Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime show was a breakthrough performance in terms of representing Hispanic culture and voices in an authentic way. His almost 14-minute set was almost entirely in Spanish and featured cultural symbolism and social commentary on Puerto Rican and Caribbean Latino history.
The performance was well received and heavily anticipated, setting a record as it attracted 4.1 billion viewers worldwide across digital and social platforms in 24 hours. This mass visibility, however, is not representative of the larger picture.
In the current media landscape, institutional frameworks that promote diversity and representation are being scaled back. Media organizations, like NBC, cut their departments dedicated to marginalized community reporting, which eliminates the stories and voices of people who are already represented at much lower rates.
In the film industry, diversity has decreased due to industry contraction and a broader political and cultural backlash against diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. From 2024-2025, the percentage of lead actors in streaming films decreased from 51% to 36%, with 6.7% of lead actors being Latinx. Similarly, representation of casts as a whole fell from 41% to 25.8% during the same time frame.
Behind the screen, representation remained meager, with average writing rooms comprised of 78.7% white people. Only 2% of writers for all streaming films were Latinx. So, while it feels like representation is increasing, it just feels more visible due to certain Hispanic celebrities’ success.
Hispanic people are not being wholly represented in the media or the spaces that create media, which works against business interests. The profitability demonstrated by Bad Bunny’s halftime show and the fact that diverse content is closely linked with the financial success of a project are clear indicators that this is a much larger cultural phenomenon.
Those decisions don’t happen in a vacuum. They exist within a broader political and cultural environment in which immigration, Hispanic identity, and diversity itself have become increasingly contested.
Returning to Bad Bunny’s halftime show, this shift is apparent considering the xenophobic pushback that circulated on social media, particularly from politicians about the performance and the subsequent, scarcely attended Kid Rock halftime show that was held in protest.
While this is a larger conversation about all BIPOC representation, the apparent increase of Hispanic representation in mainstream media is especially significant considering the ongoing attacks and villainization of the Hispanic community. This, of course, has a more widespread impact, as anti-Latinx hate crimes rose 18% to hit a record high in 2025.
Bad Bunny’s halftime show demonstrated what happens when Hispanic culture is given the space to exist on its own terms. The response demonstrated something else: there is an enormous audience for it.
The problem is not whether people will watch, listen, or show up. The numbers have already answered that question.
The harder question is who gets invited into the room before the cameras turn on because visibility isn’t necessarily representation. It is also about who writes the script, who gets to tell the story, and who decides which stories are worth telling.