|
?:reviewBody
|
-
Easily the most-watched annual sporting event in the United States, the Super Bowl has grown, from its inception as a championship football game in 1967, into an all-day, nationwide entertainment extravaganza. Today's Super Bowl viewer is as likely to tune in for a glimpse of the most expensive TV advertising on Earth, or to catch the glitzy halftime show featuring top entertainers of the day, as to follow the game itself. The roster of pop stars headlining the Super Bowl has included the likes of Beyonce, Paul McCartney, Katy Perry, Bruce Springsteen, and Madonna. Some of the shows have attained legendary status. When Michael Jackson was booked in 1993, his three-song set garnered higher ratings than the first half of the football game. Eleven years later, when his sister, Janet Jackson, performed a duet with Justin Timberlake between halves of Super Bowl XXXVIII, her breast was exposed on live television, earning the CBS network an FCC fine for indecency and introducing the euphemism wardrobe malfunction to the English lexicon. When the flamboyant, outspoken Lady Gaga was hired to perform at the 2017 Super Bowl not long after President Donald Trump was inaugurated, there was speculation that she might use her stage time to make a political statement. Gaga, who supported Hillary Clinton in the election and has made many a public statement in support of LGBTQ rights and against bullying, once described Trump as one of the most notorious bullies we've ever seen. For less coherent reasons, it was also speculated that Gaga was planning to conduct some sort of grotesque Satanic ritual at halftime. Conspiracy theorist and Trump enthusiast Alex Jones issued a video in which he worked himself into a lather detailing alleged connections between Lady Gaga, the pizzagate scandal, spirit cooking, meat suits, Satanic rituals, and the rise of the robots: By way of clarification (to the extent that's even possible), the pizzagate situationJones refers to is a thoroughly discredited conspiracy theory (which Jones and his followers nevertheless cling to) holding that former First Lady, U.S. Senator, Secretary of State, and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton runs a child sex ring out of a Washington, D.C. pizzeria. Spirit Cooking refers to a conceptual art project by performance artist Marina Abramovic which has been misrepresented by Jones and others as an actual Satanic or occult ritual in which leaders of the Democratic Party, most notably former Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, supposedly participated. The only piece of evidence allegedly implicating Lady Gaga in these supposed scandals is a viral image people say shows her attending a spirit cooking ritual led by Abramovic: However, the photograph depicts no such event. It was taken at the 20th Annual Watermill Center Summer Benefit, an art auction supporting residency programs at the renowned arts facility located near Southampton, New York. Along with more than 1,000 other attendees, including many well-known artists and celebrities, Gaga and Abramovic were both guests at the 27 July 2013 event, which, although its stated theme was Devil's Heaven and it featured purposely shocking avant-garde installations such as the one seen above, had no connection with Abramovic's Spirit Cooking oeuvre. Based on her own statements and actions, Gaga's spiritual inclinations might best be described as eclectic, inclusive, or, least charitably, confused. Born and raised a Catholic, she says that although she has had disagreements with the Church she is very religious, believes in Jesus, and prays. But she also finds religion bogus, she says, in the sense that most, if not all religions, historically, have persecuted minorities. I dream of and envision a future where we have a more peaceful religion, or a more peaceful world, a more peaceful state of mind for the younger generation, Gaga told Larry King in a 2010 television interview. She has also promoted the teachings of the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan Buddhist leader, and studied meditation with celebrity spiritualist Deepak Chopra, whom she reportedly sought out for counsel after experiencing dreams of being haunted by the devil. Dreaming that one is being chased by devils is not the same as worshiping Satan, we submit, despite what rumor-mongers like Alex Jones would have us believe. Nevertheless, in a classic instance of confirmation bias (defined as the tendency to interpret new evidence as proof of what one already believes), Lady Gaga's actual halftime show, which Variety described as unprovocative and overall a little weak, was condemned by more excitable observers as a Satanic performance replete with ritualistic Illuminati references such as pentagrams lining the stage, flames, black clothing, and 666 hand symbols over the eyes. Others source claimed Gaga's show contained allusions to 9/11, Freemasonry, and the biblical story of the fall of Lucifer: A 6 February 2017 Facebook post shared by close to 60,000 people elaborated on the fall of Lucifer theme, claiming We just saw Satan's fall in theatric [sic] form: As is obvious from the examples above, anyone can represent themselves as an expert on Satanism and accuse others of practicing it, but that doesn't mean they know what they're talking about. If you shed such preconceived notions before watching Gaga's actual performance, which opens with her perched on the roof of Houston's NRG Stadium in an acrobatic harness, belting out refrains from God Bless America and This Land Is Your Land until she leaps (not falls) to the stage below, you'll wonder how anyone could seriously interpret it as a re-enactment of Lucifer being tossed out of heaven. And those allegedly Satanic flashing pentagrams adorning the stage? They make much more thematic sense interpreted as five-pointed stars from the American flag. Alex Jones' version of Satanism, if you recall, was Lady Gaga peering down from the top of the stadium, surrounded by flying drones, as if to say, I am the goddess of Satan ruling over you with the rise of the robots. For what it's worth, we scoured both the old and new testaments of the Bible for references to Satanic robots, and came up empty-handed. So, what was the meaning of Gaga's halftime performance? During preparation for the event, she expressed the hope that it would have a unifying effect on the country. When asked at a press conference a few days before the Super Bowl if she still hoped to do that, and whether she would be making any other kind of statements, she said: Here, courtesy of the National Football League, is Lady Gaga's full Super Bowl LI halftime performance:
(en)
|
![[This page as RDF]](http://data.gesis.org/claimskg/static/rdf-icon.gif){kind=icon}