The Weeknd has performed his highly anticipated Super Bowl halftime show for 2021, and unexpectedly, his face was completely normal, with no real plastic surgery in sight. The 30-year-old has been teasing fans with wild face prosthetics and bandages for weeks leading up to the performance and new album release.
Ugh! I guess if I'd been a fan of this guy, I might have noticed his PR antics, and then it would have been amusing that he hadn't had plastic surgery on his face, and it might also have been funny that the dancers were wearing the kind of bandages that he had previously worn to tease us. But for those of us who hadn't seen his pre-game teasing, it was just weird and confusing. I guess The Weeknd didn't care about reaching out to any new fans. It was just an inside joke. An inside joke about plastic surgery.
And that was a slap in the face to the people in general, who have put up with or struggled against face coverings for many months and who might think that we couldn't be using medical facilities for elective surgery. Why would The Weeknd think joking about cosmetic surgery was a good topic for a Super Bowl show? The show normally emphasizes fun, happiness, and exuberance. The edge is ordinarily about sex. But The Weeknd came up with plastic surgery.
Here's The Weeknd's explanation of the performance:
“The significance of the entire head bandages is reflecting on the absurd culture of Hollywood celebrity and people manipulating themselves for superficial reasons to please and be validated.... It’s all a progression and we watch ‘The Character’s’ storyline hit heightened levels of danger and absurdity as his tale goes on... [You can] take that being attractive isn’t important to me but a compelling narrative is,” and explained why he’s been going back and forth between himself and “The Character”. “Why not play with the character and the artist and let those lines blur and move around?”
He gave that explanation before the big show, but how many of us in the audience had read that? And why did it need an explanation? Quite aside from whether it would have been entertaining to anyone who had the explanation, why would you do a show for such a huge general audience that was weirdly puzzling without an explanation — especially when the puzzlement was about covering the faces of the hundreds of dancers? He's claiming to critique the Hollywood culture of obsession with facial beauty, but then he's giving us only one face to look at — his.
We were supposed to see "The Character" going through some sort of sort of "storyline" with "heightened levels of danger and absurdity." It was artsy modern dance with a theme of the alienation of the individual an a world drained of humanity. The Weeknd is the last man and everyone else is faceless, inhuman. It's like something from "Sprockets"....
पोस्ट्स
९० टिप्पण्या:
His name is The Weeknd? How do you pronounce that? Why is it interesting that a 30-year-old hasn't had plastic surgery?
Gee, I’m sorry I missed it. I don’t even know who won yet. But I guess that little factoid will be hard to keep out of my brain. I did read that Bruce Springsteen was going to scold us all for veering too far from the left wing (defined by him as the middle.) But it’s not like I fought some urge to watch. After a whole season of blissful ignorance that they were even playing, skipping the Super Bowl was no effort at all.
"Why is it interesting that a 30-year-old hasn't had plastic surgery?"
Plastic surgery isn't just about fighting the effects of aging. It's also about reshaping the mouth, eyes, cheeks, forehead, jawline — everything. It's done on the very young. Apparently, you have not been keeping up with the Kardashians.
No, I have not. I associate plastic surgery with victims of disfiguring injury and with narcissistic starlets trying to squeeze a few more years out of a career built solely on youthful looks.
I didn't watch. Did I miss something?
I've managed to avoid learning who won, and have forgotten who was playing. I have learned though that the game was stolen, and had the first black female referee.
I was looking for a good free film on Amazon at the time, without success, but would have bailed out of the superbowl even faster than the four I tried.
Say what you will, the occasionally good free film is better than the superbowl.
I recommend "Small Apartments" and ".. damn what was the other one .. checks related .. Clay Pigeons" as pretty good. Interesting and avoiding plot cliches that tip everything off as upcoming tedium.
A lot of money got moved around thanks to that half-time show. All those dancers, lights, smoke. Rehearsals must have been hell, wearing rags on your head and trying to follow your cues. Wait...maybe they used North Koreans or Chinese extras from those big marches they do?
