Another year, another Super Bowl.
The Super Bowl is the only NFL game I’ll really watch, because it mostly isn’t about the NFL. It’s about everything besides.
Even so, I considered skipping it this year anyways because… in most cases I don’t really like pro football or pro football players. In my mind, the NFL is everything that’s wrong with… everything today. I’m sure that the one person who reads this already knows my reasons why, but it can’t hurt to explain them again.
Football shouldn’t be as important as it is. It is only a game, and it looks inappropriate to see anyone over the age of 25 playing it, much less making a livelihood out of it. American football was a tool invented to teach very young men physical toughness, teamwork skills, and leadership abilities, and it is best played with that in mind. On the ground level, the game is still played correctly. I can support and respect local football teams.
The NFL is just a circus, though. It’s all a big ludicrous, money-grabbing spectacle without substance or merit. At times I question whether or not it is even a game. I have seen many plays, calls and situations in the years that have struck me as being just too convenient for one side or the other to be believable.
Most people don’t notice such things, I think, because they don’t look, or don’t know what to look for. Am I being too conspiracy-minded? Perhaps, but I think it’s important to remember that NFL players on opposing teams are co-workers. Unlike high school football players from different schools who have no reason to like each other, the NFL players on one team will absolutely benefit from the antics and successes of their competitors. Drama creates viewers. Drama sells merchandise. EVERYONE benefits when the Patriots have a scandal before the Super Bowl- especially the Seahawks! Scandal means ratings, and both teams, both owners, both cities, profit from that!
But in the end I did watch the game. It’s a good way to bond with my dad, who hasn’t once missed a Super Bowl, including the first one, and, I guess, it’s a good entertainment when both teams co-operate and create the right kind of spectacle.
It had a good last quarter. The last five minutes were fun. This time I’m glad I stayed to the end. The performances were well done all around and as far as I could tell, there were no serial killers or dog mutilators on the field, so I could watch the game without feeling ill afterward. Which was nice.
But back to the topic of this post. The Super Bowl isn’t really about football. It’s more of a cultural barometer than anything else. It’s the real State of the Union.
The commercials this year were of two kinds, primarily, and those two kinds both drew from two different moods. The first kind were the regime/government commercials from “big business”, which didn’t advertise products so much as a mindset. I’m thinking of the Jeep, Coca-Cola, Microsoft, McDonald’s, etc. commercials, none of which were about specific products. Really, they were ads for diversity and “good feelings” with a corporate logo tacked onto the end.
The other dominant kind of commercial was of the anti-diversity type. I noted that many commercials this year explicitly rejected multiculturalism and grabbed with zeal the symbols of implicit and even explicit whiteness.
It was kind of odd seeing both mindsets elbowing each other around for screen time. It was almost as if advertisers were fighting a tense political battle as well as a commercial one. Which I think says many obvious things about the America of 2015.
This year the advertisers drew on two different moods: the jovial and the somber. This is usual, except for the fact that this time there seemed to be a more even split between the two than there has been in the past. Specifically, there were more somber, darker commercials this year than I think I’ve ever seen in years past, which is another reflection on the USA of 2015.
As the relentless Obama Depression drags on and on and on everyone is turning dark and sour. There is a very powerful, eerie sense of hopelessness and alienation out there that isn’t being relieved by anything. The current disquieting peace that reigns today only masks the awful troubles the country is facing today on so many fronts.
This sense of hopelessness is so penetrating these days that even some of the happy, funny commercials, like the McDonald’s “Love” one and Lohan’s Esurance ad, seemed like attempts to paper over disturbing things with a thin film of lightness.
Speaking of Lohan, it seemed like the people who were happiest and most triumphant during this year’s Super Bowl were the Hollywood celebs. Natch. They were the real stars this year, like they are every year. I don’t even remember the name of the Seahawk’s QB, but I do remember Liam Neesen, Matt Damon, Sarah Silverman, Pierce Brosnan, and the rest of the Important People. Even Lohan looked confident and cool in her spot. This is their world, people. We’re just living in it.
The unending parade of too-cool-for-football stars this year single handedly proves my point that the Super Bowl isn’t actually about sports at all. It’s really a showcase for everything else, including a Katy Perry concert, with some sports that frankly get in the way sometimes.
And seeping into all of this is my own long shadow, of course. I was nowhere yet everywhere this year. My thumbprint was in Katy’s half-time show, obviously, and also in at least a third of the commercials I saw. The references to me were quite prominent in the big business commercials, and were very subtle, though not less powerful, in the white-centric ones.
TBH I think it very possible that the white-centric commercials wouldn’t have been so plentiful without my influence. My towering anger and frustration with Obama’s constant bumbling has shaken up many things, even beyond Hollywood.
I do wonder sometimes what it’s like for others to live under/around me. Do I scare them? Inspire them? Both? And what will happen if my power and influence continues to grow- as it looks it will?
I don’t know. Eventually, I’m going to need to ask somebody, I guess. But we’ll wait on that.
Katy’s performance was fun. She commanded her audience well, the visuals were definitely on point, and I think that the vocals were live with a backing track. I think that even my dad liked it. Good for her. As far as guest stars go, she should have had a bit more Lenny and a bit less Missy, but that’s just my personal taste.
Usually, the Super Bowl is a family affair. That it wasn’t this year doesn’t mean that good stuff wasn’t available for snacks, thank goodness. After Katy’s performance, I took some time out to indulge in The Greatest Thing Ever, otherwise known as frosting on crackers. That, coupled with a small homemade pizza and some carbonated, blackberry flavored water, was my own, personal highlight of the night.
Hmmm… I keep flip-flopping over the whole “six pack abs” thing. I can get them… at a fit 6’3”, 175 pounds, I’m quite close to them right now… but do I really want to give up things like frosting on crackers? Or pizza?
… Nah. Not at this moment, at least.
Maybe I will when Taylor’s tour starts. I’ll want to dance with her… maybe I’ll make it memorable. IDK. I’ll think about it.
I’m getting very off track here. Oh yeah, the Super Bowl.
It was fun, mostly. Maybe I’ll watch it next year.
We’ll see.