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Utter Yank Shite: The British are Just Going to Have to Accept the World Cup Halftime Show as a Cultural Thing
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Shakira is such an obvious choice for an event like this. Hopefully she comes out dressed like a Gazelle and performs the Zootopia songs.
When you think of the global performers who could headline a FIFA event, isn’t Shakira the #1 person who comes to mind? She’s the archetype for global pop as an accessible and bilingual artist that people are familiar with. I think of Shakira, U2, Pitbull, artists like that. Madonna is Madonna, so you can’t go wrong there, and then BTS is huge around the rest of the world, so Chris Martin curated a somewhat straightforward lineup here.
You could argue that since it’s a North American event that the lineup should have reflected the continent, maybe like one American group, one Canadian group, and one Mexican group. I could picture Fuerza Regida and Rush teaming up with Taylor Swift for rousing rendition of “Lavender Haze,” but whatever. It is the WORLD Cup after all, even though the event is supposed to showcase the culture of the host country or countries.
Funny enough, the bulk of the online whinging about this halftime show seems to be coming from Europe, or the UK to be more specific. They complain about everything over there, especially their tabloid media. They’re always bitching about “yank shit” ruining football, and in general they think we go overboard with everything, but the Super Bowl halftime show is a big cultural thing over here. It’s just what we do. Certainly it is not universally loved, and plenty of Americans would be happy to see it go away, but if we’re running with the cultural theme, note that we sat through South African Vuvuzelas for two whole years during the 2009 Confederations Cup and 2010 World Cup, and even though plenty of non-Africans found it annoying, it was understood that the Vuvuzelas were part of their culture and we largely shut our mouths and respected that.
When the UK hosts the World Cup again, we’ll respect their cultural habits and norms. In lieu of a halftime show, Liam Gallagher will perform pregame while wearing a parka and calling everyone in the crowd a “bumbaclart.” During the intermission, we’ll stuff our face with meat pies and pour ourselves a “cuppa.” Then we’ll go on Arsenal Fan TV afterward and yell into the microphone.
It’s no big deal. We have our culture, they have theirs. Peace and love.
Come on, get on up
We’re wild and we can’t be tamed
And we’re turnin’ the floor into
A ZOO, OOH, OOH
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com