8 from Idaho filed FCC complaints against Bad Bunny halftime show | Opinion
The Bad Bunny performance during the Super Bowl halftime show in February ruffled quite a few feathers at the time.
Turns out a couple thousand people filed complaints with the Federal Communications Commission against the broadcast, including eight people from Idaho.
“I found the lyrics to Bad Bunny’s songs performed at the Super Bowl to be obscene, indecent or profane,” wrote one person from Idaho Falls. “I ‘knew it when I heard it’ and I found it objectionable.”
Wired, an online news site, filed a Freedom of Information Act request for complaints about the Super Bowl filed with the FCC, which regulates communications, including broadcast. Nearly every year, the Super Bowl halftime show draws hundreds of complaints, though some years have been worse than others.
This year, there were 2,155 complaints, most of which were about the halftime show, according to Wired.
The individuals’ names are not included in the complaints, but the city and state are included. In Idaho, complaints came from Idaho Falls, Eagle, Meridian, Star, Caldwell, Cottonwood, Boise and Coeur d’Alene.
“I found the halftime show to be grossly vulgar, sexually explicit in tone and presentation, and inappropriate for a primetime broadcast audience that includes millions of children,” wrote the complainer from Boise. “The performance included sexually suggestive choreography, provocative dance movements, and explicit lyrical content.”
Many complained about the songs’ lyrics, even copying and pasting the explicit English translations into their complaints.
“Importantly, although portions of the performance were delivered in Spanish, the language was fully broadcast without censorship,” the person from Boise wrote. “The use of a foreign language does not lessen the explicit nature of the content.”
“The Super Bowl halftime performance was disgusting,” wrote one person from Caldwell. “Did you guys approve this? When you translate the lyrics he was singing to English, it was absolutely vulgar and inappropriate for national TV, especially when children are not only watching on TV but at the Super Bowl live.”
But they apparently were looking up the lyrics after the fact and not actually listening to the lyrics that were sung during the halftime show.
Yes, the lyrics to at least two of the songs that were performed have some pretty objectionable language, but the televised performance was toned down, omitting any explicit parts for broadcast, according to the New York Post.
According to the Wired article, after Republican lawmakers called for the FCC to investigate the NFL and NBC, FCC commissioner Anna Gomez requested transcripts of the performance and found no violations.
“I reviewed them carefully, and I found no violation of our rules and no justification for harassing broadcasters over a standard live performance,” Gomez told Reuters.
Lyrics aside, many people complained about two male dancers “grinding” on each other during the dance performance.
“During the Super Bowl halftime show, there was two men grinding on each other,” wrote the person from Star. “This is completely inappropriate, and the network should be fined for atrocious acts on public airways.”
“It’s not only that it was in Spanish,” wrote the complainer from Eagle, “it was the crudeness, the rudeness, the hatred and the raunch and immorality that was being paraded around. … Punishment is definitely necessary for NBC and Bad Bunny. Revoke NBC’s license. I am requesting that these entities and groups be banned and punished for what they exposed to all the viewers. It was extraordinarily shameful.”
“Homosexual sex scene between two men on the passenger side of the truck!” wrote a Meridian complainer.
One has to wonder, though, if they would have complained over a man and woman dancing provocatively.
I uploaded all of the complaints to an artificial intelligence research assistant to analyze the content of all 2,155 complaints.
It found a significant number of repeated phrases and several identical repeat submissions, suggesting that there was a coordinated campaign to file complaints.
One oft-repeated phrase was, “I demand a maximum fine for the vulgar and sexually suggestive broadcast during family viewing hours,” and several variations, such as “there should be maximum fine for NBC/Super Bowl for vulgar and sexually suggestive broadcast during family viewing hours” or “I demand a maximum fine for the vulgar and sexually suggestive broadcasting during family hours.”
Many complainers, like the person from Meridian, copy and pasted FCC regulations.
Finally, the Super Bowl was on Feb. 8, and complaints didn’t start coming in until Feb. 11-13, further suggesting that complainers were encouraged well after the fact to file complaints.
In the end, as the Wired article points out, the performance has been viewed more than 4 billion times on broadcast, YouTube, and social media. So 2,155 complaints is a drop in the ocean.
And the uproar over the performance was more like a tempest in a teapot.
