Conservative pundits slam Super Bowl’s Rihanna, Ralph
The evaluations for Super Bowl LVII’s slate of leisure are in, and never everybody was clapping after the confetti had fallen.
In her first efficiency since 2016, Rihanna soared above the sector at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Ariz., casually performing among the decade’s largest pop hits whereas pregnant along with her second youngster. “The vibe was exuberant but insouciant — Rihanna’s signature mood, more or less, across the two decades of a career that’s blurred the lines among pop, hip-hop and dance music,” The Times’ pop music critic Mikael Wood wrote of the efficiency.
Commentary from right-wing information pundits was not as variety to the singer, nevertheless.
“Rihanna — her range is about the range of a cat being run over by a steamroller,” Ben Shapiro stated throughout a monologue on “The Ben Shapiro Show.” “She does not have more than an octave range, she does not have the ability to belt. I’m not a Rihanna fan.”
“EPIC FAIL,” former President Donald Trump posted on upstart conservative social media platform Truth Social. “Rihanna gave, without question, the single worst Halftime Show in Super Bowl history. This after insulting far more than half of our Nation, which is already in serious DECLINE, with her foul and insulting language. Also, so much for her ‘stylist!’”
Rihanna’s stylist did choose up a fan in conservative commentator Candace Owens, who gave her and the celebrity singer a backhanded praise for performing in a flowing crimson gown.
“I don’t want to jinx it but — Rihanna is the first female Super Bowl performer in recent memory that has managed to keep her clothes on,” she tweeted. “Nudity doesn’t shock me anymore. Self-respect does.”
Before the sport, Sheryl Lee Ralph sang James Weldon Johnson’s hymn “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” which turned an galvanizing tune for Black Americans through the civil rights motion. But Ralph and the tune, regularly known as the “Black national anthem,” additionally have been widespread targets for criticism by conservatives.
“There is only ONE National Anthem in the United States of America,” tweeted conservative character CJ Pearson. “The National Anthem is for EVERY American. What’s the purpose of a black one? Super Bowl Sunday should UNITE America, not divide it by race. It’s not the 1960s.”
The man who did sing “The Star Spangled Banner” was lauded with reward from the political proper, nevertheless. Singer-songwriter Chris Stapleton delivered a stirring, stripped-down efficiency that left Eagles coach Nick Sirianni in tears (and rewarded prop bettors who took the beneath on the tune’s run time).
“Chris Stapleton just sang the most beautiful national anthem at the Super Bowl,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) tweeted. “But we could have gone without the rest of the wokeness.”
Just don’t inform Greene that Stapleton is a “woke” supporter of Black Lives Matter.
“I think it’s important that we live in reality and not in that social media space, where the most hateful voices get the loudest megaphone,” he instructed The Times in 2020, after a few of his followers took offense to his help of the motion towards police brutality. “But I feel sorry for people that think anything I said was offensive. I’m sorry they lack the capacity to approach things as human beings.”
See extra tweets beneath.