Were those ‘kids in cages’ during JLo and Shakira’s Super Bowl halftime performance?
Did Jennifer Lopez’s 11-year-old daughter — along with a dozen other children — crawl out of a bird cage during the Super Bowl halftime show?
It looks like it — and Twitter users are wondering if it was symbolic of a topic that has become synonymous with the crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border: undocumented immigrant children locked in cages, separated from their families.
“How is no one talking about this powerful yet subtle statement,” one Twitter user wrote shortly after the performance.
The unconfirmed political statement happened near the end of Lopez and Shakira’s performance when dark patches of the field were illuminated to show Emme Maribel Muñiz, Lopez’s daughter, and a dozen other children in cages.
Emme eventually opened the door and crawled out of the cage, singing verses from her mom’s 2000 single “Let’s Get Loud” before later joining Lopez in a rendition of “Born in the USA.” A flag of the United States and Puerto Rico also made an appearance during the finale.
Dozens of Twitter posts soon followed the performance — some questioning, others supporting — what could have been Lopez and Shakira’s political commentary on immigration, one of the country’s most heated topics of the 2020 presidential campaign.
Lopez and Shakira have not commented on the observations.
Debates have surrounded the NFL in recent years over whether games should be used by football players and performers to promote social and political stances following Colin Kaepernick’s decision to kneel during the national anthem in 2016.
But Lopez and Shakira’s possible political commentary isn’t the only thing people are talking about.
Twitter went ablaze Sunday congratulating the two superstars for bringing the Latina flare to Miami’s Super Bowl. Others went into a frenzy over one of Shakira’s outfits that seemed to be identical to her “Zootopia” animated character.
Memes of Shakira’s wagging tongue also went viral, along with a possible explanation of its Arabic cultural significance. Shakira’s father is Lebanese.
While most tweets have been overwhelmingly positive, some are questioning the sexuality of the duo’s entire performance with others saying the cages reminded them of sex trafficking — particularly of children — during a game known to be a magnet for trafficking.
One of the last tweets Lopez did Sunday was “#BornInTheUSA” along with pictures of the singing children. Shakira’s last tweet thanked Lopez for a “night that shows how much Latinos have to offer.”
This story was originally published February 3, 2020 at 11:21 AM.
