Malu says she felt she did not appreciate the halftime performance as much as other people did. “I don’t really listen to rap, much less Kendrick Lamar.” She says she felt she had to watch it to understand what was going to be on her social media feed that night. “I opened Instagram not even an hour after the performance and that was all I saw.” Malu did appreciate Kendrick’s invite to SZA, “This probably helps SZA gain a bigger audience.” Malu appreciated and found the attire of choice to be a good tribute to America for Kendrick’s halftime performance.
SAU Public Relations major, Addie Hendrick, also said she liked Lamar’s halftime performance. She was waiting for Kendrick to play his Grammy winner “Not Like Us,” especially after all the teasers he gave throughout the performance. Addie says she is waiting for the drama to unfold with Drake’s threats of suing Kendrick after calling him out by name during the performance.
“I found Samuel Jackson’s role during the performance very entertaining… he created a storyline for Kendrick.” Addie also says she found the advertisements weird this year, but her favorite was the Angel Soft countdown ad. “I found it weird how many A.I. ads they aired this year… I don’t think this is something we should be promoting as a society.”
Alaina Peterkin, a junior at SAU, says she is not a fan of Kendrick Lamar, but she found his halftime show to be “eye-opening.”
“The question is whether Kendrick is speaking the truth in his lyrics.” Alaina says she did not care about the ads this year, she also says she found them to be weird and off. However, she did enjoy the celebrity cameos in the commercials. “Seeing Alix Earle in the Poppi commercial really excited me… I didn’t realize how big of a deal she was.”
Super Bowl LIX left viewers with many questions on our future as a society. With political talk from the halftime to an overwhelming amount of A.I. advertisements. This year’s Super Bowl entertained and informed its viewers about the current and potential future for our society.
Photo courtesy of Ryan Schiestel. Students found ways to watch the big game together on campus.
