The Fall of Super Bowl Commercials

by Courtney Wight '26 on February 27, 2026

Opinion - Society

Over recent years, it feels like wherever you go, you are constantly shown advertisements. While I always hated ads growing up, at least they used to advertise fun new products for me to beg my parents to buy, or new movies and shows to watch. However, specifically after the last Super Bowl, advertisements are no longer pushing products I want to see.

My roommates and I watched the whole Super Bowl and instead of the ads being my favorite part, they were an extreme let down. Many of the advertisements promoted products with artificial intelligence related advancements or services. These advertisements should not come as a shock since AI development has been at the forefront of advertisements for a while now, yet it feels like everywhere I go, all I see is new AI developments or products being sold.

While it may have been naive to think for one night I might be rewarded with fun commercials again, somehow I was able to go through the whole Super Bowl without a Doritos commercial! Instead of seeing fun ads, I was watching ones that I had already seen since they were pre-released, or boring ones promoting products I’m not invested in.

Super Bowl ads are supposed to consist of celebrities randomly paired together promoting something that has nothing to do with them. For example, the State Farm commercial featured their signature man, Jake from State Farm, but for some reason there was a team up of Bon Jovi, Jason Momoa, Hailee Steinfeld, and even KATSEYE. This is exactly what I want from a Super Bowl commercial: simple, pure confusion as to how this company got these celebrities to agree to the concept, and excitement at the anticipation of who else might show up.

Another commercial that did a great job at this was Good Will Dunkin. Seeing Jason Alexander as George Costanza on my television was a gift. The excitement I felt seeing Ted Danson emerge to stand behind the counter and the shock from seeing Tom Brady in that terrible wig is exactly what I want to see from a Super Bowl commercial.

Some companies did stick to the tradition of the Super Bowl commercial and delivered what I wanted to see, but the majority felt like a miss. One of the most shocking commercials was the Ring doorbell commercial. The idea that Ring could secretly utilize their customer’s cameras to deploy AI surveillance technology should be considered an insane invasion of privacy to everyone. Additionally, attempting to brand it as a cute puppy getting lost from home is ludicrous. Instead of feeling a sense of fun and whimsy, this commercial left me with a sinking feeling that we are entering a surveillance state without even knowing it.

Super Bowl commercials used to be a huge deal, but in the past couple years, I’ve felt the excitement fade away. The commercials this year just left me unsatisfied. I remember the good ole’ days of the One Direction Pepsi commercial! Super Bowl commercials used to be talked about for months after the game and become integral pieces of pop culture. While this year had a few shining stars, overall, the advertisements left me wanting more or feeling downright disgusted at what I had just seen.

Peacock’s Dancing in February

by Ryan James Tobin ’26 on February 26, 2026

A&E - Film & TV

One of the most notable moments of 2025 was Netflix’s acquisition of Warner Brothers, demonstrating how big of a role streaming services play in the current climate of the world. With that being said, each streaming service has relied heavily on their respective heavy hitters to bring viewers in. Peacock has been one of the more underrated streaming services since its creation in 2020. However, there is no denying that Peacock took home the gold medal for streaming service performances in February. With new shows such as The Burbs starring Keke Palmer and PONIES starring Emilia Clarke and Haley Lue Richardson, paired with the return of the Emmy winning series The Traitors and the globally admired phenomenons of both the Super Bowl and the 2026 Winter Olympics held in Milan and Cortina—Peacock scored a touchdown on its entertainment lineup.

The Super Bowl between the New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks, split by an astonishing Bad Bunny halftime performance, delivered 125.6 million viewers to NBC’s streaming platform. Similarly, the Winter Olympics continued to bring a surge in viewership to Peacock on a daily basis starting the night of the Super Bowl (Feb. 8) until the closing ceremony (Feb. 22). NBC’s streaming platform received more than 20 million viewers every day for 14 days straight. This was also the most watched winter games in over a decade, dating back to when the games were held in Sochi, Russia in 2014.

