Rihanna was pregnant throughout her halftime present. However she, not her being pregnant, was the star.
She was removed from the primary movie star to orchestrate a public being pregnant reveal. On-line chatterers likened the second to Beyoncé’s bump unveiling (I’m sorry this language is all so revoltingly cutesy; we actually want higher being pregnant colloquialisms) on the Video Music Awards 12 years in the past. In that second, Beyoncé waited till the tip of her televised efficiency to dramatically unbutton her sequined blazer. She then rubbed her stomach for a number of seconds, smiling because the viewers round her misplaced their minds.
Comparatively talking, that was a being pregnant announcement. Beyoncé’s reveal was a definitive entrance to motherhood, an invite for followers to have a good time her transformation. Rihanna’s reveal was much less an announcement than an acknowledgment, virtually an informal one. Viewers needed to wait till the halftime present completed to obtain definitive affirmation from Rihanna’s representatives that they’d even seen what they thought they’d seen.
The reveal was seamlessly folded into her efficiency reasonably than given its personal showcase. It conceded that, sure, one thing was taking place inside this lady’s physique — however in the meantime, when is the final time you listened to “B—- Higher Have My Cash”? That track bangs. And in the meantime, do you keep in mind that Rihanna can also be a enterprise mogul? Let her remind you, by pausing mid-set to provide a compact from her personal beauty line and powder her nostril. Her choreography was sultry and attractive; much less maternal-madonna than Madonna-Madonna, down to a couple well-placed crotch grabs.
There’s quite a bit you can discover inspiring about what Rihanna did on Sunday night time. It was the singer’s first stay efficiency in seven years. Rehearsals would have been punishing even for somebody who wasn’t presumably attempting to navigate them whereas clutching a first-trimester barf bag.
Furthermore, Rihanna was performing not solely as a pregnant lady however as a brand new guardian. “While you change into a mother, there’s one thing that simply occurs the place you are feeling like you possibly can tackle the world, you are able to do something,” she’d stated in a media preview, talking of her choice to simply accept the gig. I guarantee you that this aspirational posture shouldn’t be common to all new moms, a lot of whom should not attempting to tackle the world, simply tackle a bathe.
However what I discovered essentially the most uplifting about Rihanna’s efficiency was this: The being pregnant was not the star of the present. Rihanna was the star of the present.
I don’t know whether or not you’ve seen, however we’ve been in a little bit of hellscape for girls this previous yr. The autumn of Roe v. Wade pulled again the curtains on what number of People view a lady’s proper to bodily autonomy. State legislators double-dog dared each other to suggest more and more excessive antiabortion laws, the messaging of which summed as much as this: Pregnant ladies are, at the beginning, vessels for unborn fetuses; strolling incubators whose personal lives have to be sublimated by the potential lives they’re rising of their wombs.
And into this: Rihanna. Rihanna gyrating on a platform, Rihanna hovering over a stadium, Rihanna singing the hook from “S&M” whereas ensconced in some kind of vinyl-boobed chestplate and presiding over a phalanx of backup dancers. Can ladies have all of it? I don’t know — however for those who’re Rihanna, you possibly can have a deep back-catalogue of singable hits, and you can even casually contact your stomach as if to say, Oh, and I’m engaged on this, too.
We’d like extra of this. No more Rihannas — there may be just one — however we’d like extra examples of ladies dwelling as full and full human beings and who additionally occur to be pregnant. Extra illustrations of how being pregnant is a part of a lady, and never the opposite means round.
Rihanna revealed she was pregnant after performing on the Tremendous Bowl, and that was inspirational. However through the efficiency she centered her personal self, her personal expertise and her personal arduous work, and that was inspirational too.
