I never watch the Super Bowl, normally I could care less. But this year the NY Giants were playing and after their dramatic win to the 49’s in the playoffs I was excited enough to watch the game projected on a huge screen with a couple dozen of my closest friends down at Coney Island USA. I knew Madonna was going to be in the halftime show but she wasn’t the reason I watched the game. But like her or not, the production value alone to her half time show put many if not most prior attempts to shame. I mean she started the whole affair with several dozen beefy marching men dressed as Roman gladiators and had male and female dancers all over her ever-expanding and changing stage. It was so over-the-top that love her or hate her music it was one hell of a show. The group of people I was sitting with sat mesmerized, again for the stagecraft if nothing else. They have something like seven minutes to put it up and eight to take it down, it was beyond ambitious and it seemed to go off without a hitch. And if it was anything like her concerts, Madonna was instrumental in how everything looked down to the last detail.
I wasn’t surprised that there was controversy surrounding her appearance as Madonna always seems to court controversy. Some were upset that another female performer, M.I.A. flipped the bird and screamed an expletive. I hardly noticed it and Madonna can hardly be blamed as the rapper did not do either in rehearsal and she cannot be responsible for the actions of a another. What I have found depressing is how most of the criticism was about Madonna’s age. And I thought to myself well wasn’t “The Who”, “The Rolling Stones“, and Paul McCartney recently in halftime shows? Then I went and watched clips of previous performances and well lets just say when compared to the “Black Eyed Peas” appearance Madonna looked like an absolute genius. Even the “Rolling Stones” played it extremely safe as it was just the band performing on a stage in the middle of the field. Which is their prerogative of course, as the original halftime shows were just marching bands.
But just for the heck of it, I wanted to do an age by age comparison of the male performers who have also graced the halftime stage with Madonna. I know there were some critics who said the male performers were also a bit long in the tooth, but there is something about our society that holds women to a higher standard. Women can’t be past a certain age, and if they are then they can’t go to any extraneous methods to try to keep their appearance youthful. If she didn’t get plastic surgery people would say she looked old, if she does get plastic surgery people will complain that she has had plastic surgery! She certainly doesn’t look old! It is just a blatant double standard. So here we go by the numbers, the ages listed represent the ages they were when they performed, not their current ages.
- 2012 – Madonna – 53
- 2010 – The Who – Roger Daltrey – 63, Pete Townshend – 64
- 2009 – Bruce Springteen – 59
- 2008 – Tom Petty – 58
- 2006 – Rolling Stones – Mick Jagger – 62, Keith Richards -62
- 2005 – Paul McCartney – 62
So a person could argue that the men weren’t trying to be “sexy” at that Madonna was trying to pull off sex appeal at 53. Well I don’t think most female fans of the men listed would agree to that, and I hardly think Mick Jagger considers himself a non-sexual human being. Not even close! He doesn’t exactly just stand there and sing…HA!
Love her or hate her everyone is entitled to their opinion. But calling her too old doesn’t make a ton of sense especially since she is a decade younger than most of the men who have gone before her. And if you want to compare, look at some of the previous performances…most were extremely straight forward. Madonna was hardly boring. And if the producer want to keep with the age as a theme…Cher is 65! Just saying…that would be interesting! 🙂
And just for a bit of fun…here is the super bowl performance of the Black Eyed Peas
And here is Madonna
NO COMPARISON! Even if you don’t like Madonna her production was flawless….the Black Eyed Peas…well…I will just say I think they are a much better group than that performance.
Related articles
- Madonna’s Super Bowl Halftime Show Named The Greatest (madonnalicious.typepad.com)
- Beyonce V. Madonna: Super Bowl Halftime Outfit Showdown (hollywoodlife.com)
- From Michael Jackson to Beyoncé: The Five Best Superbowl Halftime Performances (forbes.com)
- Why Beyonce Isn’t Getting Paid For Her Super Bowl Halftime Gig (forbes.com)
- Beyonce Couldn’t Overthrow Madonna’s Superbowl Halftime Ratings (soletschat.net)
- Congratulations To Beyonce, But Super Bowl Show Fails To Beat Madonna Ratings (contactmusic.com)
- Madonna Rules Billboard.com’s Readers Poll 2012 (madonnalicious.typepad.com)
- Product placement in Madonna’s lyrics (brandsandfilms.com)
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