M.I.A.'s Gesture Upstages Madonna - NYTimes.com February 5, 2012, 11:17 pm Madonna earned praise early on for her half-time performance at the Super Bowl on Sunday night, but it was her guest star M.I.A. who may have stolen the headlines from her by making an obscene gesture during the show. M.I.A, the stage name of the hip-hop performer Maya Arulpragasam, appeared with the rapper Nicki Minaj to sing "Give Me All Your Luvin,"" a new Madonna song that was performed during a medley of the Material Girl's hits. At the end of her verse, M.I.A. stopped just short of singing a vulgar lyric and extended her middle finger to the camera. The television broadcast appeared to go blurry just after this, but not in time to obscure the gesture. Christopher McCloskey, a spokesman for NBC, told The Associated Press: "We apologize for the inappropriate gesture that aired during halftime. It was a spontaneous gesture that our delay system caught late. Arulpragasam, who is of Sri Lankan and British descent, is known for her outspoken ways and has used her music and her celebrity to call attention to the treatment of Tamils in Southeast Asia and other ethnic groups. For the most part, the National Football League has sought to avoid controversy in its Super Bowl half-time shows, particularly after Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" of 2004, during which the singer's bare breast was accidentally displayed during a performance with Justin Timberlake. Arulpragasam's gesture was quickly noticed by the blogosphere and widely commented on in the social media. The sports Web site Deadspin.com posted video of her performance with the one-sentence caption "Eat your heart out, Janet," while Kyle Smith, a film critic and columnist at The New York Post, wrote on his Twitter account: "No, no, no, MIA was signaling "Giants are no.