All Jennifer Lopez Asked For Was to Be Treated Like a White Man

glamour.com:

Halftime’s official June 14 release on Netflix. Having seen the film, it’s been painful to watch.You don’t have to love Lopez to know she’s a big enough star to headline on her own.

So is Shakira, and so was 2022’s entire lineup. What concerns me about the discourse around Halftime is not the baseline level of trolling female celebrities will always receive—it’s that the internet is mad at Lopez for asking for the same privileges given to white, non-Latina artists since the Super Bowl’s inception. "Typically, you have one headliner at a Super Bowl,” Benny Medina, Lopez’s longtime manager, notes in the documentary. “That headliner constructs a show, and, should they choose to have other guests, that’s their choice.” Think of the 2016 halftime show, when Coldplay to perform as part of their larger set.We’d rather pit women against each other than acknowledge the NFL’s short-sightedness in capping Jennifer Lopez and Shakira’s performance at just 14 minutes.

Of course, there’s some game-related logic behind this: According to , a Super Bowl halftime usually lasts between 20 and 30 minutes, which factors in time to prepare and dismantle performance sets on the field.

Any longer and the players could “cool down,” making them more prone to injuries in the second half (halftime at an average NFL game lasts 12 to 15 minutes).But remember that Lopez and Shakira’s performance brought in than the football game itself, and it’s easy to wonder why the NFL wouldn’t attempt to change.