(Copyright 2009)
And now for a non-sports fan review of Super Bowl 43:
I hadn’t watched the Super Bowl in years, but did Sunday, and I picked a good one to watch. I think the commentators agree that it was one of the most exciting ever – and with a 100-yard dash after an interception at the end zone and then that game-winning catch with 35 seconds left, and the back and forth in the second half, who could argue?
The heavily favored team, the Pittsburgh Steelers, did win in the end, but the Arizona Cardinals almost came back from behind with their aging quarterback for a storybook ending – almost.
But I think some of the unnecessary after-the-play violence on the field marred the performance of the Steelers (but I guess that’s how the big boys play).
So anyway, I’m not a sportswriter (although in another life I think I could have been), but what I want to say here is that while I was pleased that I picked an exciting, no, make that thrilling and nail biting (I was rooting for Arizona) game to watch, I despaired over what our culture has come to, as displayed by many of the inane and disgusting commercials.
I think I saw about two clean commercials. Most featured some form of violence, and at least one or two had what in an almost forgotten time now would have been called imappropriate sexual implications for general audiences. I’m not against sex (that’s how we all got here), but the way that it is constantly bombarded on us for those of all ages to see, and all of it working on the subconscious level for the younger set, I sometimes think that the cynical folks who design the advertising are laughing at all of us fools as they manipulate the way a whole society thinks and acts. Sex and violence rule.
Okay, here’s an example of the violence: on one spot Jack of Jack ‘N the Box gets run over by a bus or a truck or a car or something, I don’t remember – his little hat all smashed up and that weird fuzzy ball head of his fractured, and the commercial ends on that note. What was the message there?
(I know, those Road Runner and even Bugs Bunny cartoons I watched as a kid were as violent, but in those the violence was more on a comical slapstick level, and I’ve often thought that slapstick is really not so funny (even if most can’t help laugh at it).
I’m sure glad I am not raising children now – I do have grandchildren, though. I almost long for the censors of the 1950s (almost). No censorship is not the way to go. But as a society we have been bombarded by all the sex and violence so much that we are numb or immune to it (or so we think on the conscious level).
And on TV in general – I know I must be out of it, but a large number of the commercials whip by me and I don’t even know what the message was or what was trying to be sold to me.
It is a strange world I live in. Maybe I am experiencing future shock.
That was a heck of a game, though.
P.s. Please check out my German-American blog:
Posted by Tony Walther 
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