The Most Controversial Thing About Madonna's Super Bowl Halftime Show

The most controversial thing about the Madonna Super Bowl Halftime Show in 2012 was not the artist known as M.I.A. flipping her middle finger up on camera. It was Madonna herself, more-or-less doing the funky chicken across the massive stage, and somehow remaining relevant and entertaining.

I am not a fan of Madonna; never have been. As a days away from turning thirty dude I have been around for most all of the Madonna ride that there is. I think the only time I ever "got into" one of her songs was when it played over the speakers at a fast food restaurant that I worked at. It was late at night, I was a lonely guy sweeping a floor and it tickled me in the right spot. It was the song "Frozen." Now that I have confessed THAT, maybe what I am saying does not seem so weird coming from a critic of Madonna. (Usually I am describing her as being a seeming to be a mean old lady who for some reason decided she was British for a while.) The Super Bowl Halftime Show was: good.

I did not enjoy the music Madonna pretended to sing during the Halftime Show. I was not surprised by her plethora of guest musicians; they had all been announced prior to the show. What I enjoyed was the sheer spectacle of it all. The Black Eyed Peas may have had a big light show when they had the Super Bowl gig, but they were terrible. Madonna pulled it off. At first glance seeing her dancing alongside the LMFAO guys and their party anthem one may think: she's too old to be doing that and trying to be hip. However, when you wrap your mind around it, the realization dawns on you: she's too old, yet seems fit enough to be mostly keeping up and doing so in some ridiculous high heels to boot! Yes, she did almost have some stumbles, but there's new Youtube videos of singers like Beyonce taking a crash every few concerts as well. Did Madonna's dance moves look silly? Sort of. As I stated before: she kind of looked like she was doing the funky chicken. But she pulled off the young, hip dance queen shtick better than the ever gorgeous, but also aging Jennifer Lopez does. I was glad Madonna went for a more covered and epic pageantry, theatrical look with her costumes instead of the Lopez pretending to be nude, tan glitter suit. Madonna did not try to sell me a car during the performance either: that is a major plus.

The Giants defeated the Patriots in the 2012 Super Bowl and I had originally decided to root for the Patriots. However, during the playoffs more and more stories about fans being bullies and sports team fanatics with gang like mentalities began to surface and I changed who I was pulling for. I declared that I was hoping for Madonna to win the Super Bowl. Therefore, the final Hail Mary throw by Tom Brady coming inches away from being scooped up by Rob Gronkowski did not disappoint me because Madonna, with some inadvertent nostalgic power and some large television screens, came through.