Liberals and Conservatives Unite to Dunk on Charlie Kirk for Calling Super Bowl Halftime Show ‘Sexual Anarchy’
The the Super Bowl halftime show was, by most accounts, a huge success. “Well, that was awesome,” wrote Rolling Stone‘s Rob Sheffield of the Los Angeles-centric medley. “The Super Bowl halftime show finally opened up to hip-hop — this was the first time the rappers got to bumrush center stage, instead of serving as a sideshow.”
Charlier Kirk, the trollish founder of the conservative group Turning Point USA known for railing against cancel culture, was not a fan. “The NFL is now the league of sexual anarchy,” he tweeted. “This halftime show should not be allowed on television.”
It’s unclear what exactly triggered Kirk here. Mary J. Blige wore an outfit that exposed her bare thighs. There was some dancing, but it was pretty tame. Perhaps he got a little flustered at the sight of 50 Cent’s built upper body. Regardless, the show certainly didn’t feature anything warranting calls of “sexual anarchy,” at least not any more so than previous halftime shows led by white performers. Kirk did make a similar complaint in 2020, when he tweeted that the performance from Jennifer Lopez and Shakira was a “horrendous example to the millions of young women across the world” because it featured “pole dancing.”
Kirk’s tweet on Sunday was so comically prude that prominent commentators of all ideologies came together, at least for this one fleeting moment, to mock him.
“You tiny, tiny boy. How can we help you?” tweeted Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.).
“Time for bed, Grandpa,” added Trump-loving conservative host Piers Morgan.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who once bashed Morgan for mocking her career as a bartender, called Kirk a “weirdo.” The jab was an apparent call back to her tweet from December describing Republicans as “creepy weirdos” for “projecting their sexual frustrations onto my boyfriend’s feet” because they “can’t date me.”
“I was in High School in the 1980s,” tweeted former Republican Rep. Denver Riggleman. “Weird Science was sexual anarchy.”
Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Mary J. Blige, Eminem, and 50 Cent — five of the six performers supposedly unleashing sexual anarchy into the homes of millions of Super Bowl viewers on Sunday — were also in high school in the 1980s. So was Tom DeLonge, formerly of Blink-182. “Sexual Anarchy is a great name of a Punk Band,” he wrote.
Even Lev Parnas, the Ukrainian businessman and Rudy Giuliani ally convicted of illegally funneling money to former President Trump’s 2020 campaign, got in on the action. “Let’s not forget Charlie Kirk bussed in insurrectionists on Jan 6th,” he tweeted.
President Biden has long been looking for a way to bridge the widening divide between Democrats and Republican in Congress. He may have finally found it.