Super Brawl, Super Bowl

OUR OPINION / It’s not just about the game anymore

By HPR Staff

The impossible to miss event of the year came and went this weekend—Super Bowl 46. No one is safe from football at Super Bowl time. If you are not a football fan and interact with those who are, you may even encounter public shunning, ridicule and banishment from all things American.

But whether or not you are a sports fan, you are bound to get caught up on some aspect of the Super Bowl. It’s a cultural phenomenon and a quintessential American pass time full of multi-camera, high-tech graphics pans, zooms, dynamic sound effects, music and commentary. The profiles connect you to the players—multi-millionaires in most cases—as if they were they guy next door. You meet their family, their kids, their mom. You find out about the life-altering disease they beat last year while playing with a torn meniscus. These are our modern-day gladiators. 

The pre-game, half-time show usually involves the creme de la creme of entertainers. Madonna performed this year entering the stage with an entourage of hundreds including a roman army, dancers, a gyrating, multi-media stage that pumped in rhythm with the music, and a marching band. And then there are the famous ads!

Millions are watching one of the last unifying forms of entertainment left in this country, and advertisers know it. They pay through the nose to talk to that audience of millions. The formula for unifying tens of millions of viewers apparently has something to do with dogs, babies, cars, food, stupid stunts and half naked women. That seems to be another part of the Super Bowl formula—the more over the top you can be, the better. This year’s top commercials included a video featuring music from OK Go made with robotic looking extensions on a Chevy Sonic playing instruments on a raceway covered with 288 guitars, 55 pianos and over a thousand homemade instruments. You can watch the whole thing here: http://tiny.cc/OKGovid.

The marketers speak to us on a visceral level: sex, food, anger, love. The commercial doesn’t have to relate to the product or make sense. What do a pug and athletic shoes have in common? Who cares! Pugs are cute! And when wearing tiny running shoes and doing the moonwalk, they are sure to make your commercial go viral. Don’t worry, you are sure to hear about the shoe wearing pug at the water cooler at work. But, just in case you missed it: http://tiny.cc/CutePug

This type of marketing works for the same reason that one of the top local news stories has to do with a sheep herding bunny instead or any number of other more pressing news stories. It works because the ads allow us to co-opt fun, excitement, a new car or a sexy girlfriend. While the game unravels we share the feeling of material wealth portrayed in commercials and the world is at peace, there are no problems, racism has disappeared, we are all happy, the “game” is on. We’re all Americans, tough, sexy, all-powerful, and we’re intoxicated from booze and stuffing our faces with more food than any other holiday except for Thanksgiving. What could be better?

The messages of patriotism, unity, peace, love and conformity are part of a rich tradition of placating the masses through public events. Everyone capitalizes on the opportunity to market a message to the masses. President Obama took a premium spot on air during the Super Bowl to tell us about all the new jobs he has created. A carefully targeted message during the Super Bowl can mean public compliance or public contempt. Even as jobs, infrastructure, government services and safety nets are lost, stadiums are being built in a community near you. It is as if the sports stadiums represent the social service benefits people can’t get anymore. Perhaps sports stadiums and what they represent to us historically is why the public has come to expect their “due” in the media spectacle the Super Bowl represents. Roman coliseums were at their peak attendance even as the Roman empire was collapsing.

It’s incredible that professional football still has such a strong and loyal following and that Americans, in an economic crisis, are not more annoyed with a sport as flamboyant in its flaunting of wealth. When you think about it, it has been long discussed that the pay professional football players and management earn is obscene. This becomes more disturbing when people can barely afford to eat, much less attend the Super Bowl where tickets can equal someone’s monthly earnings. As much as an event like this brings people together, it can also serve as a stark reminder of the economic and social dilemma the country finds itself in. It also points out other stark differences.

The Super Bowl began in 1967 at time when this county was segregated along racial lines. 46 years later the teams are multi-cultural, of multi-national origin and from a variety of social classes. However, the teams and the entire industry is owned by predominately privileged white corporations. At the end of this Superbowl broadcast, it was touching to see a billionaire owner of the losing team nearly cry although it was hard to understand what he was upset about. After all, his team placed second in all the pro football industry. Perhaps his pain is based more on image and superiority than pride and the bottom line. And superiority is directly linked to racism and dominance. Ironically, people of color are cheered and respected on the field, yet racially profiled and repudiated on the streets. As Spike Lee has pointed out in his movies, the entertainment industry, especially professional football, have become a socially acceptable way for white people to appreciate the skills and talent of people of color. In the safe environments of entertainment and sports we can appreciate the immense talent, physical dominance and superiority in sports of people of color while living in societies that still harbor stereotypical fears of them.

Super Bowl Afterglow

Historically, patters have been established in old world history of community festivals like the like the one for Dionysus, the Greek god of wine and ecstasy. And while these events are used to unify a message to the masses and create community cohesion, there are always a number of unintended consequences. In the afterglow of the Superbowl, unsuspecting people trek back to their abode to deal with the forbearing Monday obligations, such as walking the kids to the school bus stop and heading out to work. Shortly after they leave their blissful Super Bowl harmonic convergence, they encounter a disgruntled roadblock of Fargo’s Men in Blues “copping” overtime pull you over under scrutiny of driving under the influence, courtesy of an uncontested Supreme Court ruling on the appropriateness of stopping drivers regardless of probable cause. This interruption of your Super Bowl experience is publicised as benefiting the public good. Even though the advertised “good parts” of the event happen hours earlier when people have implicit permission to go out and have a good time with friends or family and to partake in the of gluttony of food, drink, spots talk and camaraderie. 

The game is over, the season is completed and it is time to reflect. However, the Super Bowl phenomenon continues. For a good week or two people continue to talk about the commercials, M.I.A. giving the finger, the star on Madonna’s panties, the great commercials and oh yea, occasionally, the game itself. But the reality that this is one of the only remaining publicly broad casted events of this huge magnitude that is still available to most of the nation and the world is astounding. The ways in which we connect as a society—the messages we send, the values we build as a community—are all things we should think about beyond the hype of the Super Bowl. It is a reflection of who we are in time. That deserves a deeper analysis, beyond our favorite commercial or best play of the game. The ever changing media, evidenced by high-tech coverage, over-the-top commercials, multi-million dollar entertainment, live streaming video, on-line live chats with sports casters, and twitter feeds from late night talk show hosts happening for the first time during this Super Bowl, should tell us something. What the Super Bowl represents to us as the “All-American Sport,” the “great unifier,” and the “message to the masses” is changing and we need to change with it. Next year’s Super Bowl will be here, but will we be the same nation when it comes?

The countdown to the next kick-off is rapidly approaching. Game on.

Cocktail Showdown Correction

It was recently brought to our attention here at HPR that there was some confusion about one of our Cocktail Showdown winners.  We want to officially recognize Joe Docimo as the mastermind behind the Runner Up for Best Drink; the Maker’s Malted.  When the entry was originally submitted to HPR, a certain person may have been a little too modest to fully disclose that he was indeed the brains behind this great drink. Instead he maintained that it was a collaboration of the bar staff which, from what we hear, is just the kind of thing you would expect from him.  So it’s time to expose Joe for the incredibly creative AND humble bartender that he really is. Congratulations Joe from all of us here at HPR!!

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