I do most of my reading at night, in bed with the help of my bedside lamp. Usually I read novels, sometimes the newspaper and, regrettably, often I just read what’s given to me via Facebook and Instagram from my smart phone. Thanks to social media we now know exactly what we should be up in arms about, who we should be banning, blocking or shunning.
I enjoyed reading all the comments about the Super Bowl half-time show. Some comments and articles were laugh-out-loud funny. There was outrage, condemnation and even a man who was suing because he was surely going to hell now that he saw J-Lo’s undercarriage.
If you are gauging the fall of humanity by the half-time performance of the Super Bowl, well then, you haven’t been paying attention at all. That ship has already sailed. After reading all the articles and negative comments I wondered, “What did I miss?” Surely the country didn’t expect J-Lo and Shakira to come out on stage in sweat suits. I haven’t seen either of them wear anything on stage, or off, that had full body coverage. So why did folks expect any different? Here’s what I saw. I saw two Latina women in their 40s and 50s with tons of confidence come on stage and kill it. It didn’t make me scream in outrage. I, in fact, cheered. I felt like they were representing us – women of Latin descent, women of (dare I say it) “a certain age.” I didn’t even really notice the infamous pole. All I saw was a 50-year-old woman with hellacious upper body strength kick some major half-time show butt.
The music was good, but the message was better. It did not make me want to go on social media and talk about my wounded virtue. I did not feel compelled to blame two good looking women for the lack of respect in America. What it did make me do was go out and buy some neck cream and to kick it up a notch at the gym.
When I see women doing well in the public arena or in the private world, I cheer. Something I didn’t always do. I look to them as examples of how to do the best with what you got. Sure, I wasn’t born a Columbian beauty with an awesome singing voice and crazy agile hips, but I was born a girl. My job is to not boo and hiss when another one of us uses what she’s got and does it well. I read a comment from Twitter that said, “This performance knocked back the progress women made in this country.” Nope, that’s the people in Washington. J-Lo and Shakira set the bar as far as I’m concerned. They had a platform and they used it to elevate us. You go Girl(s).