The Confusing Visuals of the Super Bowl Halftime Show Got Explained and It’s Actually a Pretty Great Message

If you watched the Super Bowl’s halftime show you were likely left very confused as to what it all meant.

The musical artist that performed, Abel Tesfaye, better known as “The Weeknd,” appeared in his signature red jacket and performed his hit song “Blinding Lights” as dancers wearing bandages over their faces performed around him. It was a moment that left a lot of people scratching their heads, but according to Variety, we have an explanation, and it’s actually a solid message.

The Weeknd is an artist that will often sacrifice looks for strange imagery in order to tell a story. Tesfaye has been appearing in public with fake injuries and bandages wrapped around his head during the promotion of his latest album, “After Hours.” Now, during the Super Bowl, his dancers were wearing these same bandages? What does it all mean?

According to Variety, they symbolize the ridiculousness of Hollywood culture.

“The significance of the entire head bandages is reflecting on the absurd culture of Hollywood celebrity and people manipulating themselves for superficial reasons to please and be validated,” Tesfaye said.

The Super Bowl performance was met with mixed reviews. Fox News called the performance “lackluster” and it now seems more known for the memes it created than anything else, but the explanation given to us now makes the show a lot more likable.

Many people were convinced the halftime show would contain a lot of political messaging and even more half-nude women dancing and gyrating in overly sexualized ways in what has become boring and overdone routines. Instead, we got the performance by Tesfaye who, while delivering something of a confusing and somewhat minimized show compared to previous Super Bowl performances, was actually pretty tame and politics-free.

Hollywood culture has come under attack quite a bit in the past few years as celebrities have gone into bizarre territory in order to stay relevant or gain attention. Some have even delved into becoming more political and expressing absurd opinions in an attempt to gain the love of the internet mob. To his credit, Tesfaye could have gone the typical route of sexualized routines as seen in last year’s sex and politics fueled show, but instead chose this route of slamming Hollywood’s culture of looks over substance instead.