But let’s not fret or quibble. The only bad ad is the one you don’t remember. This one, we’ll be arguing over for years.
Is a marching band wearing COVID masks too much to ask?
Last night we watched the first episode of Peaky Blinders and that episode of The Crown where Elizabeth gets coronated. It was striking the difference in the treatment given to smoking.
My wife informed me that Tom Brady has not been on the winning team Super Bowl team all of the time. You learn something new every day.
All I heard was "next weekend" so I missed the whole thing.
Eric the Fruit Bat said...It was striking the difference in the treatment given to smoking.
I shake my head every time I see the "sex/violence" warnings that now include "images of smoking." Is that how cancer works now? You can even get lung cancer just by seeing somebody smoke?
What the fuck is this guy’s REAL name?
A very weak voice and just a shitty performer.
I was completely confused, befuddled and actually got a bit of vertigo (granted, I have an issue with this) when the camera was spinning in the house of lights. I thought the bandaged up people were zombies or something. The show wasn't for me. I'm just a normal, upper middle aged white guy. And that's fine. I fully understood the J Lo/Shakira show last year, however.
I went for a walk and then read from The Bright Ray of Darkness instead of watching the game, that book is so good I am rationing it, as if I had the last ever pint of Hagan Daz chocolate chocolate chip ice cream in my freezer. Lot’s of fodder for the misandrist in that book, and women may not get it, but I always felt that the fact that women didn’t seem to like Hemingway sort of validated it as great art.
Do these halftime shows have an audience beyond the entertainment and advertising types?
"David Begley said...
What the fuck is this guy’s REAL name?
A very weak voice and just a shitty performer."
two seconds on google produced this. Abel Makkonen Tesfaye
And yes, people call him the Dave Begley of music. And he isn't from Nebraska.
"But for those of us who hadn't seen his pre-game teasing, it was just weird and confusing. I guess The Weeknd didn't care about reaching out to any new fans."
I think that's a stretch. I thought it was just some typical bullshit performance art, but some could have been curious and sought out the reason and thought it was interesting, and/or others might just have liked his music regardless of the rest of the performance. My younger son late 30's likes some of his stuff but said he changed the sound of them for this show.
If you have to explain the joke then it's a bad joke.
I'm told that my four year old granddaughter LOVES Weekend's music. She probably didn't get the joke either, not least of which because she was in bed by the time it was revealed.
I confess, I used Super Bowl halftime to gather and organize our garbage for this morning. Then managed to find a few other things to do before the game came back on. I've always been irritated by SB halftime. Any football fan would be. It's about the game, not current pop stars, no matter what the networks present.
By the way, the CBS team of Jim Nance and Tony Romo were painful. I hope CBS does not get have the game again for 3 or so years (assuming the networks have some sort of cycle of hosting).
Is it just me, or would a superior half time show now include a gigantically built up Rickroll?
The show was like a nightmare. A grim departure from the usual, high-energy, sexy extravaganza of the last several years.
While watching it, I began to feel nostalgic for college marching bands forming an image of a stage coach with turning wheels that would morph into spouting whale for some reason or whatever it was. Maybe I'm just a geezer.
At least the dancers didn't have bandages on their groinal areas.
All the plastic surgery dancers appeared to be male. I guess you don't make fun of women who get some work done.
I find most pop culture weird and confusing
Ever since child pedophile MJ grabbed his crotch, the halftime show has been skipped. So I missed the chick being undressed by her dance partner. And missed this one also.
Sounds like the MASH episode where they do an illicit nose job, then cover it up by having everyone, including the camp dog, wear a bandage.
This the new norm of the Biden era— we’re supposed to care about those we don’t really care about.
"Is a marching band wearing COVID masks too much to ask?"
If it's OK for the symphony orchestra, it's ok for the band. You put an appropriately sized hole in the mask and shove the mouthpiece through it. It's not a good thing if you're on the inside, but theater is far more important than music these days.
