Echo Reflection: Week 37
In the spirit of the NFL playoffs I bring you the first column I wrote about football's grandest stage, the Super Bowl. This piece comes to us from the Friday, January 30, 2004 edition of the Eastern Echo.
Super opinions on the Super Bowl at the Echo:
Super Bowl is too Commercialized
Super Bowl is too Commercialized
On February 1, 2004, very expensive commercials will air over the duration of approximately three and a half hours.
And, oh yes, there is also some football game to be played. Now before all of the beer drinking, football-is-life tough guys get their panties in a ruffle I should clarify. I have nothing against the NFL and I enjoy the sport of football; I simply thought it would be amusing to downplay the most watched sporting event of the year.
So sit down and drop the baseball bat that you were going to use to crack my skull and listen. I have a few issues with Super Bowl Sunday, as you read this article you'll only need one thing: a sense of humor.
This Sunday Super Bowl XXXVIII, presented by Pepsi(R), will be played in Houston, Texas. Last year 138.9 million viewers tuned into the Super Bowl, making it the most watched program ever and with those viewer numbers come advertisers. Advertising, the evil stepchild of capitalism, has a field day and the public is once again reminded to buy the same products that they've bought for years.
It never fails, each year during the week leading into the Super Bowl we must endure the annoying rabble of some news anchor who has the scoop on what this year's batch of ads has in store. Of course, if you want to know what the All-mighty advertisers have planned you have to tune into the 11 o'clock news to find out.
The actual contest at hand has been subverted by commercials! Newscasts have pre and post Super Bowl analysis of the ads. Who were the big winners? Which young singer's body did Pepsi(R) desperately exploit this year? What catchy phrase did those creative geniuses at Budweiser(R) conjure up this time? (Hint: It will be constantly repeated by high school-aged kids all across America in sorry attempts to impress their peers, it will also cause anyone with the slightest bit of intelligence to become irritated, they will inevitably be blinded with rage over the utter stupidity that surrounds them.)
Advertisers have taken a quality sporting event and turned it into another media circus. But Super Bowl advertisements aren't the only thing to be blamed for my disposition. I suppose someone with some kind of power or influence inside the NFL decided that the melee of ridiculous commercials just didn't quite cause enough grief, so they decided to put on a halftime show.
What legendary pop icons will lend their talents to the mid-game charade this time around? Will it be Britney Spears or Ludacris or Toby Keith?
No, believe it or not this year's halftime show arguably features less entertaining acts than those previously mentioned. I am not a big fan of Janet Jackson's music, but I have no reason to dislike her so she's excluded from this rant. The other two acts that will be featured at this year's halftime show, which by the way will probably be presented by Doritos(R), are P. Diddy and Kid Rock.
Wonderful, two grown men who are so insecure about their real names that they create alter egos before leaving the house. Now this is talent! Kid Rock has somehow successfully found a way to convince America that the white trash image is cool, and both he and Mr. Diddy have made careers out of copying other peoples' music.
But I suppose they'd prefer it if we used the term remix.
Despite all of these Super Bowl drawbacks, I'll most likely still watch the game, or at the least have it on while I do homework or clean my room. It seems that anything that becomes too popular in modern society is doomed to eventually succumb to the pressures that money and publicity exert. Soon even political parties will have sponsors, oh wait, they already do. Enjoy the Super Bowl.