A Short Super Bowl Rant [ by Michael T] [Culture Clash]
February 03, 2008Ok, what gives? Geriatric Tom Petty playing wimp rock during the Super Bowl is bad enough but the once rightly-famous commercials are now just stupid and offensive.
Imagine aliens find a copy of tonight’s broadcast complete with commercials. They will call us the stupidest race in the galaxy. Our cultural excesses are now so out of proportion to reality as to make me cringe every time there is a commercial. And hope for long drives with no commercial breaks.
Most of the commercials were plain dumb, but some were far worse. Topping the list was the Career Builder ad where a heart jumps out of a woman’s chest and walks to the bosses’ office to quit. Gross. Close behind was the Doritos ad where a guy puts a dorito in a mouse trap and then sits to wait for the mouse. The mouse turns out to be a large guy in a mouse suit who busts through the wall and then pummels the guy who set the trap, presumably to death. Hah hah. Was it funny? No, it was sick.
Shall we talk about the movies promo’d during the broadcast. No, better not. Will Ferrell doing the umpteenth bad sports movie. Stupid kids movies. Stupid effects driven summer Hollywood drivel. Is this the best our country can do creatively?
The real thing is how much money is spent creating these spots - all in Hi-Def of course. But in place of ideas, we have the Rocky theme or Thriller for music, a star here or there - Shaq on a horse, Chris Kattan doing the What is Love? shtick from SNL, and lots of special FX. I’m all for production value, but dancing lizards or faux 1984 sneaker commercials have been done folks. Okay, the Thriller ad was cute for 10 seconds. But the longer it played the more I shuddered as I thought of that twisted sicko who created the song. What was his name? Oh yeah. Ugh.
Worst of all was the quality of the junk actually being pushed on us. Do we need more beer, more trucks, more “blockbusters,” and worst of all - more caffeine? Take Pepsi Max, one of the most offensive products ever advertised. Pepsi with extra caffeine and ginseng? Sounds gross to me. Just like the overall experience.
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I hadn’t thought about it, Michael, but I’m in total agreement. Here I was focusing on one of the greatest 4th quarters in Super Bowl history, and didn’t even realize I was being insulted and talked down to--and didn’t even realize it.
At least Tom Petty kept his clothes on.
Elliott
Posted by on 02/06 at 11:05 PMNowhere are the excesses of our consumer culture more ostentatiously displayed than during the Super Bowl, especially on Rupert Murdoch’s Fox network.
A few words about the GAME. For all the ranting about Patriots’ cheating, let’s not forget that cheating is part of any enterprise, and in the NFL it’s the jobs of the officials to rein it in. Were you watching when the Giants’ receiver Amani Toomer facemasked Randall Gay on a critical 3rd down sideline catch in Q1. That led directly to a Giants field goal, the difference in the game.
So this year, the difference between the Giants and the Patriots is that when the Giants cheated, they got away with it.
Posted by James Linkin on 02/07 at 03:59 PM
