Beyoncé! Is there anything she can’t do? The answer has long been rumored, at least ’round these parts, to be “absolutely not.” However, as of Wednesday morning, we have a compelling counterargument. Should you find yourself on Jeopardy! and get the question “Houston pop icon Beyoncé Knowles can do anything—except correctly identify that this famous breed of cactus doesn’t actually grow in her native Texas,” click in quick with “What is saguaro,” and you’ll be in control of the board.
Bey made this tacit admission in a promo she cut for NFL Christmas Gameday Live on Netflix, a football doubleheader that marks the streaming giant’s first entrance into America’s most beloved sporting pastime. To effectively set the tone that these two games aren’t just regular-degular NFL games that happen to be played on December 25, the streamer will produce a televised halftime performance, as is done for Thanksgiving and the Super Bowl. For the latter of the two games, a matchup between the dread Baltimore Ravens and the scrappy Houston Texans, Queen Bey—herself a Houston Texan of a different sort—will bring a preview of whatever stage show she will eventually take around the world in support of her Cowboy Carter. In an Instagram video, Beyoncé teases the performance by strutting up to a darkened saguaro cactus, clearly decorated for the holiday, and placing an ornament on a branch. Then the scene is suddenly lit by spotlights, and we see Bey, resplendent in an enormous white, feathery coat, shiny white pants, and heels as pure as the driven snow. Atop her head is a truly absurdly large cowboy hat, made of alabaster or papier-mâché or, like, polar bear fur or something. (It’s probably not polar bear fur; that would most likely be illegal. But it’s very white!)
Beyoncé, utilizing powers we’ve long suspected she possessed but never had video confirmation of until now, lifts her arms, and Christmas lights on the cactus light up; she then points her finger toward the star atop the enormous succulent, and the star, too, begins to glow. Ever cool, Bey blows on the tip of her finger like a guest star on a Western, turns to the camera with a wink, and sashays away to count her money.
It’s pretty stylish for thirty seconds! But we must talk about the cactus.
The saguaro is an iconic symbol, recognizable around the world as a sign that you are in The West. It looks like what you will receive if you ask a four-year-old to draw a picture of a cactus. It’s as iconic, in its own way, as Beyoncé herself. And it does not grow anywhere in Texas. Not in the desert stretches of West Texas, not in the wildly biodiverse Piney Woods, and certainly not in Houston, where the game Beyoncé is advertising will be played. There ain’t no saguaro in Texas, as the song goes, and as our own Texanist has had to inform disappointed readers several times over the years. If somebody takes a picture of a beautiful cactus growing out of the ground and reaching, almost anthropomorphically, toward the sky, that plant is in Arizona, or maybe southeastern California. But it ain’t in Texas. We understand the impulse to put two icons together if given the chance, but seeing Bey make the saguaro mistake makes us want to root for the Ravens a little bit, just to teach everyone involved a lesson.
Still, the game should be good—it’s a playoff rematch featuring two thrilling quarterbacks, and Beyoncé is the sort of investment in talent the NFL usually reserves for Super Bowls, not regular-season games. (She’s already headlined the big game, back in 2013, and is no less famous now.) If Beyoncé wants to promote the game in an Instagram video as campy as an episode of the old Batman TV show from the sixties, maybe picking the wrong cactus just makes sense.
