This article contains descriptions of events that some may find disturbing and language that some may find offensive.
Sunday’s Super Bowl LVI halftime show boasts an all-star line-up – Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Kendrick Lamar and Mary J. Blige – that has had fans buzzing since it was announced last September and then hyped with a slick trailer last month.
But, is the 12-minute Pepsi-sponsored spectacle more than a celebration of hip-hop and R&B?
The highly-anticipated show has sparked accusations that the NFL is ignoring, condoning or even tacitly endorsing the misogyny of Dre, Snoop and Eminem – and it’s not a good look for a league that has had to deal with numerous cases of violence against women committed by its players.
At The Guardian this week, Andrew Lawrence described Dr. Dre's inclusion in the halftime show as "a tone deaf choice for a league grappling with raging gender and race crises."
MORE: Dr. Dre On Super Bowl LVI Halftime Show: "We're Going To Kill This"
Less than two weeks after the halftime show line-up was announced on Sept. 30, Las Vegas Raiders coach Jon Gruden announced he was stepping down after The New York Times reported on emails in which he had made misogynistic and homophobic comments.
Conservative commentator Jon-David Wells was among those who called out the apparent hypocrisy. He tweeted: “Sooo, If Racism, Misogyny and Homophobia going back over a decade are ‘Completely Unacceptable’ to the NFL....They're going to need a new Superbowl (sic) Halftime Show….Right?”
Similar views were expressed by others on social media:
“Duh!! NFL needs to be held accountable for the rampant homophobia, racism, and misogyny…. So what do they do?…. Create a halftime show with artists who gained fame from their music consisting largely of homophobic, and misogynistic lyrics. The irony.” - @Kutz007
“The NFL has zero tolerance for misogyny or homophobia. Now please enjoy the Super Bowl halftime show this year featuring Dr. Dre and Eminem.” - @rayb216
“The nfl is definitely hypocritical taking some faux moral stance if misogyny & homophobia are things they can’t be associated with & then hire them for the halftime show.” - @CruBMXrideordie
“Good thing the NFL is cracking down on racism and misogyny in its ranks. I will be able to enjoy the Super Bowl halftime show featuring Snoop, Eminem, and Dre much more enthusiastically now.” - @FontanelPulses
“If they wanted a culture free from racist, misogyny, and homophobic slurs they wouldn’t have Eminem, Dre, and Snoop booked for the super bowl halftime show.” - @derrick21h
To many on the right, the halftime show line-up exposes a double-standard in “cancel culture.” But on the left, any criticism of the choice of artists smacks of racism.
So, does everyone need to chill out and enjoy the show?
Snoop Dogg, pictured in 2021. Robyn Beck / AFP/Getty Images
On Wednesday, Snoop Dogg was sued by a woman accusing him of a sexual assault nearly nine years ago. When mediation failed, according to her lawyers, Snoop posted emojis of a lawyer, police officer and a bag of cash on Instagram and wrote: “Gold digger season is here be careful … keep ya guards up. And. Keep ya circle small.”
(The sex assault allegation has not been tested in court.)
Snoop told The Associated Press this week that performing in the Super Bowl halftime show is a “dream come true.”
Less than a decade ago, he reflected on a very different dream that became a reality. “As a kid I dreamed of being a pimp,” he told Rolling Stone. “I dreamed of having cars and clothes and b**ches to match. I said, ‘F**k it – I’m finna do it.’
“I did a Playboy tour, and I had a bus follow me with ten b**ches on it. I could fire a b**ch, f**k a b**ch, get a new ho: It was my program … I’d act like I’d take the money from the b**ch, but I’d let her have it.”
On an episode of her talk show in 2007, Oprah Winfrey branded Snoop as one of the worst misogynists in hip-hop.
The rapper, who has recorded many tracks in which he refers to women as “b**ches” and “hoes,” said in 2015 that his views of women evolved.
“I am more sensitive and more vulnerable writing-wise and accepting a woman for being a beautiful person, as opposed to me saying she is a b**ch or w**re because that was how I was trained when I first started,” he told Sky News. “As I grew I fell in love with my wife and started to love my mother, my grandmother and my daughter. I understood what a woman was and I started to write about and express that.”
Still, Snoop said he had no regrets about his early work. “I don’t feel like you can be ashamed or mad about not knowing,” he explained. “If you didn’t know, then you didn’t know.”
Dr. Dre has not said much about the misogyny in his music other than it was a staple of hip-hop, particularly in the 1990s. He has, however, spoken up about allegations of assault made by several women.
