How will Justin Timberlake handle return to Super Bowl?
Justin Timberlake thought he was being clever.
“Random question: Can someone please explain the saying, ‘You just want your cake and to eat it too’,” he tweeted a couple of weeks ago out of the blue. “What else am I about to do with a cake??”
One answer came in like a fastball to the head: “The saying means, for example, you can’t support #TimesUp and praise sexual predators at the same time,” replied Dylan Farrow, who has accused her father, Woody Allen — who Timberlake has praised after working with him in “Wonder Wheel” — of sexually assaulting her as a child. “You can’t retain your credibility as an activist (i.e. — retain the cake) and, at the same time, praise a sexual predator (i.e. — eating the cake).” (A monthslong investigation by child-abuse specialists at YaleNew Haven Hospital in the 1990s concluded there was no molestation, as did a separate investigation by New York State child welfare services.)
For those who think that escalated quickly, just wait until Timberlake’s Super Bowl LII halftime show on Sunday night. Bringing a flak jacket will be more important for him than bringing sexy back.
“He may well be our most oblivious living pop star,” writes Chris DeVille in Stereogum, reminding us of when Timberlake named his good-time single “Take Back the Night” without knowing that name belonged to an organization dedicated to stopping sexual violence.
However, if Timberlake, who doesn’t seem to understand how quickly and deeply the #MeToo movement is changing the world, doesn’t handle his return to music’s biggest showcase in front of 100 million or so people exactly right, “oblivious” will be a charitable description for him. After all, his Super Bowl appearance is the centerpiece of the rollout of his new “Man of the Woods” album and arena tour, raising the stakes even more, especially considering the lukewarm response to the album’s first two singles, “Filthy” and “Supplies.”
“What I really want to do is take the opportunity to put together a performance that feels like it unifies,” Timberlake said when his choice was announced by the NFL. “I feel like that would be the ultimate accomplishment. Then, the icing on the cake is, at some point within that 12 minutes, that everybody is shaking their booty.”
In recent interviews, Timberlake is careful to say that there will be no “wardrobe malfunction” this time — no chance of a repeat of the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show incident where he mistakenly ripped off too much of Janet Jackson’s costume and left her breast exposed. He even admits that he made mistakes in how he handled what became Nipplegate, which led the FCC to require networks to add a five-second delay into all live broadcasts.
“I stumbled through it, to be quite honest,” Timberlake told Beats One D J Zane Lowe. “I had my wires crossed, and it’s just something that you have to look back on and go, like, ‘OK, well, you know, you can’t change what’s happened but you can move forward and learn from it.’”
However, as those who started the #JusticeForJanet movement on social media are quick to point out, why did Jackson take more of the blame for the incident than Timberlake? Why did her career suffer the bigger setback? And, more important, why was he invited to come back to the Super Bowl halftime show before her?
Yes, none of those questions are really Timberlake’s to answer. But he does have to know that they exist. One question that is appropriate for him, though, is more nebulous: Why would anyone choose to be the poster boy for double standards in the current political and cultural climate?
Of course, Timberlake has the right to accept the huge opportunity of headlining the halftime show. And yes, he should try to advance his career however he wants.