Oh, the Super Bowl! Unique among sporting events in the States, this annual tour de force remains incomparable. Long after the final minutes, the critical question lingers on – Which will be remembered, the game or the commercials?
However, this year, even by Super Bowl standards, the prospects of these ‘epic’ ads are already drawing more than their fair share of publicity. One ad of special interest stars college football great Tim Tebow. Allegedly offering explicit support of the pro-life movement (a far cry from the usual ad contenders – beer, cars, and things covered with cheese), Tebow’s ad has angered feminist advocacy groups and die-hard sports fans alike. Through their differences, both parties seem to agree that the complexities of such an issue cannot be appropriately raised alongside foam fingers and field goals.
Still, one wonders, if it is precisely the illusion of being able to ‘set-apart’ such social issues that causes them to be so easily reduced (and, by extension, show up in football commercials) in the first place. Isn’t the underlying issue behind ‘complexity’ always its problematic un-windability from the ‘everyday’? To read more, see this article in the New York Times.
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