The Burbs, which also released the same day as the Super Bowl, has received critical acclaim and was the No. 2 most viewed show on any streaming platform for its first two weeks after its release. With over one billion viewing minutes on Peacock, the hit horror-comedy reimagining of Tom Hanks 1989 filmis the most viewed Peacock original series of all time. Peacock’s new spy show surrounding persons of no interest, PONIES, which came out in January but took a moment to gain traction on the platform, also performed well—peaking at the No. 28 most watched television series in early February and contributing to Peacock’s big month. The most prominent show that Peacock had to offer and what truly added much momentum to Peacock’s dominant viewership rating was the critically-acclaimed and social-media presence of The Traitors. This particular season of The Traitors brings a star-studded cast and exceptional gameplay with the finale coming out Thursday, Feb. 26. The finale is sure to see a surge in viewership, but the murder mystery reality competition show sees a steady 600 million viewership minutes rating per episode. Only time will tell if Peacock can keep up this unprecedented success, but the bar has definitely been set within the first two months of 2026.

Bad Bunny’s Halftime Performance: Reactions from the PC Community

by Shannon Kelly ’26 on February 12, 2026

News

On Sunday, Feb. 8, Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, colloquially known as Bad Bunny, performed during halftime of the 60th Super Bowl at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, CA. He made history as the first Latin artist to headline the consistently most watched event on television each year in the United States. His performance included guests such as Ricky Martin, Cardi B, Karol G, Jessica Alba, Pedro Pascal, Lady Gaga, and others. For Americans, the Super Bowl halftime show emblematizes the vast social and cultural identities that exist within our country. It is currently estimated that 135 million people watched the halftime performance on Sunday, which was described as a “cultural game changer” in which Bad Bunny “delivered an interactive celebration of Latino culture at one of the most contentious times for the community in the United States.”

The show has garnered praise, controversy, and tension, including on our own campus. Many individuals on this campus utilized YikYak, an anonymous application that allows you to communicate with others in your respective communities, to resort to racist speech and ideology when discussing the halftime performance. For example, many people posted about not understanding the music due to Bad Bunny solely singing in Spanish, wrongly assuming Bad Bunny is an immigrant despite being from Puerto Rico (a U.S. territory), and many made comments sexualizing the dancers. Comments that were made by Providence College students in a group chat include a sarcastic, “I loved all the English” and, “I don’t speak Spanish. I’m not American enough.” Other comments that were made on YikYak include, “Get ICE up and moving around,” “Love me the all inclusive DEI Halftime Show,” and, “English please damn.” This demonstrates the tendency to interpret a performance solely through one’s own cultural identity and a lack of desire to understand both cultural and linguistic experiences that differ from your own. The possibility of YikYak being banned on PC’s wifi is currently being talked about in the Faculty Senate.

Bad Bunny’s performance highlighted many parts of the Puerto Rican experience in terms of politics, sociality, history, and culture. He even said that he sought to “bring what people can always expect from me and a lot of my culture.” Specific examples include demonstrating Puerto Rico’s agricultural roots in the sugarcane fields, casitas where people live, individuals playing dominoes, and a general focus on Puerto Rican resilience, especially in recognition of their colonialist past, which includes involvement from the U.S. After Bad Bunny won his Grammy for Album of the Year, Ricky Martin addressedBad Bunny, saying he had “won without changing the color of your voice. You won without erasing your roots. You won by staying true to Puerto Rico.” Additionally, Bad Bunny’s performance occurred just months after President Donald Trump signed an executive order that declared English as the national language, despite an estimated 42–45 million people speaking Spanish at home in America and a wide array of languages being spoken throughout the U.S.

The President made statements about Bad Bunny’s performance on Truth Social, calling it a “slap in the face to our country,” “an affront to the Greatness of America,” and emphasizing that it “doesn’t represent our standards of Success, Creativity, or Excellence.” Turning Point USA hosted their own “All American Halftime Show,” which was presented as an alternative to watching Bad Bunny. Their halftime show was explained to be “an opportunity for all Americans to enjoy a halftime show with no agenda other than to celebrate faith, family, and freedom.” It is estimated that around six million people watched it, although the official total is under speculation.

An anonymous PC student advised “everyone to rewatch the performance and really sit down with yourself” in order to “empathize that we are not against each other but against the system that is bringing us down.” Bad Bunny powerfully ended his performance by saying, “God Bless America” and listing countries from South America, Central America, North America, and the Caribbean. Behind him stood a billboard that read, “The only thing more powerful than hate is love,” which is a necessary reminder both on this campus and in our world as a whole.