By Natasha Julius
Super Bowl halftime acts are announced in October, meaning that this year is truly the first halftime of the Trump era. And, much like everything related to the Molester-in-Chief, the choice is so on-the-nose it hurts. What better way to vanquish the sublime memory of last year’s Lady Gaga tour-de-force than with the weaselly little fucker who ripped off Janet Jackson’s bra cup? Time’s up, #MeToo! We need a cis-het white guy corrective.
Look, you can argue that Justin Timberlake has the requisite career arc for a Super Bowl halftime act. He’s been around an inexplicably long time, he’s accumulated a back catalog of moderately notable hits, he had a somewhat successful year in 201– no, fuck this, I’m sorry. Justin Timberlake? Are you kidding me with this shit? Nipplegate aside, this is a guy who has made a career gleefully squawking about creeping up on unsuspecting women and forcing them to gyrate with him. Don’t believe me? Please allow me to quote from last year’s Oscar-nominated opus, “Can’t Stop the Feeling!”:
And under the lights when everything goes
Nowhere to hide when I’m gettin’ you close
When we move, well, you already know
So just imagine, just imagine, just imagine
Nothin’ I can see but you when you dance, dance, dance
Feel a good, good creepin’ up on you
So just dance, dance, dance, come on
All those things I shouldn’t do
But you dance, dance, dance
And ain’t nobody leavin’ soon, so keep dancin’
He is literally singing about being an unrepentant sleazebag and expecting you to like it. Forty-five thousand hashtags just exploded.
And yeah, I know you’re about to ask how I know the lyrics to the Oscar-nominated opus “Can’t Stop the Feeling!” It’s because I have a second-grader and the song was featured on the soundtrack for a G-rated animated movie about trolls. Called Trolls. That’s how normalized a misogynistic turd like Justin Timberlake is: he can insert his gross fantasies into a children’s film and nobody seems to care. In fact, I’m not sure you caught this, but that shit got nominated for a fucking Oscar.
I said “Nipplegate aside” above, but the fact is there is no way to understand just how big a “fuck you” this selection is to all women without considering Nipplegate. Two performers were supposedly banned for life for that incident, and yet 15 years later only one of them gets pardoned. And of course it isn’t the groundbreaking international megastar, but rather the overhyped little twerp who rode her coattails to the Big Dance in the first place. Because, at the end of the day, the problem is never that a white guy humiliates a woman of color. The problem is that the woman of color has a body.
I understand there are rumors that Janet Jackson may join Timberlake onstage this year, but that would only serve to highlight the fact that his standing has improved since Nipplegate while hers has worsened. Unless she gets to punch him in the unboxed dick, this would hardly mark a triumphant return.
I could go on and on about the latest symbolic dump the NFL just took on more than half the planet’s population, but instead let’s talk about the fact the Justin Timberlake is cheesy as balls and his three-and-a-half “hits” haven’t aged well. His latest effort, “Filthy,” is a song so goddamn lazy it couldn’t even bother to write itself. When the biggest mystery of the halftime show is whether NSYNC will make an appearance, you know it’s going to be cloyingly and inescapably awful. Brace yourselves, everyone. We’re about to be Timberlaked.
Here are your official Super Bowl halftime show betting questions:
1. Which dated piece-of-shit songs will Timberlake play?
2. Which more talented collaborators will he use to disguise his mediocrity?
3. Will he invite Janet Jackson or just rip off her dance moves?
4. He won’t actually have the nerve to were a “Time’s Up” pin, will he?
5. Oh fuck, he totally will.
6. “Control” or “Nasty?”
–
Previously In Beachwood Super Bowl Halftime Coverage:
* The 2009 Beachwood Super Bowl Halftime Bracket: Bruce Springsteen Edition.
* The Who’s 2010 Super Bowl Suckage.
* Let’s Not Get It Started And Say We Did: The 2011 Beachwood Super Bowl Halftime Prop Bet.
* The 2012 Beachwood Super Bowl Halftime Bet: Madonna Edition.
* The 2013 Beachwood Super Bowl Halftime Bet: Beyoncé Knowles Edition.
* Tweeting The 2014 Super Bowl Suckage: Bruno Mars & Red Hot Chili Peppers Edition.
* The 2015 Beachwood Super Bowl Halftime Prop Bet: Katy Perry Edition.
* The 8th Annual (More Or Less) Beachwood Super Bowl Halftime Show Prop Bet: Coldplay Edition.
* The 9th Annual (More Or Less) Beachwood Super Bowl Halftime Show Prop Bet: Lady Gaga Edition.
–
Comments/wagers.
–
1. From Tom Chambers:
Layers. Thanks for all these layers of the puff pastry! How much shortening again?
I wouldn’t know his songs if you slipped me a mainstream music mickey. Is that good?
P.S. Eagles +176. Eagles +4.5
Crush, one and all!
–
WE HAVE A WINNER . . .
Oof, you guys, this was a close one again.
First of all, let me say that I didn’t watch the halftime show because it was the baby’s bedtime and Justin Timberlake unequivocally is not worth fucking up the baby’s bedtime. So the scoring is only as good as the feisty gremlins of Wikipedia.
Second, I’d like to applaud Justin Timberlake’s bold artistic choice of actually dressing like a dick in a box. I guess Andy Samberg had to wash his hair or something.
In fact, I guess everyone in the music industry had to wash their hair tonight because they sure as hell weren’t showing up to support Justin Timberlake. Gee, it’s almost like he’s a guy who might hang you out to dry if things go wrong or something, I mean, that can’t be right, can it, why would anyone think that? And, I mean, how wrong could things go? It’s not like Justin Timberlake would do something completely tacky like sing a duet of “I Would Die 4U” with a projected image of Prince, who has in fact actually died for pretty much everyone, right? Cheer up, Justin! At least you didn’t greenlight the Dodge truck ad . . . Oh shit, he did, didn’t he?
Anyway, enough shitting on Justin Timberlake! He’s proved himself more than capable of shitting all over himself. I’m giving an honorable mention to Cathy Haibach, who was the only person jaded enough to predict Justin Timberlake would actually try to score points off a dead music icon. But this competition is about guessing songs, and with five correct calls Elan Meier is this year’s champion. Congratulations?
Until next year, which couldn’t possibly be worse but probably will be.
Posted on February 2, 2018