Dre pleaded no contest to assaulting TV host Dee Barnes at a party in Hollywood in 1991 and was fined $2,500 U.S., put on two years’ probation and ordered to complete 240 hours of community service.
“I just did it, you know,” he told Rolling Stone in 1991. “Ain’t nothing you can do now by talking about it. Besides, it ain’t no big thing – I just threw her through a door.”
On the R&B Divas LA reunion special in 2013, singer Michel’le, who has a child with Dre, accused the rapper of domestic violence. She alleged that he broke her nose so badly that she needed surgery. (Dre was never charged.)
Original Gangstas author Ben Westhoff revealed in 2016 that he found court documents showing that Lisa Johnson, who had a child with Dre, was granted a restraining order against him due to allegations of abuse.
“She says he beat her a bunch of times in the ‘80s when they were together including while she was pregnant,” Westhoff said in a 2016 interview.
Rapper Tairrie B recalled in a 2015 interview a confrontation with Dre at a post-Grammys party in 1990. “He punched me in the eye,” she alleged. “And when I didn’t go down, he punched me in the mouth.” (Dre was not charged.)
Dre penned a mea culpa for The New York Times in 2015. “Twenty-five years ago I was a young man drinking too much and in over my head with no real structure in my life,” he explained. “However, none of this is an excuse for what I did.
“I’m doing everything I can so I never resemble that man again … I deeply regret what I did and know that it has forever impacted all of our lives.”
Dre also addressed his treatment of women in the 2017 film The Defiant Ones. “No woman should ever be treated that way,” he said. “Any man that puts his hands on a female is a f**king idiot. He’s out of his f**king mind, and I was out of my f**king mind at the time.
“I’m sorry for it, and I apologize for it. I have this dark cloud that follows me, and it’s going to be attached to me forever. It’s a major blemish on who I am as a man.”
Mary J. Blige, who is making her second appearance at a Super Bowl halftime show, has frequently opened up about a lifetime of abuse at the hands of men. “I’ve been sexually harassed and abused… since I was a child all the way up into adulthood,” she told The Hollywood Reporter in 2018.
In 2002, she told The Guardian about almost being killed. “I screamed with all the breath I had left as my boyfriend physically tried to take me out of this world,” she said. “There were weapons involved.”
Blige evidently has no qualms about sharing the stage with Eminem and Dre, who co-wrote the 2000 track “Kill You,” in which Eminem raps: “B**ch I'ma kill you / You don't wanna f**k with me.”
Eminem, pictured in 2020. Leon Bennett / Getty Images
Eminem has courted controversy from day one with lyrics that are decidedly violent and degrading to women – including in tracks that became celebrated hits.
In 1999’s “My Name Is” he raps about how he “got pissed off and ripped Pamela Lee’s t**s off" and "smacked her so hard I knocked her clothes backwards."
His 2010 collaboration with Rihanna, “Love the Way You Lie,” is about a man threatening “if she ever tries to f**king leave again / I’ma tie her to the bed and set this house on fire.”
Eminem has threatened to “punch Lana Del Rey in the face twice” and on his track “Vegas” he refers to Ke$ha as a dog and warns Iggy Azalea: “You don't wanna blow that rape whistle on me.”
In 2000, Ontario’s attorney general suggested Eminem be barred from entering Canada because his lyrics “advocate violence against women.”
In a 2004 interview with Vanity Fair, the rapper said his misogynistic lyrics come from having had bad experiences with women.
“I’ve seen a lot in my life. I’ve seen groupies on the road and women throwing themselves at you just because you’re famous, and I hate that,” he explained. “It takes your opinion of women and lowers it. How can these girls dress like this? … How can these girls portray themselves in this way and then get mad if we call them a ‘b**ch’ or a ‘ho?’”
Eminem has also been accused of homophobia, specifically due to lyrics in 2000’s “Criminal.” But, artists like P!nk and Elton John have defended him.
"I know that some people think he's homophobic, misogynistic and all kinds of things, but … I've worked with Eminem a thousand times — he is not those things,” P!nk told USA Today in 2017. “He is an artist, he is a genius and he presses people's buttons on purpose.”
John, who performed with Eminem on the Grammys in 2001, said in 2017: “Eminem was never homophobic … He’s just writing about the way things are. Not how he thinks, but the way things are.”
Dre, Snoop and Eminem are not the first halftime show performers to bring some baggage to the stage.