I spent years writing halftime shows for actual marching bands, and I always wait until afterward to watch the SB show. I took a shower during this one. If my buds tell me to watch it, I watch it.
I am in favor of awarding the show to the winner of the DCI world finals, held in Indianapolis every August. It's a great American art form that is in all ways superior to the marketing exercise we are served up every February.
Here's what you missed: Blue Devils 2019 DCI Finals
Oh? There was an event yesterday? The Superb Owl? Something about a game?
I haven't watched or cared about sports in years and especially so since "sports" are not about the game anymore but rather political propaganda productions. (......with a few guys with really nice butts)
I miss Prince.
I like The Weeknd. He was really good as himself in Uncut Gems.
As for what the dancers were wearing, I didn't think much about it because I figured they were just trying to do something so the dancers could have masks on, and didn't want to go with bdsm.
They had his vocals too low on the mix, so the sound wasn't as good as it could be. But it was a relief for me not to have to watch women strip and grind for once.
I didn't watch the Superb Owl, or the halftime show- but I will try to find a video of it online at some point. I like The Weeknd, his most recent album 'After Hours' was great. In the video for "Blinding Lights," the first single of that album, he has some kind of damage to his face. Elsewhere on the album, he pokes fun at women in LA all looking the same and having the same plastic surgery. And then in his most recent video 'Save Your Tears,' he clearly has some makeup done to look like he has had some absurd and unnecessary plastic surgery done himself. There may be more backstory that I am not aware of. These releases have been strung out over a year or so, and do seem to tell a story, although not a particularly coherent one. I think that is the fate of all concept albums. Anyway, I mention all this to say that to people who are familiar with The Weeknd- and a lot of people are- would have probably understood the reference here. I doubt the Super Bowl was the right audience for it, though.
Never heard of hm before yesterday. Unfortunately I only speak English so I have no idea of what he was singing. It sounded like all the songs of brown people these days but the lyrics were incomprehensible.
In Re Super Bowl advertisements am I the only one who observed that well over half the actors were brown people? Serious question.
People always pine for the SNL of their youth, but I'm not aware that there was ever of Golden Age of Superbowl Halftime Shows. Can anyone recall everyone saying that whoever put on a great halftime show. Janet Jackson deserves some credit for setting a new low and doing something memorably bad.
Didn’t see the very beginning. Did players take a knee or not? Coaches? Fans? If not why not.
The Super Bowl used to have terrible half time shows like "Up With People".
Pepsi and Michael Jackson saved us from that.
"I was completely confused, befuddled and actually got a bit of vertigo (granted, I have an issue with this) when the camera was spinning in the house of lights."
Yes, I had to turn away from that part. I have suffered from real vertigo at times (bad enough to make me feel quite sick and even, once, to vomit), so I don't find images like that enjoyable at all.
"Any football fan would be. It's about the game, not current pop stars, no matter what the networks present."
The NFL knows what the Super Bowl is about. Ratings. Money. They and the networks know that most people just casually watch the game...ever been to a SB party? Other than bettors, or fans of the two teams, no one really cares all that much.
Shifting gears slightly, the announcers waited until five minutes before the end of the game to mention that Andy Reid's son Britt (who is also an assistant coach) was in a car crash in Thursday where DUI is suspected. A five-year-old girl is in critical condition.
For those following along, that's two substance-troubled sons that Reid has tried to bring into his organization. His other one OD'd, and Britt has had some other problems with drugs and guns. Reid's a great coach, but his family is sadly a tragedy.
Said it year after year, but the NFL should offer Bruno Mars a lifetime contract to host the SB half time show. He could bring in a current musical superstar, but always have is show band and review to frame the show. Bruno Mars could be to SB what Guy Lombardo was to New year's Eve.
Yes, Bruno Mars was good. Everyone liked Tom Petty except the people that hate Tom Petty...
