All the Symbolism You Missed in Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl Halftime Show

Whether you tuned in because of the controversy, the vibes, or genuine fandom, Bad Bunny delivered a Super Bowl halftime show layered with history, politics, and cultural memory. Beneath the spectacle was a carefully constructed narrative about Puerto Rico, colonialism, and who gets included in the idea of “America.”

Clues about the sugar Cane fields:

The performance opened in sugar cane fields in Puerto Rico, a deliberate and loaded choice. Sugar is inseparable from the island’s colonial history, from enslaved labor to corporate extraction under U.S. rule. Beginning there anchored the show in a past that still shapes the present. Farmers in traditional Puerto Rican hats joined Bad Bunny as he opened with “Tití Me Preguntó,” grounding the performance in place before a global audience.

We are breaking down the scene with the men playing dominoes?

From there, the stage filled with scenes of everyday Puerto Rico: fruit stands, older men playing dominoes, nail salons, construction workers, and a piragua stand. These weren’t random aesthetics. They reflected the ordinary rhythms of life on the island. Puerto Rico wasn’t referenced symbolically or from a distance. It was rendered in detail and scale, placed at the center of the largest stage in American entertainment.

Clues about The home:

A key visual throughout the show was a modest Puerto Rican home, most prominently when Bad Bunny performed on top of it, echoing the staging from his residency No Me Quiero Ir de Aquí. The home represents stability and belonging, but also fragility. When he later fell through it, the moment carried the weight of homes collapsing under economic pressure, natural disasters, and political neglect. It was a familiar image to many Puerto Ricans, even if it read as spectacle to others.

All About the Grammy and the little boy:

As the performance transitioned to a pickup truck set to Daddy Yankee’s “Gasolina,” Bad Bunny acknowledged the lineage that made his presence possible. Reggaetón’s pioneers built the cultural infrastructure that allowed this moment to exist. During “Monaco,” Bad Bunny spoke directly to the camera in Spanish, encouraging viewers to believe in themselves. That message became literal when he handed a Grammy to a child watching with his family, a clear reflection of his younger self.

Almost immediately, misinformation spread online falsely claiming the child was Liam Ramos, a Minnesota resident who had recently been detained by ICE. That claim was incorrect. The child was a performer later identified as Lincoln Fox. But the speed with which the rumor traveled revealed something telling. Viewers were primed to interpret the moment through the lens of immigration enforcement, family separation, and state violence, because those realities have become unavoidable.

All about the wedding scene:

The show continued to weave together personal and political imagery. A wedding unfolded onstage, complete with Lady Gaga performing a salsa rendition of “Die With a Smile.” Children slept sprawled across chairs as adults danced around them, a scene familiar to anyone who has attended a long family celebration. These moments reflected continuity, joy, and life persisting amid instability.

Clues About Ricky Martin’s performance:

Ricky Martin’s appearance added another layer. Performing “Lo Que Pasó a Hawái,” a song warning Puerto Rico against statehood by pointing to Hawaii’s experience with militarization, tourism, and displacement, he connected Puerto Rico’s future to a broader pattern of U.S. expansion and extraction.

We Need to talk about the power lines:

During “El Apagón,” dancers climbed power lines, evoking the ongoing power outages that followed Hurricane Maria and continue today. These outages are not isolated failures, but the result of privatization and neglect. Living with them requires constant adaptation, where survival becomes both physical and political.

Let’s talk about the ending and what it all meant:

The performance culminated with Bad Bunny holding a football and uttering one of his only English phrases of the night: “God bless America.” As flags from across North and South America filled the screen, he began naming countries from Chile to Canada. America, he suggested, is not synonymous with the United States. It is a hemisphere shaped by colonization, resistance, and shared history.

Throughout the performance, Bad Bunny used the personal to illuminate the political, taking the specific stories of Puerto Rico and expanding them outward until they spoke to a shared experience across North and South America. Even viewers who did not understand every lyric could follow the narrative through imagery, movement, and emotion. The performance asked a simple but profound question: who gets to define America?

For one night, Bad Bunny answered it himself.