James Brown performed at the Super Bowl in 1997, a little more than a year after he was arrested – for the fourth time – for assaulting his wife Adrienne Rodriguez.
Last year’s Super Bowl halftime show performer, The Weeknd, has faced accusations of misogyny in his music since the early days of his career.
“In his world, [women] are at best the worthless recipients of bodily fluids … at worst, less than human, literally: prey, animals for the slaughter,” John Calvert opined in a 2015 piece for The Quietus.
“It seems clear to me that [The Weeknd], whether he realizes it or not, is a misogynist.”
Faith Lucas, writing for VOX ATL in 2015, agreed. “The women portrayed in most of his songs are depicted as sexual objects and/or ‘b**ches.’ As a young woman, these lyrics and the way that women are portrayed overall in his music is simply put, degrading and disgusting.”
But, in a 2020 interview with Esquire, the Canadian singer said the many uses of the b-word in his songs does not reflect how he views women.
“It’s definitely a character,” The Weeknd explained. “I mean, that’s why it’s tricky, because it is me singing the words; it is my writing. It’s like you want people to feel a certain way. You want them to feel angry. You want them to feel sad. You want them to feel. It’s never, like, my intent to offend anybody.”
Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake, in 2004. Donald Miralle / Getty Images
Justin Timberlake became a poster child for misogyny after he tore away part of Janet Jackson’s costume and exposed one of her nipples during their performance in the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show.
Jackson’s career took a hit following the infamous “wardrobe malfunction” but Timberlake’s soared. He even made light of the incident several times (“Hey, man. It’s every man’s dream,” he told Access Hollywood.)
Last year, Timberlake publicly apologized to Jackson. “I am deeply sorry for the times in my life where my actions contributed to the problem, where I spoke out of turn, or did not speak up for what was right,” he wrote, in a message he shared on social media. "I understand that I fell short in these moments and in many others and benefited from a system that condones misogyny and racism.”
In an interview with Allure published last month, Jackson admitted: “It’s tough for me to talk about that time.
“Whether I want to be part of that conversation or not, I am part of that conversation. I think it’s important. Not just for me, but for women. So I think it’s important that conversation has been had. You know what I mean? And things have changed obviously since then for the better.”
In her recent documentary Janet, she said: “He and I have moved on and it’s time for everyone else to do the same.”
“This line-up does spark major concern,” Jed Nabwangu of Ottawa-based Women’s Shelters Canada, said of the Super Bowl halftime show. But, she added, people need to look beyond the performances to “the broader culture of gender-based violence that surrounds professional sports leagues, such as the NFL.”
Andrea Gunraj, vice president of public engagement at the Canadian Women’s Foundation in Toronto, agreed.
“Beyond the lineup of the halftime show, bigger questions stand: how are we supporting survivors of abuse? How do we hold abusers accountable across all sectors, including music and sports?”
Gunraj explained: “Entertainment, pop culture and celebrity interests broadly reflect our social understandings: what we value, see as normal, and invest in.
“The reality is that we don’t challenge gender-based violence like intimate partner abuse and sexual assault as often as we need to, even though the experience of this abuse is so common.”
In the preamble to its Personal Conduct Policy, published in 2016, the NFL declared: “We must endeavour at all times to be people of high character; we must show respect for others inside and outside our workplace; and we must strive to conduct ourselves in ways that favourably reflect on ourselves, our teams, the communities we represent, and the NFL.”
The league stated that violations of the Personal Conduct Policy that involve "domestic violence, dating violence, child abuse and other forms of family violence” and “sexual assault” are subject to “a baseline suspension without pay of six games, with consideration given to any aggravating or mitigating factors.” (Aggravating factors include “choking” and “repeated striking.”)
Writing in The Guardian last year, Melissa Jacobs slammed the NFL for not handing out stronger punishments to players convicted of domestic violence. “For the victims tormented by these players, for the millions of people that are victims of gender-based violence every day, the league’s first response should be legitimate punishment,” she opined. "Except the NFL cannot credibly make these kinds of declarations.”
Gunraj hopes people will “support content creators, thought-leaders, and entertainers challenging gender-based violence and upholding a vision of safe homes and communities.
“It’ll take every one of us to challenge the acceptance of abuse and build a violence-free world, but we can start the action in our own lives today.”
If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence, click here to find help.
The Super Bowl LVI airs Sunday, Feb. 13 on CTV (part of Bell Media, owner of this website).