Performing in whiteface is ok? Is it the only color of race-face one can wear with impunity?
McCartney, Prince, Petty, Bruno Mars were all enjoyable.
Your talking about the Weekend, now. Therefore the confusing face coverings did their duty to create buzz, even on a deplorables blog.
Personally, I didn't see it because the snow doesn't blow itself.
I got hung up on him wearing gloves. Why? To me they looked like at the last minute he said - my hands are cold - can I borrow someone’s gloves? They looked way too big for his hands. It looked like when I throw on my husbands gloves for a bit. Then my mind went to Michael Jackson - gloves, mask, sparkled jacket . . . But then I also thought of OJ and the glove not fitting. For me it was a very average Super Bowl performance.
I have heard of The Weeknd - I really didn’t think he was popular enough for the Super Bowl - but I guess I was absolutely wrong!
I had to look up H.E.R. - the women (well I assume she identifies as a women, since her name is her pronoun!) who sang America the Beautiful
And then there was the Star Spangled Banner - Eric Church and Jazmine Sullivan. I have heard of Eric Church but not Jazmine Sullivan, a R&B singer - now I know her name and she can definitely sing!
At least there wasn’t any pole dancing.
A performance that requires an explanation for the audience to understand it is a FAIL. As for you sprockets video, the word "sprockets" reminds me of Spacely's Sprockets from the Jetsons.
"He was really good as himself in Uncut Gems."
He was a dick in Uncut Gems, and apparently one in real life as well. (or so I've heard)
Was Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man covered in bandages or was it H.G. Wells?
This year the NFL said: "Fuck everything! Hieronymus Bosch halftime show! Jazz hands!"
I was told there would be pole dancing...
Test
All I heard was "next weekend" so I missed the whole thing. nice morning chuckle from MR FORWARD!
All I heard was "next weekend" so I missed the whole thing. :)
A nice morning chuckle from MR FORWARD
All I heard was "next weekend" so I missed the whole thing. :)
A nice morning chuckle from Mr. Forward
All I heard was "next weekend" so I missed the whole thing. :)
"Highly Anticipated" Now that's funny, right there.
Didn't watch; Never will again.
A nice morning chuckle from Mr. Forward
All I heard was "next weekend" so I missed the whole thing.
Trouble with posting comments>?
"Highly Anticipated" Now that's funny, right there.
Didn't watch; Never will, again.
"It's like something from "Sprockets"...."
Would you like to touch my monkey? Touch him, love him, liebe meine abschminke!
Liebe meine abschminke means love my make-up removal. Haha
Plastic surgery is sad -- a renunciation of one's individuality.
I never turned on the sound. Had the game on but was listening to Tchaikovsky. That made for an odd mix. The half-time show was particularly bizarre with no sound. The girl with the guitar at the beginning really caught my eye. Was she any good as a singer? And slightly off-topic but in response to the comment about good free movies, I watched The Death of Stalin (Netflix) yesterday before the game. That is a great movie. It manages to play it for laughs without minimizing the horror of the commie regime. In fact, the comic aspects make the horror worse. Steve Buscemi is great as Krushchev, Michael Palin is great as Molotov, and whoever plays Beria deserves some sort of award.
The pre-game and the half-time shows (and whatever a Weeknd is - weekend, week-kneed?) are what a TV remote is made for.
I read that he spells his stage name “Weeknd” because there . was already a Canadian band called “Weekend”. Does copyright only matter for the written word?
I can't remember exactly when I stopped watching the Super Bowl games, but 40-50 years ago seems about right.
I don't know or care about this performer but I suspect he spells the name as "Weeknd" in part because of the Google Problem, that if you use a common word as part of your band name your band gets lost in internet searches.
A good example of a great band with a common name that gets lost is Daughter. A good example of a great band with a common name that gets around the Google Problem deftly is Chvrches.
