Here’s who in the entertainment world won — and lost — this week ending Feb. 13.
Won: Bad Bunny. Going into Super Bowl LX, Bad Bunny was seen as a divisive choice for the halftime show given his vocal progressive politics. But after watching the Puerto Rican star’s hugely energetic, highly theatrical and uniquely staged performance, one could imagine Ashley Padilla’s SNL MAGA Confession Mom going, “I think … maybe … I like Bad Bunny.” Our critic Dan Feinberg wrote Bad Bunny’s performance was “the most impressively conceived and executed Super Bowl halftime production I’ve ever seen.” While some (like President Trump) complained they couldn’t understand Bad Bunny’s lyrics, viewers couldn’t understand TPUSA’s counter-programming headliner Kid Rock either — and he was singing in English. This was also the third-most-watched Super Bowl halftime show in history, according to Nielsen, and racked up billions of views on social media.
Lost: Jeff Bezos: When you’re as wealthy as Jeff Bezos, people tend to unfairly assume you’re simply not a great person. But boy is Bezos leaning hard into his Bond villain perception lately. Regardless of your political leanings, the transparent money funneling to the Trump family for the sycophantic Melania documentary in a presumed exchange for regulatory leniency just looked gross (Melania plummeted 67 percent at the box office during its second week, but the company might still turn a profit once the film hits streaming). At the same time, cruelly gutting The Washington Post of one-third of its newsroom staff could result in a modest yet tangible loss to our collective ability to know what’s going on in the world (yes, conservatives, since the pandemic, the left-leaning paper self-inflicted damage to its reputation, but these cuts were like a surgeon using a butcher’s knife instead of a scalpel).
Won: NBC Winter Olympics Coverage. Ratings are way up from the lows of 2022 and are breathing some much-needed life into the Peacock streaming service. The best part has been the sideline dramas involving biathletes. First there was Norwegian’s Sturla Holm Lægreid confessing to cheating on his girlfriend during a live interview after winning the bronze medal and tearfully begging her to come back (shockingly, humiliating his ex on national television didn’t work). And then there was France’s Julia Simon winning a gold medal four months after being convicted of robbing her teammate Justine Braisaz-Bouchet — who placed 80th (just imagine a teammate racking up $2,300 in charges on your credit card, then beating you to the podium). I don’t know what they’re feeding biathletes these days, but Peacock needs to throw some of them into its next season of Love Island.
Lost: Casey Wasserman. The powerful talent agent has been accused of having serial affairs with junior staffers over the years. But does exchanging flirty messages with Ghislaine Maxwell while he was married three years before Jeffrey Epstein was first publicly accused of wrongdoing in 2006 really constitute a career-ending sin? Chappell Roan (along with a bunch of decent indie bands you probably haven’t heard of) seem to think Wasserman’s cringe exchanges — and lack of scandal precognition — mean he should be cast into the canceled pit and are ditching his agency.
Lost: The Mandalorian & Grogu: The good news is Star Wars fans were definitely talking about that Super Bowl trailer for Disney’s first live-action Star Wars film in seven years. The studio took a big swing with a cheeky play on the iconic Budweiser Clydesdales ads and sent a clear message: This new Star Wars movie is going to be very light and family friendly. But fans really piled on this thing (“I honesty thought this was a fake AI commercial,” read one top-voted comment), and it’s never great when a trailer is so baffling that it requires an accompanying statement from the studio’s marketing chief to explain what they were thinking. Given the film’s teaser trailer back in September also wasn’t great, it looked like Disney was selling sizzle because they ain’t got steak.
