Well, it's just about that day.
You know the one I'm talking about.
I shouldn't even have to type it in here, it's so obvious.
I don't really understand the fascination with the Super Bowl.
I mean, I like the concept of a one-game, winner-take-all format, but when did it start to become it's own entity, when the events surrounding and occurring during the game became larger than the game itself?
And I'm not talking about Janet's breast. Yet.
I find the Super Bowl is a lot like Christmas, Thanksgiving or any of the "Event" holidays that litter the calendar. I'm excited about the possibility of it, but by the time it actually rolls around, I'm sick to death of the hype, the bullshit and the incessant media coverage. I just want the damn thing to end so we can get back to living in the really real world.
And like I said, it's not so much about the game anymore, as it is about the commercials and the Half Time show. Everyone was so fascinated with Janet's boob that most people can't recall who even won that year. And don't get me started on the acceptability of violence over brief nudity on prime time. I agree with my friend Hank on that score. And the Half Time show? This year they have geriatric rockers the Rolling Stones. I understand you have to cater to the masses when planning this spectacle, but do we have to parade this type of shit onstage? Hell, I'd rather see Carrot Top preform "America The Beautiful" on the spoons than see those over the hill "entertainers" anymore. Jesus Christ , Mick. Just die already. ( I'm not serious about Carrot Top, but you get the point.)
I'll admit I'm a little bitter about the commercials. There are commercials out there that will have cost companies millions of dollars to produce and air, and some of them are shown only during the game. But I'm here in Canada, and the CRTC doesn't want me subjected to the latest Chunky Soup ad, for fear that it's corrupting my Canadian heritage. So I don't get to see some of these ground breaking works of pop culture, but having me witness an old British guy celebrating an American sport is not a problem.
I think that in the future, with the way television is heading, you will be able to set up the Super Bowl to be shown on two channels. One with the game, and one with the hype.
I bet the ratings would be neck and neck between the two.
And that's what is really sad.
Later.
It's a lame stereotype, I admit, but I've maintained, ever since I went to America, that Americans have no culture of their own and instead exist to magnify whatever coolness they contact.
ReplyDeleteWitness the hoopla evident in
o The Prom (Or, as we called it, a dance),
o The Graduation (now celebrated 5 times before University),
o The Superbowl, as you mention,
o The Holidays (Christmas, the hoopla for which starts in September, but was supposed to start right after...) and, not least nor last,
o Thanksgiving, originally nearer to our oroiginal date but moved by FDR in the 50s to be The Second Last Day in November in order to kick-start the XMas $eason after a few really bad economic winters.
I fear there's an unhealthy need to magnify and exaggerate - 'reinvent', I'm sure they'd say in error - a certain momentous occasion to the point where it's so momentous as to be absurd. And Yearly. It's like the hoopla becomes something we all need so that we feel special, that without this hoopla we realize that life is normal, and maybe the hoopla-addicts fear that mere normalcy the same way the soda addict despises mere water.
Then again, this rather meshes in or derives from my general opinion that the egocentric mob in America tends to feel the need to be the centre of whatever they can - unless you can name how many people died in the Turkish avalanche on 9/18/01 - because they can't see anything in their own past which makes them feel, as a mob, significant. They're merely normal, individuals just like the rest of us, but it doesn't seem to be enough.
Waco. Columbine. Woodstock. Timothy McVeigh. The Legal Profession. Their explicitly ignored rights. Mogadishu. King George. The 'World' Series.
It's all another facet of the hoopla machine as represented today by the Super Bowl.
kill that first copy. It had an error, but now I can't delete it.
ReplyDeleteWV: iabeal
I actually agree with "Mister I don't want you to know my name" here...becasue of the severe lack of culture of their own. This leads to things like the SuperBowl....yes sir can see nothing wrong with this arguement here....But I have to admit we in Canda have been known to do the same thing all be it much more subdued and classy...mainly becasue our leagues can't afford the big ticket items....
ReplyDelete