Jock Straps? Never occurred to me. First thing I thought of was surgical bandaging, though I had no idea why they might be wearing such a thing. Never heard of The Weekend nor of his surgical schtick.
And who cares anyway? After Prince, its all downhill for SB halftime shows. Mr End's was mediocre.
He was a dick in Uncut Gems, and apparently one in real life as well. (or so I've heard)
I liked it that he didn't have to be a super glamorous version of himself to be persuaded to act in the movie. Same with everyone in it, really. That's what made it so good (and tense)/
I was offered a great opportunity to watch the game at the home of a former NFL player that has been in the big game. It was great, because it was the first time in a decade I can recall watching the game and ignoring everything else (pre-game, commercials, we even had the sound turned way down as to barely hear the announcers). We simply talked about the events on the field. It was only the second NFL game I saw during the season, but the best I've experienced in a long long time.
BTW, nobody liked the Jeep commercial. Nothing like pandering to the people that actually live in the middle of the country suggesting they come to the middle. Physician, heal thyself.
Hunh. I liked it. I expected to hate it. Didn't really know the singer (turns out I had heard one of the songs). Expected R&B with lots of autotune, which is really not my thing. But I was pleasantly surprised. I didn't work too hard to try to figure out "the message", just saw it as a abstract dance routine which was cool looking and technically impressive. No tendentious anti-Trump crap (like the "children in cages" BS a couple years ago), no S&M leather dance club costumes (like Beyonce, Janet Jackson, etc.). So I was happy. He's no Prince, but then, who is?
Escapees from a burn ward where they were treated after their crack pipes exploded in their faces. Grabbed some dilaudid and booked back to the hood.
" Does copyright only matter for the written word?"
You can't copyright a word. The issue is trademark. But respelling the word might not be enough. People can still be confused.
"I read that he spells his stage name “Weeknd” because there . was already a Canadian band called “Weekend”. Does copyright only matter for the written word?"
The British band Suede had to release their material in the U.S. under the name The London Suede because there was already a (less-successful) U.S. band named Suede.
"Can anyone recall everyone saying that whoever put on a great halftime show"
Prince. The answer is Prince.
" I didn't think much about it because I figured they were just trying to do something so the dancers could have masks on, and didn't want to go with bdsm."
Same. Costumes to keep the masks firmly in place.
"In Re Super Bowl advertisements am I the only one who observed that well over half the actors were brown people? Serious question."
Not just the Super Bowl, but all TV commercials are now dominated by POCs and integrated families. You cannot have an all white cast in any entertainment, even in period dramas. You might get away with an all Asian cast.
New rules, never to be violated.
The Weeknd is as Canadian as Drake. His music is actually really good, and he is not making an inside joke about plastic surgery— he is critiquing it. Supposedly he is against it, and the shallowness of it but then he dated Bella Hadid for quite awhile. If you’ve seen a Dior ad you’ve probably seen Bella.
As to a half time show that was good— Shakira and J Lo.
Apparently, it was racist of Tom Brady and Tampa Bay to win the Super Bowl...
"Many watched Tom Brady lead the Tampa Bay Buccaneers Super Bowl victory over the Kansas City Chiefs. The game marked the franchise’s second Super Bowl victory and Tom Brady’s seventh. Brady’s epic accomplishment has earned him the title of the greatest quarterback of all time, but many on Twitter appeared to have been triggered by Brady’s victory."
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2021/02/08/tom-brady-called-racist-on-social-media-for-winning-super-bowl-during-black-history-month-n1423916?fbclid=IwAR0n28wCVa0M3itFP0a9Su_zt4QqjwCHW9IRwq8LLow-vUVkdUozribfW50
And there is this... "On Sunday night, as the reality that the Chiefs were going to lose became apparent to all, Randi Mahomes, Pat Mahomes’ mother, took to Twitter and ripped the referees in a tweet where she also tagged Tom Brady’s wife, Gisele Bundchen."
https://www.breitbart.com/sports/2021/02/07/pat-mahomes-mom-blasts-refs-in-social-media-post-to-tom-bradys-wife/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&fbclid=IwAR0E5hRPJVLSRUxVg60TPwm9Ngpvd5KyBHlG0G8m53V2Hr9vd05IkjKXT68
Did not watch the SB - watched some paint dry instead, and it was most enjoyable. I did go over to youtube to see what the hey the 'weeknd' bit was all about. Music was meh, and the multiple 'white guys in surgical face coverings' was even more meh. Too much modern music is the same tune with some mostly unintelligble words blatted out over it. More meh.
