No longer is the televised Superbowl the greatest American sporting event of the year, or even a more broadly defined celebration of athleticism and overpaid football heroes. Rather, it has become, almost antithetically, a locus for our overzealous desire to become convinced of our shortcomings and inadequacies.
I arrived early, noon-ish, at my friend's apartment to help him set up for his Superbowl XXIV shindig. While he rotated all furniture towards the television, I arrayed the coffee table with the obligatory pretzels, chips, salsa and microbrews. Some chili-cheese dip simmered in a crock-pot; sodas lined the refrigerator door. Over the next five hours, more than a dozen people filtered in, left, and returned. Never, except for the last 150 seconds, did the game on the T.V.-set attract much attention, calling only for an occasional glance or mild bemoaning of the lack of scoring. I had only learned of the Tennessee team's existence that morning; some other fellows questioned the mathematics of the fractional backfield. The party, however, was not dull, conversation hummed along on the usual topics: trucks, dogs, dot.coms, epistemology. Some even partook in good old-fashioned objectification and stereotyping.
However, as soon as the play-by-play announcer announced an upcoming commercial break, all talking ceased, necks swiveled back towards the tube, and those bantering in the kitchen hopped back into the living room. "It's all about the commericals!" one gal said, with a suspicious lack of irony. Thrice was I told that the advertisers, the likes of which included Anheiser-Busch, E-trade, and Monster.com, spent a total of one dollar on every pair of American eyeballs. This factoid seemed to be well appreciated; some of us were even flattered. I saw a "Frank & Earnest" cartoon the day before, in which Earnest bragged to his partner-in-puns that the best part of the Superbowl was ignoring the commercials with which the producers had tried so hard to catch the viewers' attentions. In a way, the partygoers here were trying to do some sort of reverse-psychology on this comic logic. The commercials aired by the local affiliate, cheesy ones about used automobiles and vinyl flooring, earned boos: "God, it's the Superbowl -- we can't have absurd sales pitches like that!"
Once a year, the masses gather with their chums for five hours and greedily proclaim, without a hint of sarcasm, "We want products! I used to have enough products, but now I see, thanks to these beautifully-done ads, that I need more products!" Who can resist beer from a talking dog, or financial services from some hip, avant-garde urbanites quoting Robert Frost out of context?
I mentioned my intuitions to the party's host, right after the guy who didn't have a go-go-gadget arm got sad. "It's purely an aesthetic phenomenon;" (this was the epistemology guy), "a new pop art, like Warhol or Liechtenstein. Maybe it's not MOMA material, but, you know, I bet one day it will be." I cannot believe him, unfortunately. Both of his examples (the latter of which is actually a small European nation most Silicon Valley tycoons could buy) used commercial imagery ironically or subversively.
Madison Avenue has staged a coup, not only helping the NFL get 800 million viewers for the game, but by convincing nearly that many of their lack of possessions and erroneous tastes in snack-foods. Led by ingenious marketing execs., they have scored the proverbial touchdown (without such blatant mixing of metaphors, fortunately). Maybe it's democracy at work, but it's beside the point; I'm not citing any Seattle-type fears. Simply: it is usually the case that commercials are bad, hence the numerous bathroom breaks. But on this occasion, the majority of the American populace, and the Style editors of several major newspapers, have convinced themselves otherwise. Commercials rock! Let's take a national holiday to celebrate our insecurity in our material and emotional well-being. Hey, at least it's artsy!