But I am into the blues with good guitar riffs and find a lot of current music (not all, I do like Green Day and some of Fallout Boys is interesting for instance) the same tune with slightly different words, but the dance bits always have good production values, even if they have no redeeming value as entertainment.
I wasn't aware that the super bowl was yesterday. That's super weird given that it was such an iconic part of American culture until Colin Kaepernick's vanity project systematically destroyed sports in the US. The super bowl was to the US what World Cup was to the rest of the world. No longer. I think we might be better off without it.
BTW, nobody liked the Jeep commercial.
From the planning session:
“Kansas?”
“Whatever. Set it in one of those bullshit states we don’t care about. I know! We’ll even title it The Middle. What do people out there in The Middle do?”
“Their sisters!” shouted one of the MBAs. They all laughed and high fived.
It’s always a mistake to watch the halftime show.
CHVRCHES is a great band, I've seen them perform several times.
Who knew Colin Kaepernick was doing me a favor when he started his kneeling crap back in 2016?
I joked with the family that the halftime show was a bust based on the metric with which I am most familiar - the opinion of a middle age, middle class, mid-career, white guy from flyover country. I enjoyed the show greatly which means it was probably a horrible failure.
I watched without concerning myself too much with messaging. Never heard of Weeknd before, liked the music and wished the sound mix was a little (ok, a LOT) better. Liked how he used the whole space instead of just a dais in the center of the field. I supposed that had something to do with COVIDy restrictions of some sort. The discomfort of the sequence in the "funhouse" was entertaining and felt weird yet worked well, like someone packaged up Las Vegas onto a subway car that stops by the local hospital and a bunch of rude, pushy head trauma patients get on.
The finale on the field with the tradition of massed dancers - even though it wasn't the usual mass of pre-teen and teen-aged local dance school girls - worked very well, especially the use of handheld LEDs for tracking hand and arm movements in the darkened stadium. The chaotic choreography played well with the camera angles that were used. It was clear the audience was not in the stadium this year.
As for good halftime shows of the past: U2 in 2002. But I'm a U2 fanboi and very biased in favor of artists standing on the stage, playing their instruments and singing, without too much hulabaloo going on behind them. And I watched it while on a cruise in the Caribbean, which certainly adds to the happy memory.
The best? Prince. Definitely.
The TV ratings for football were in the toilet this year.
So the NFL could probably only afford a 3rd tier "entertainer".
Ann's criticism is exactly how I feel when I go to the opera.
Oh? There was a football game on this weekend?
I assumed that the bandaged faces represented the victims of statism. Did I misinterpret?
I just watched mezzrow's Blue Devils marching band video. I think I don't know anything at all about marching bands... There was a WHOLE lot going on there. Far more complicated than the Superbowl halftime show, at least wrt performance. The SB show had lighting and costume changes, but the Blue Devils show had constant staging changes, about six or more groups doing separate and sometimes overlapping things at all times, a whole stage thing at the front with more instruments, big hats for a while at least (I lost track), batons that turned into (?) flags or possibly that the flag people somehow carried on their persons while doing flag things, an untold number of xylophones (I think they were xylophones - I couldn't zoom in) used as both instruments and staging elements, quite avant-garde music with no beat to work with but constant 8's... It was overwhelming!
rhhardin,
"I was looking for a good free film on Amazon at the time, without success"
Dude.... Master and Commander.
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